Geno is not Muffet

[Charles T]

Listening to ND Coach McGraw re Ms Loyd reminds me of Geno's response when Ms Della Donne packed up and went home after a few days in Storrs. Many in the media and some fans saw betrayal and howled. Geno understood EDD was a homesick teenager. He was magnanimous. He released EDD from her commitment to UConn so she could be a student in good standing at Delaware. Geno makes it easy in many ways for me to root for UConn.

 

[triaddukefan]

apples and oranges

 

[DobbsRover2]

apples and oranges

Ah, you mean like the bad apples, as in the case of maybe an Alabama program refusing to let Daisha Simmons transfer out until they got the media lambasting them. Sure, coaches don't have to be at all gracious and understanding about these situations and can be mean and spiteful instead. Geno has tried to work it a little differently.

 

[HoopsFan21]

Listening to ND Coach McGraw re Ms Loyd reminds me of Geno's response when Ms Della Donne packed up and went home after a few days in Storrs. Many in the media and some fans saw betrayal and howled. Geno understood EDD was a homesick teenager. He was magnanimous. He released EDD from her commitment to UConn so she could be a student in good standing at Delaware. Geno makes it easy in many ways for me to root for UConn.

Has there ever been a time when Geno doesn't give a player who wants it their unconditional release? Wasn't there even someone he let transfer to a conference rival?

 

[MilfordHusky]

apples and oranges

The situation is different, but, once again, Muffet comes across as whiny, in my opinion.

 

[BroadwayVa]

Listening to ND Coach McGraw re Ms Loyd reminds me of Geno's response when Ms Della Donne packed up and went home after a few days in Storrs. Many in the media and some fans saw betrayal and howled. Geno understood EDD was a homesick teenager. He was magnanimous. He released EDD from her commitment to UConn so she could be a student in good standing at Delaware. Geno makes it easy in many ways for me to root for UConn.

I'm sure all on the Boneyard know of Geno and his Teams "give backs program"--Geno is generous to a fault. Some times he over reaches with Politically motivated comments, but he, his staff and his team are caring people. He has made some ungenerous comments about some players but I have no doubt he'd fight you to the death if you attacked one --even one leaving his program. Muffet's comments were related to her seeing her Franchise player--the horse she was riding to the NC--leave. Private comments on this are OK, public comments not so much.

 

[BroadwayVa]

apples and oranges

Apples and Oranges make a great salad---

 

[msf22b]

Just watched her interview, seems completely reasonable and grownup to me.
She had been given recent assurances by the kid that she was coming back
And then was blindsided after the loss….same night.
Her arguements about the value of the degree are surely valid.
I can't understandd the need to compare her to Geno in this case
Seems pretty classy all the way around.

 

[Sonny44]

The situation is different, but, once again, Muffet comes across as whiny, in my opinion.

Years of playing second fiddle can do that to you I guess .

 

[UcMiami]

Look at Geno's comments about Jackie G when she de-committed, or his comments about that forward that transferred to KY, or Liz leaving for Vandy (?) Or Charde while she was on the team. Or Vaughn choosing Rutgers.

He is not always sweetness and light though with our blue tinted glasses these are quickly excused and as quickly forgotten. Coaches can be blindsided and they can react in less than PC ways.

 

[CocoHusky]

He released EDD from her commitment to UConn so she could be a student in good standing at Delaware.

EDD's release form UCONN was not immediate. She left the UCONN campus on June 3. UCONN's announcement granting her release did not come until August 20th. By August 20th she was already enrolled at Delaware and practicing with the volleyball team.
This article lays out the time lines pretty well including the compassion Geno showed to give EDD some space to be " a regular kid."
http://www.newstimes.com/news/article/Hoop-recruit-spikes-UConn-231599.php

 

[EricLA]

Look at Geno's comments about Jackie G when she de-committed, or his comments about that forward that transferred to KY, or Liz leaving for Vandy (?) Or Charde while she was on the team. Or Vaughn choosing Rutgers.

He is not always sweetness and light though with our blue tinted glasses these are quickly excused and as quickly forgotten. Coaches can be blindsided and they can react in less than PC ways.

This is 100% correct and the reason I give Muffet a pass on this one. Sort of. Muffet SHOULD have been more magnanimous, but I don't think any less of her for sounding disappointed or frustrated.

As a reminder to fans who really want to make the comparison - AFTER Liz left, Geno said she was a "lazy" player. While recruiting Vaughn, Geno got tired of waiting for her to make her decision and left a swear-laced message on her answering machine. I don't recall any negative comments about Gemelos or Walker but as I said, it's not like Geno has always been sweetness and light when he's been disappointed by players.

 

[triaddukefan]

This is 100% correct and the reason I give Muffet a pass on this one. Sort of. Muffet SHOULD have been more magnanimous, but I don't think any less of her for sounding disappointed or frustrated.

As a reminder to fans who really want to make the comparison - AFTER Liz left, Geno said she was a "lazy" player. While recruiting Vaughn, Geno got tired of waiting for her to make her decision and left a swear-laced message on her answering machine. I don't recall any negative comments about Gemelos or Walker but as I said, it's not like Geno has always been sweetness and light when he's been disappointed by players.

Oh my.

 

[Joobie]

EDD's release form UCONN was not immediate. She left the UCONN campus on June 3. UCONN's announcement granting her release did not come until August 20th. By August 20th she was already enrolled at Delaware and practicing with the volleyball team.
This article lays out the time lines pretty well including the compassion Geno showed to give EDD some space to be " a regular kid."
http://www.newstimes.com/news/article/Hoop-recruit-spikes-UConn-231599.php

I am still not convinced, all this time later, that EDD was a "homesick teenager". She wasn't here long enough, IMO. My understanding is that there was a pick up game, & one of the players told her that in order to be UCONN material, EDD was gonna have to work a lot harder. She packed some stuff in the middle of the night & left without a word to anyone. She didn't go home for a week after she left campus & didn't contact the coaching staff or her teammates, eventhough she & Caroline Doty planned to attend college together since they were little kids. When she came back to UCONN to get the rest of her things, again, it was done in the middle of the night & without a word.

Loyd gave her best to the ND program for 3 years. To compare her to EDD in any way shape or form is insane!

 

[CocoHusky]

Is it possible that both things happened 1) She was home sick 2) She got challenged in a pickup game but some teamates?

 

[EricLA]

Oh my.

Yep. Not Geno's finest moment and he was pretty much universally panned by the UCONN fans, never mind fans from other schools.

 

[maddoggy]

One thing that we -- and analysts, coaches et al.) often praise about UConn's players is how unselfish they are. In the narrowest sense, it refers to their willingness to forego their own shot for a teammate's better one. But it also rverberates in other parts of the program that we praise: CD makes sure that players know to thank the bus driver, participate in charities, sacrifice their twitter feeds during the season, etc., etc.

I agree that Loyd is entitled to leave if she wants to, and she may well have good reasons for doing so. But what has surprised me in this discussion is the lack of any apparent thought as to how her departure affects her teammates.

Yes, Loyd is "only" 21. But 21-year-olds are mature enough to kill people in war, procreate, drive cars, vote, drink, and sign contracts. It isn't like Loyd is a sensitive flower just plucked from her family's bosom and away from home for thed first time.

Yeah, she's entitled to do what she wants. But she's not entitled to a free pass.

 

[JS]

As a reminder to fans who really want to make the comparison - AFTER Liz left, Geno said she was a "lazy" player. While recruiting Vaughn, Geno got tired of waiting for her to make her decision and left a swear-laced message on her answering machine.

Just a little gloss on each of these cases that might not be generally known to Boneyarders.

1. He should have kept quiet about Liz, but what he was talking about was her unwillingness to work hard on her mobility. For her part, she saw the starter Jess Moore as an example of what UConn expects of its centers -- lots of movement; flashing high to low -- and said "I can't do that." He wanted her to stay and work on being able to do it (or at least do it more; she wasn't going to match the Alaska state triple jump champion in mobility).

2. The answering machine message to Vaughn was stupid for more than one reason. But it wasn't because she was taking too long. It was because the late Apache Paschall had inserted himself into the recruiting process as a street agent/buffer and advised her not to talk to any coaches for a while while she thought things over. Of course he did this just after her visit to Rutgers, and it mainly blocked Geno at a crucial time for communication. So he got royally PO'd that he couldn't get his calls returned. (He's always had a strong aversion to people -- parents, coaches, anyone -- insisting that communications with a recruit go through them at a time when the rules allow direct communication with the recruit.)

As a general comment, there's been talk in this thread of anger or complaining about "betrayal" when a player changes her mind about coming (or staying). I don't think the anger or negative comments about the player or the decision should ever be vented publicly, but as to justification for feeling ill used, I think it depends on what the school did in reliance on the player's word that she was coming/staying.

Gemelos and EDD were last minute turn-abouts long after recruiting decisions on other players were made. If Loyd said one thing one week and another a couple of weeks later, it seems much less likely that irreversible decisions were made in the interim in reliance on her earlier position.

 

[RadyLady]

This is 100% correct and the reason I give Muffet a pass on this one. Sort of. Muffet SHOULD have been more magnanimous, but I don't think any less of her for sounding disappointed or frustrated.

As a reminder to fans who really want to make the comparison - AFTER Liz left, Geno said she was a "lazy" player. While recruiting Vaughn, Geno got tired of waiting for her to make her decision and left a swear-laced message on her answering machine. I don't recall any negative comments about Gemelos or Walker but as I said, it's not like Geno has always been sweetness and light when he's been disappointed by players.

LINK


Apache Paschall, Vaughn's AAU coach in New York, said blunt phone messages late last week from UConn coach Geno Auriemma to him and Vaughn's mother, Aja Ellington, led to the parting of ways.



But sources familiar with the recruitment said UConn soured on Vaughn because of Paschall, who handled much of the communications between Vaughn and the UConn coaching staff. According to the sources, Paschall misled UConn's coaching staff about Vaughn's intentions to make official visits to Rutgers and Maryland, and the UConn staff questioned Paschall's motivations behind those visits.


`This whole thing turned into Geno not trusting what I told him, what the mom told him and what Kia told him because of my association with two other AAU coaches,'' Paschall said. ``All of a sudden it turns into me betraying [UConn] and turning against the program.''



After visiting Rutgers on the weekend of Oct. 15, Vaughn did not contact the UConn coaching staff for a week, which led to UConn's termination of the recruitment. Paschall said Auriemma called him and Ellington last Friday, leaving what Paschall termed as strongly worded voice messages expressing his frustration at the lack of communication."

 

[RadyLady]

Just a little gloss on each of these cases that might not be generally known to Boneyarders.

1. He should have kept quiet about Liz, but what he was talking about was her unwillingness to work hard on her mobility. For her part, she saw the starter Jess Moore as an example of what UConn expects of its centers -- lots of movement; flashing high to low -- and said "I can't do that." He wanted her to stay and work on being able to do it (or at least do it more; she wasn't going to match the Alaska state triple jump champion in mobility).

2. The answering machine message to Vaughn was stupid for more than one reason. But it wasn't because she was taking too long. It was because the late Apache Paschal had inserted himself into the recruiting process as a street agent/buffer and advised her not to talk to any coaches for a while while she thought things over. Of course he did this just after her visit to Rutgers, and it mainly blocked Geno at a crucial time for communication. So he got royally PO'd that he couldn't get his calls returned. He's always had a thing about people (parents, coaches, anyone) who insists on communications with a recruit going through them at a time when the rules allow direct communication with the recruit.

There's been talk in this thread of anger or complaining about "betrayal" when a player changes her mind about coming (or staying). I don't think the anger or negative comments about the player or the decision should ever be vented publicly, but as to justification for feeling ill used, I think it depends on what the school did in reliance on the player's word that she was coming/staying.

Gemelos and EDD were last minute turn-abouts long after recruiting decisions on other players were made. If Loyd said one thing one week and another a couple of weeks later, it seems much less likely that irreversible decisions were made in the interim in reliance on her earlier position.

Linked an article to the Vaughn story just as you posted.

 

[Joobie]

Is it possible that both things happened 1) She was home sick 2) She got challenged in a pickup game but some teamates?

Anything is possible, Coco, but again (this is only my opinion), she was only on campus for a day & a half. If homesickness was indeed her issue, why not discuss it with her close friend, Caroline? Why steal off in the middle of the night without a word to anyone? Why not go home immediately? These are the questions I have been mulling over for almost 5 years now. I remember being 18-19 years old & convinced that I knew everything about everything. Maybe Geno's right in that regard...who knows what goes on in a young woman's brain sometimes?

 

[RadyLady]

Fast forward to Kia's senior year:

After Auriemma completed the program's fifth undefeated regular season with a 69-59 win over Rutgers at the RAC, the coach made little secret of his desire to give Zurich, Vaughn and the Rutgers program its just due by witnessing the pregame ceremony.

"It's a sign of respect too," Auriemma said. "You don't turn your back and walk away on people that are celebrating something. That means you're either jealous, envious or you're disrespectful. Period. Like you don't care. I've never been like that. I hope I never get like that."

Afterward, he also had a few encouraging words for Vaughn, who has been a thorn in the Huskies' side plenty of times in the past.

"I told her after the game, 'I'm really proud of you. You've grown up a lot,'" Auriemma said.


As I recall, Kia had a so-so career at Rutgers. Geno would have made her into a beast! We would have loved her.

LINK

 

[Aluminny69]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe Laura Harper signed a letter of intent before changing her mind and signing with Maryland, taking Crystal Langhorne with her. Crystal attended First Night, but several Boneyarders noted that she did not seem happy at all. I suspect that she had already made her decision NOT to attend UConn. I don't remember any comment from Geno about any of this.

 

[cohenzone]

Anything is possible, Coco, but again (this is only my opinion), she was only on campus for a day & a half. If homesickness was indeed her issue, why not discuss it with her close friend, Caroline? Why steal off in the middle of the night without a word to anyone? Why not go home immediately? These are the questions I have been mulling over for almost 5 years now. I remember being 18-19 years old & convinced that I knew everything about everything. Maybe Geno's right in that regard...who knows what goes on in a young woman's brain sometimes?

I once hired a young woman, not that much older than these kids, who came well-recommended to do the sort of work needed. At the end of the first day, she was so nerved up for some reason that she said she couldn't stay. I pride my self that my great powers of persuasion get her to stay. which she did - until noon the next day. The point is, people, and especially life-inexperienced young people, have some image of things that maybe isn't what they thought, maybe weren't all that committed to in the first place, and just do what they do.

Jewell Loyd did what she did, as did Eleana, and Liz and so on. The adults in the situation, should just let life go on, at least publicly, especially if they are people with a public face. I don't care if it's Geno or Muffett or anyone. We know she's disappointed, but perhaps beyond saying she was surprised, I think there was no good reason for Muffett to comment other than to wish her well.

 

[CocoHusky]

Anything is possible, Coco, but again (this is only my opinion), she was only on campus for a day & a half. If homesickness was indeed her issue, why not discuss it with her close friend, Caroline? Why steal off in the middle of the night without a word to anyone? Why not go home immediately? These are the questions I have been mulling over for almost 5 years now. I remember being 18-19 years old & convinced that I knew everything about everything. Maybe Geno's right in that regard...who knows what goes on in a young woman's brain sometimes?

On this we can definitely agree: Maybe Geno's right in that regard...who knows what goes on in a young woman's brain sometimes? In these situations (transfers & leaving early) I am anchored by one though which a certain moderator and many other have been trying to get across-These are Kids and very young adults we are talking about. For them happiness is momentary and most decisions are not very well thought out. To apply adult reasoning to these decisions will always leave you scratching your head. If I had my druthers I would eliminate all the NCAA transfer rules and remove all restrictions on turning pro. Go pro when you think you are ready and transfer if you think it will improve your personal situation. Isn’t that the way the adult world works?