UCONN Huskies women’s basketball recruit Caroline Doty, who suffered a knee injury in a soccer game, got the MRI results on her left knee. The tests showed a complete tear of the ACL and a small meniscus tear of the LCL (lateral collateral ligament). She is going for a second opinion and most likely will have surgery after her visit to the women’s supershow on October 12th.
Senior Brittany Hunter almost didn’t come back for the 2007-08 season. After the season, Hunter told Geno Auriemma that she was done playing basketball even though she had a year of eligibility left from when she transferred from Duke. Hunter hooked up with Diana Taurasi’s agent who gave her an internship out in Los Angeles. As time passed, Hunter decided she wanted to play basketball still at UCONN. Playing for the UCONN women’s program is like having a second family and Hunter decided she couldn’t give that up.
“I think taking that time off really made it easier for me to go, ‘OK, I’ll play,”‘ Hunter said. “Had I been here all summer I would have been burnt out, irritated, irritable. My knee would have been up and down still. It was really good. Really, I only came back for my teammates. There’s nothing I need to accomplish. It’s either I’m playing or I’m not, and I wanted to be part of the team.”
It will be good to see Hunter back in uniform. She was incredible off the bench last season in limited minutes almost averaging a point a minute. Plus another year of Tina Charles practicing against her can only help the Huskies.
Men’s basketball player freshman Donnell Beverly is adjusting to life in college as a student and a basketball player. With A.J. Price and Jerome Dyson entrenched as the starters, Beverly is looking to get into the mix for playing time with Doug Wiggins and Craig Austrie in the rotation of guards. You can tell he is a freshman because he wasn’t getting the ball in pickup games at first.
“At first [during pickup games], they weren’t really giving me the ball, but that has changed,” Beverly said. “You have to earn your teammates’ trust. You have to earn the ball. I think I’ve done that. They’ve all been great and everyone has helped me in some way so far. … I always think team first, regardless of anything. We’re all out there together, working for the same thing, but at the same time we want to push one another. I just want to be aggressive, be dangerous and be ready for anything.”
Wiggins was a huge spark plug off the bench with his speed ala the John Gwynn days. Beverly isn’t the fastest player but has the size to play the 1 or the 2.
