Ten days ago, I was given the opportunity to interview former UConn Huskies women’s basketball player Mel Thomas about her new book “Heart of a Husky” from her publisher and immediately jumped at the chance.

After talking with Mel, it was decided that we would open up the questions to the fans. I was also given a copy of the book to give away to one of the people who asked questions of Mel (the questions asked by me do not count towards entries to win the book).

And as I promised when I would post the answers, I would announce the winner of the book from the random drawing. The winner of “Heart of A Husky” is Vickie.

I will be sending out an email to you to get your address so that I can get you your copy of the book. If you didn’t win the book and want a copy of it, you can head over to melthomas.com to order a copy for yourself. They do have a limited supply of signed editions as well.

Before we get to the questions and answers, I want to offer a big thank you Howard Cohen from Clerisy Press for setting this up for me and also to Mel for taking the time out of her schedule in Ireland to answer the questions for everyone. Also a big thank you to everyone who asked questions of Mel.

I do request you not copy and paste this elsewhere. You are quite welcome to post a link.

Here is the direct link to the post:

https://soxanddawgs.com/2009/01/17/q-a-with-former-uconn-husky-mel-thomas/

Questions and answers are available after the jump.

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I’m thinking that Syracuse Orange head coach Quinten Hillsman may be regretting his players giving the No.1 UConn Huskies women’s basketball team bulletin board material after the shooting display the Huskies put on this afternoon.

The Huskies hit a school-record 18 three-pointers on their way to 107-53 rout of the Orange at the XL Center in Hartford, CT.

UConn improves to 17-0 (4-0 Big East) for the second straight season and 7th time since 1994-95 while Syracuse drops to 13-5 (2-3). The win also sets up the matchup on Monday night between the two highest scoring teams in the country, UConn and North Carolina on ESPN2 at 7 PM.

What can you say about Maya Moore. She just had another average day at the office scoring 40 points and pulling down 13 rebounds for her 19th career double-double and 8th of the season. Moore hit a Big East and school-record 10 three-pointers. And oh by the way, she became the fastest UConn women’s player to hit 1,000 points in her career, doing it in just 55 games. Her 40 points in the game is the second highest in UConn history behind Nykesha Sales’ 46 points in 1997.

Tina Charles had another great game in the paint with 20 points, 9 rebounds and 3 blocked shots. Renee Montgomery started off slow but had a great game as well with a double-double of her own with 14 points and 11 assists. Caroline Doty was on her way to a great game as she had 17 points before suffering a knee sprain late in the first half.

The Orange were led by Chandrea Jones who had 15 points. Nicole Michael had 11 points and 5 rebounds while Juanita Ward and Erica Morrow both added 8 points.

Things got a little heated after the game between UConn head coach Geno Auriemma and Syracuse’s Nicole Michael. After the game when the teams were shaking hands, Auriemma went through the line and at the end had some words with Michael. Apparently as Auriemma was making his way back towards the bench, Michael said something that got Auriemma even hotter under the collar. Things were quickly defused and Geno made his way back to the UConn locker room.

It was a very physical game throughout as Doty shared an exchange early on with Ward. Hillsman picked up a technical complaining about some of the calls and even Geno picked up a technical foul towards the end of the game with UConn leading by 56 points on a non-foul call when Tiffany Hayes got hammered while making a layup. Auriemma also spent the latter part of the game staring down Hillsman.

The Huskies got out of the gates quickly this afternoon behind Doty who hit 4-of-7 three-pointers to put the Huskies out front 22-9. The Orange fought back getting the UConn lead down to 29-20 before a 6-0 run pushed the lead back to 15 points. Syracuse cut the UConn lead to 35-24 with 5:28 to go but the Huskies closed out the first half on a 13-4 to take a 48-28 lead into the locker room.

The second half belonged to Moore as she set the tone by hitting a three-pointer 8 seconds into the half and the Huskies never looked back from there.

This was a great statement from the Huskies going into Monday’s matchup with North Carolina. However with the injury to Doty, the UConn bench players are going to have to step up their games to make up for her loss.

One thing’s for certain though. Moore showed everyone why she is the best player in women’s college basketball this afternoon.

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With her career-high 8th three-pointer of the game, UConn Huskies sophomore Maya Moore hit the 1,000 point plateau in her career. She did it in just 55 games which is the fastest in UConn women’s history.

Moore had come into the game today against Syracuse needing 29 points and that 8th three-pointer of the afternoon gave her the milestone.

Former Husky Svetlana Abrosimova was the fastest Husky to score 1,000 points when she did it in just 63 games.

Towards the end of the first half during the UConn Huskies women’s basketball game that is going on right now against the Syracuse Orange, Caroline Doty suffered a knee injury. Since it just happened, there’s no word on the status of her knee. It is the same knee that she had blown her ACL out on back in high school.

You could hear the audio on the broadcast of her saying that it was her knee. Doty had 17 points on 5-of-11 shooting from 3-point land and was 2-of-2 from the charity stripe.

If you remember back to last year, Mel Thomas suffered her knee injury towards the end of the Syracuse game last year.

As soon as word is announced, I will post an update.

Update 3:23  PM: Initial reports from the UConn women’s locker room is that Doty suffered a knee sprain.

Update 8:00 PM: There is nothing new but from what I gathered from the Boneyard, Doty went for an MRI after the game and everyone is anxiously awaiting the results.

1/17 Update: Tony Massarotti of the Boston Globe reports that the meeting between the pair was requested by Varitek and that according to him it went okay. Varitek didn’t say whether or not the Red Sox were interested in bringing him back at all.

Buster Olney of ESPN.com says that Varitek doesn’t have much leverage with the Red Sox at all. (The link is an ESPN insider link so here’s the text of what Olney had to say.

I ran this question past multiple executives this week: Is there any price at which you would be willing to sign Varitek, knowing that you’d have to give up a top draft pick? (Varitek is a Type A free agent, and if he signs elsewhere, he would, in almost all cases, cost that team a first- or second-round pick as compensation.) The answer, in each case, was no. In other words, those executives believe — again, this is their perspective, and not necessarily the view of every club official with every team — that even if Varitek were to play for minimum wage, the upside of having Varitek on your team would not outweigh the value of the draft pick.

If their view is universal, Varitek is in a really tough spot.

1/16: I just got home from doing a favor for one of my friends and saw that Boston Red Sox owner John Henry and Jason Varitek are going to meet tonight. The best part. No Scott Boras.

Reached by phone a short time ago, Varitek would confirm only that he is meeting with Henry “tonight,” in the Atlanta area, where Varitek makes his offseason home. Varitek would not specify a location of the meeting other than to say it would not be at his home

With things not going the way he hoped, hopefully this face-to-face meeting will get Varitek behind the plate with the Red Sox in 2009.

1/16 UPDATE: Dan Roche of WBZ adds his thoughts on the meeting.

It’s game day for the UConn Huskies women’s basketball team as the Syracuse Orange come to the XL Center in Hartford  for a Big East matchup at 2 PM. The game will be broadcast locally on CPTV and is also available on SNY.

Stay tuned as around 6:00 PM tonight, I will be announcing the winner of Mel Thomas’ book “Heart of A Husky” and posting the answers to the questions everyone asked, including a few from me as well.

Jim Fuller of the New Haven Register, John Altavilla of the Hartford Courant,

One of the UConn women’s top recruits for the 2011 class , Kaleena Lewis was on campus yesterday.

The UConn women are averaging 1.59 assists to every turnover this season.

The talk around the Syracuse players is that they can upset UConn this afternoon.

The UConn women can’t overlook the Orange before Monday’s big matchup with North Carolina.

The UConn women are not focused on milestones.

Geno Auriemma talks about Kalana Greene and her progress from her knee injury.

Maya Moore is 29 points away from 1,000 in her career.

Geno Auriemma will be getting some airtime on Sunday.

Neill Ostrout of the Connecticut Post has a look back at UConn’s win  over St. John’s on Thursday night.

Jim Calhoun finally got a 3-game sweep on the road.

The UConn men are looking at the big picture for the season.

The UConn men are focused on Seton Hall, who is winless in the Big East.

The Huskies continue to follow Jeff Adrien’s lead.

Jim Calhoun is helping out Khalid El-Amin after his house was hit by molotov cocktails.

The UConn baseball team was picked to finish 6th in the Big East preseason poll.

The UConn women’s hockey team beat Mercyhurst 3-2. It’s the first win ever for the Huskies over Mercyhurst.

Two former UConn women’s soccer players were drafted in the inaugural Women’s Professional Soccer draft.

Rob Lunn lets us know that linebacker Scott Lutrus will be taking over at Thoughts From a Fat White Guy.

During an afternoon press conference today at Fenway Park, the Boston Red Sox announced that they have signed their first baseman Kevin Youkilis to a 4-year, $41.25 million contract with a $14 million club option. There is a $1.25 million buyout should they not exercise that option.

Just four weeks ago, the Red Sox signed their second baseman Dustin Pedroia to a 6-year, $40.5 million contract meaning the Red Sox have locked up the reigning AL MVP and a Gold Glove first baseman for the next 4 years. If you think about what Mark Teixeira signed for, the Red Sox are getting two for the price of one.

Here is the breakdown of the deal.

• $1 million signing bonus
• 2009 – $6 million
• 2010 – $10 million
• 2011 – $12 million
• 2012 – $12 million
• 2013 – Club option for $14 million with a $1.25 million buyout

He can also receive bonuses of $50,000 (All-Star, Silver Slugger, Gold Glove, LCS MVP), and $100,000 (MVP or World Series MVP). He would receive $75,000 for finishing in second place in MVP voting, and $50,000 for finishing third.

Here is the press conference that they held today at Fenway Park courtesy of NESN. And here is the transcript of it in case you don’t want to watch.

[flash http://ianbethune.com/youk.flv w=384 h=300]

I forgot to post this last night with the update. Rob Bradford of WEEI.com has a look at how the deal developed between Youkilis and the Red Sox.