UConn women are top overall seed in 22nd NCAA appearance

Storrs - Maybe if Geno Auriemma coached the same team every year, this day might not be as much fun, and when the pundits asked if 22 straight NCAA tournaments ever gets old, he could say yes.

But that wasn't his answer on Selection Monday, 2010, when All-American Tina Charles begged to watch the end of the selection show before meeting her media obligations and the whole locker room full of players shrieked in seeing an ESPN segment on fellow All-American Maya Moore playing the drums.

"It's never going to get old," Auriemma said. "Never, ever, ever."

Top-ranked UConn (33-0), in the midst of an NCAA record-setting 72-game winning streak, enters this tournament as the defending national champion and No. 1 overall seed after winning last year in St. Louis, the program's sixth national title.

This year, the path to the Final Four in San Antonio begins Sunday in Norfolk, Va., against Southern University (23-8) of Baton Rouge, La.

UConn, the top seed in the Dayton Regional, meets No. 16 Southern, the Southwestern Athletic Conference tournament champion, at 12:16 p.m. (ESPN2) at the 8,600-seat Ted Constant Convocation Center. The other first-round game at that site will feature No. 8 Temple (24-8), coached by former UConn assistant Tonya Cardoza, vs. No. 9 James Madison (26-6).

Also in the Dayton Regional are No. 2 Ohio State (30-4), No. 3 Florida State (26-5) and No. 4 Iowa State (23-7).

Other top seeds were Tennessee in the Memphis Regional, Nebraska in the Kansas City Regional and Stanford in the Sacramento Regional. Seven Big East teams were selected, including Notre Dame, West Virginia, Georgetown, St. John's, DePaul and Rutgers. Hartford, coached by former UConn star Jen Rizzotti, was an at-large selection as the No. 10 seed in the Memphis Regional.

UConn won the national championship the last time it played in the Dayton Regional in 2003.

If UConn has evolved since making its first NCAA appearance on March 15, 1989, at the old Hugh Greer Field House, fifth-year senior Kalana Greene believes the Huskies have evolved just since her sophomore year.

"It feels different," said Greene of entering her final tournament. "When I was a sophomore, we had our fingers crossed. Each possession wasn't that important. Each game wasn't that important. I think everything is important to us now. I think we can get it done.

"I'm not planning on losing. I haven't thought that way the last two years."

Charles leads UConn with 18.4 points and 9.4 rebounds per game, followed by Moore with 17.9 points and 8.3 rebounds, a duo highly considered to feature the two leading candidates for national player of the year. Greene, meanwhile, was named the Most Outstanding Player of the Big East tournament on March 9 when UConn last played, winning 60-32.

"That confidence level that we expect to dominate, it can be a fine line if we're not dominating in the first five minutes and we can't figure out why," Moore said. "But if you don't have that mindset, you shouldn't be in the NCAA tournament."

It will be the first time since UConn's first appearance in the tournament that it hasn't played in the state of Connecticut, either in Storrs, Hartford or Bridgeport.

Auriemma joked that if this were football, UConn would already have a national championship trophy.

"Give us the BCS trophy and send us home," he said. "But you have to play these games so that you have to prove again that you can do everything right. The average person out there probably says, 'Of course you're going to do everything right. You did it the other 72 games.'

'I guess that's why we're going to play: to see if we can do everything right. If we do, you know, I like our chances."

v.fulkerson@theday.com