Chris Dailey On Recruiting: Every Year Has Different Challenges For UConn

Here is an interesting article that gives you an inside look on how college coaches look at recruiting. This article is specific to UCONN and Tennessee.

....But the planning and effort that goes into recruiting for the seven-time national champion never ends. It just heads in new directions.

"Marissa [Moseley], Shea [Ralph] and I meet often; every day there is something we discuss about [recruiting]," said Chris Dailey, UConn's associate head coach. "I was told a long time ago you need to do something every day, and if you don't you will be behind. It could just be a casual conversation about someone [one of the coaches has seen]. We spend a lot of time trying to identify time on our schedules to go visit a player. It's a constant and it's fluid because it involves people, their schedules and families.

"We're either actually getting closer to a player every day or we're moving further apart."

UConn's recruiting speaks for itself — the who's who among the greatest players in women's college basketball history. But Dailey says past success does not guarantee the future and the game changes quickly.

"Everything varies with the process, and what you never hear about is that it doesn't matter what the depth chart says or what your needs are and who is coming in the following year as freshmen," Dailey said. "It can all change on the first day of practice.

"Kids get better, others don't. Kids get hurt. There are so many variables. Players you expect to develop at a certain level may not. Injuries may cause others to move back into a different class [medical redshirt]. It's just about constant change."

Dailey said the Huskies do not enter a recruiting season with a preconceived idea of how many players they might want. As a general rule, one [like Kelly Faris was in 2009] is not enough and five [as they Huskies had in 2010] might be too many.

"If we had the perfect scenario, we'd likely choose signing three players one year, then four the next, then another three and another four," Dailey said. "But it doesn't always work that way."

That philosophy seems uniform. Mickie DeMoss, Tennessee's recruiting coordinator, told the govolsextra.com last week the Lady Vols also surf whatever wave rolls out.

"You're going to have one year where your numbers are going to be low," DeMoss said. "So you just sacrifice, kind of hold your breath. Then you start balancing those classes back out.

"If there's a great player out there and we've already signed four, we're not going to turn them down,'' DeMoss said. "But we do want to keep it about four per year."

It's also not possible for UConn to predict when a player will decide. Maya Moore and freshman Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis decided soon. Some wait until the end, as freshman Kiah Stokes did.

"Every kid is different," Dailey said. "Maya Moore had a plan in her head. She had five schools she wanted to visit unofficially in the fall of her junior season and she made her decision to play for us in March.

Click here to read the entire courant.com article