You’re sitting in front of your computer and God sends you an instant message offering you a scholarship to heaven.

One thing is for sure: Kristin Phillips would accept in a heartbeat. In fact, 6-foot-5 center from High Point Central High School in Greensboro, N.C. believes she’s already done just that.

‘They’re the schools kids dream to go to these days,’ Phillips said of three women’s college basketball programs, Duke, Tennessee and Connecticut.

When UConn came knocking, there was no way Phillips could turn the Huskies down.

‘I’ve been watching UConn for a long time,’ said Kaili McLaren, a 6-foot-2 forward from Our Lady Good Counsel in Washington, D.C. ‘I’ve always wanted to go to Connecticut. It’s a dream school.’

That dream school will showcase its premier women’s basketball program against Syracuse tonight at the Carrier Dome at 7:30.

It seems that more and more high school players find themselves with the same idea as Phillips. UConn has four recruits committed for next season including the Scout.com’s No. 1 overall prospect, Tina Charles. Yet no overriding reason exists why.

Maybe it’s the 581-114 record of the Huskies under head coach Geno Auriemma over the past 20-plus years. Maybe it’s the five national titles, including four of the last six. Maybe it’s the seven players who have won Big East Freshman of the Year and the 13 who have been named Big East Player of the Year. Maybe it’s even the massive fan support and media coverage that feeds the team’s continued growth and success.

Things were not always so good in Storrs, Conn. Before Auriemma’s first year in ’85-’86, the Huskies had gone a mere 82-162 through the previous eleven years. Just as Syracuse is attempting to do now, Auriemma had to build his program from the bottom up.

‘It’s hard to build a program,’ Auriemma said. ‘You’re not going to get those kids (the top-rated recruits). They’re not going to come. We had to do it with the kids overlooked. Because of the success of those kids it made it easier for us to get the Rebecca Lobos and Nykesha Sales.’

Both Lobo and Sales led UConn to the 1995 NCAA title.

Auriemma said the players overlooked are those other programs had deemed too slow or not big enough. They are the players who won’t get recruited by the big time programs but have the desire to play, learn and improve and who eventually become top players.

By his fourth season at Connecticut, Auriemma had the Huskies 24-6, and the rest became history.

‘You never forgot who put those (championship) banners up there,’ said Detroit Shock guard Swin Cash, a 2002 graduate of Auriemma’s program. ‘You feel like you play for all of those girls.’

Those girls Cash talks about turn out to be a big draw for interested prospects. McLaren said she wanted to play somewhere that would make her into a better player and that would also help her on the track of hopefully making it to the WNBA. She noted that Connecticut has produced so many professionals, and if McLaren works hard enough, she believes she could be the next.

Cash said the more professionals a program produces, the more attractive it looks to potential recruits.

Cash also knows a little bit about pro prospects. One of the deciding factors for her was the class she would be a part of at UConn. As it turned out, she made the right choice. The 1998 recruiting class included four eventual WNBA players. In the 2002 WNBA draft, Sue Bird went first overall, followed by Cash at the second pick. Asjha Jones went fourth and Williams was the sixth overall pick.

Professional prospects don’t just pop out of thin air, though. Neither do Big East Players of the Year, national championship teams and top recruiting classes. A lot of success traces back to coaches, and the UConn women have a great one.

‘He was a big influence (in my decision),’ McLaren said. ‘I think he’s the best coach in women’s basketball today.’

Connecticut freshman Renee Montgomery said Auriemma’s presence weighed on her decision, too. She explained that he is the man who will control a player’s life for four years. He doesn’t just prepare them to play basketball games, but also to work hard in everything they do. Montgomery said Auriemma wants the players to be the same on and off the court, something important to Cash’s decision as well.

‘We graduate our players and win championships, and that’s important for any player looking to move to the next level,’ Cash said.

In fact, UConn’s graduation rate is a perfect 100 percent.

Williams, now with the WNBA’s Minnesota Lynx, arrived at UConn in the fall of 1998 as the reigning high school player of the year out of Chaminade-Julienne in Dayton, Ohio. Williams agreed Auriemma’s coaching is a huge draw to the Huskies, but added another big attraction to the list.

‘In Connecticut there’s no sports team to compete with Huskies basketball,’ Williams said. ‘It’s a haven.’

Connecticut has no professional team at the highest level from any of the four major sports (baseball, football, basketball and hockey). That leaves UConn as the biggest game in town.

When McLaren and Phillips visited, they went to see the Super Show (UConn’s season kickoff). It was a very rainy day, but fans still waited outside all day to see the teams’ first practices. Those same fans had signs for current players as well as the recruits visiting. The fans certainly appreciate women’s basketball in Storrs.

‘I got a weird feeling,’ McLaren said. ‘I saw how electric the atmosphere was. How could you deny this?’

Phillips added she didn’t want to play somewhere that didn’t have that appreciation for the women’s game. She had no interest in places where 2,000 fans or less would show up for games. She wanted that electric atmosphere UConn provides.

Montgomery summed up the fan support in its simplest form: Playing at UConn makes you feel the whole state of Connecticut is behind you.

With so much going in UConn’s favor, it is still just as difficult to sign recruits.

‘Obviously it makes it a little bit easier than it would be for somebody else who hadn’t had the success to get your foot in the door,’ Auriemma said. ‘It doesn’t make it any easier to get them to come.’

Many make up their minds from the start, though. Williams said her heart was at Connecticut from the beginning of the process. Montgomery called her choice an ‘instinctive decision.’ Phillips found it hard to describe why she chose UConn, calling it ‘just a feeling.’ McLaren knew in middle school she wanted to be a Huskie. Cash’s parents never let her be set on one school immediately. She considered Tennessee, Penn State, North Carolina and Georgia as well, but UConn still won out.

Whatever it may be, UConn has this attraction. It has an allure. It has a winning attitude and a fan base and a storied coach. Any way you spin it, the program continues to attract the nation’s best recruits while turning them into the nation’s best collegiate players and then the best pros.

‘If you’re a true ballplayer,’ Williams said, ‘that’s where you want to go to win national championships.’

Published on February 21, 2006 at 12:00 pm