The Daily Campus

Issue date: 3/24/09 Section: Sports

Media Credit: Ryan Sayers Tina Charles goes to the basket for two of her season-high 32 points against Vermont in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

The only other time UConn played Florida in women's basketball - Dec. 12, 1991 - Geno Auriemma was in just his seventh season as the Huskies head coach and his team was coming off its first appearance in the Final Four the previous season. Then Gator guard Amanda Butler was just a sophomore and UConn defeated Florida's team full of "future pros and Olympians," as Auriemma put it, by a final of 71-48.

Auriemma remembers being in awe of the talent that the 1991 Florida squad possessed.

"I remember they walked in the gym and I went 'Holy God,'" Auriemma said.

Now the roles have reversed. When the top-seeded Huskies and ninth-seeded Gators, now coached by Butler, meet up in the second round of the NCAA Tournament tonight (7 p.m., ESPN2) at Gampel Pavilion, Florida will be the up-and-coming team looking to score a big win against a perennial contender.

"I think in the beginning of the year, we kind of took on the role of the underdog and every game that we went into, we didn't think we were supposed to win," Sorensen said. "We kind of started going on a roll there and now anyone that plays UConn is going to be an underdog, so this is kind of the role that we like and I think hopefully we'll thrive and not roll."

Auriemma is impressed with the job Butler, now in her second season with Florida, has done since taking over.

Auriemma didn't remember Butler playing in the 1991 meeting, but he did have plenty of positive things to say about her coaching stint at Florida, which began in 2007 after a successful run as the head coach of Charlotte.

"They've had some great wins this year against some really good teams," Auriemma said. "And it's taken a program that was one of the classic underachievers in the history of the NCAA in the last 20 years, classic underachievers, and has them going in the direction that [Florida's Senior Associate Athletic Director] Jamie [McClosky] and all the other people down there in Florida are thrilled about."

Continued...

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