War! Huh! What is it good for?

It's good for UConn coach Geno Auriemma. Or at least movies about war. Seems to the Huskies that not a day goes by without their coach making some reference to Glory or Gladiator or some film about a battle they read about once in high school.

Auriemma had his team watch General Patton's gripping speech from the biographical epic. He wrote "Shoot 'Em In The Belly!" on a dry erase board. He even urged his players to go out there and "Save Private UConn!" even though the coach himself has never seen the Tom Hanks movie.

Does it work? Debatable. Several of the Huskies sat in their locker room in the Savvis Center Thursday trying to make sense of all Geno's analogies. "Shoot 'Em In The Belly?" said forward Tamika Williams with an embarrassed smile. "I have no idea what that means." Ashja Jones chimed in: "He's trying to tell us how fierce they are, and what they had to go through." Does it inspire? "I guess," Jones said.

This season, Auriemma is branching out. During the Big East tournament, he made a comparison between the greatest thoroughbred of all time and a horse that probably couldn't pass for glue. He asked if his players wanted to be Secretariat, with his oversized heart, or Zippy Chippy, who lost a race to a human. Did that put the Huskies over the top against Notre Dame? Perhaps, but none of the UConn players I spoke with could remember Zippy Chippy's name. "It rhymed, I know," said assistant coach Chris Dailey.

Turns out the most effective Geno tactic was the most plain. Earlier in the season, Auriemma stood in front of his team and pointed out senior captain Shea Ralph. "We have one person here with one leg," he said. "The rest of you have two. She would die to have two good legs. Why should she get a rebound and not you?"

The Huskies remember that speech the best, especially now that Ralph is left with no good legs. "That one," Williams said, "really stuck with me."