There’s no substitute for a big UConn thrashing

AGAIN, I don’t care if Geno Auriemma’s UConn women’s teams win 9,000 straight, he’s cruel. Cruel but fair. He’s practiced at humiliating both UConn’s opponents and the kids on his bench.

Monday on ESPN2, UConn led Cincinnati, 66-11, after three quarters. ESPN already had posted a graphic noting that the zero points Cincy scored in the second quarter were the fewest it had scored in a quarter all season! (No word that Cincy had tied the world’s record.)

With 3:30 left in the game, UConn up 50 in what would be a 75-21 final, Auriemma first put in the last kid on his short — six subs — bench. Perhaps he wanted to rest her for practice.

The ESPN2 crew, Adam Amin and analyst and former UConn star Rebecca Lobo, played blind. They stuck with the regular Geno TV script: He’s very special coach of very special teams. Yeah, he’s a real champ.

But such cruelty has been tradition at UConn. Former men’s coach Jim Calhoun was at least as cruel. In a 2005 game versus Texas Southern, UConn led 111-47, with 55 seconds left, when he first put in four subs.

One of Calhoun’s former assistants, Tom Moore, several years ago explained on WFAN that Calhoun allows his top recruits to pad their stats against patsies. Moore, then coaching Quinnipiac, seemed to find that comical, part of Coach Calhoun’s wily, winking charms.

Those ostensibly at UConn’s wheel — the president, for example, although paid far less than Auriemma is and Calhoun was — are good with that, too.