Will Grumpy Geno return this winter?

Storrs A h, the good old days. Remember? Geno Auriemma would ditch the coat about 30 seconds into the game. Undo the top button of his shirt. Loosen the tie. And then proceed to delineate, gyrate and orchestrate, mixing streams of consciousness toward his players with appraisals of the officiating, thus forcing Chris Dailey on the occasional safety blitz to protect him. Where has Geno gone? All we get now is coat on and arms folded, sort of like a bird on a telephone wire surveying the scene.

OK, so we get that it's hard to muster the requisite energy for a 90-point win against East Carolina on a Tuesday night. Still, though, can we get our feisty, fussy old friend back once in a while?

"Good question," Auriemma said after Friday's workout at the aptly named Champions Center, where the 11-time women's basketball national champs prepared for the upcoming season. Then Geno grinned. "You might get him back this year," he said. "You know, that's a really good question. I think, over the years, I've acquiesced to the players we have in this day and age. I thought that the way I used to be probably isn't something they're accustomed to. There's already enough pressure to play here at Connecticut and I don't want to be that guy.

"Plus," he said, "I think being the Olympic coach probably put a little damper on my extracurricular activities on the sidelines. I was afraid Gen. (Martin) Dempsey might put me in front of a firing squad."

More seasoned program alums like Meghan (Pattyson) Culmo just read that line and spit out their coffee. Worried about what the players think? Wasn't like that back in the day. Not with the officials, either. Hard to forget the

day he gave June Corteau the choke sign at Tennessee. Or even the media. Yours truly nearly wet his pants trying to hold in laughter the night Auriemma told a reporter from the college newspaper that she "asks too many (gosh darn) questions." Sigh. Now our own Dr. Naismith has become Dr. Phil.

"He is probably is a lot nicer now," senior Katie Lou Samuelson said Friday. "I know Shea (assistant coach and former player Shea Ralph) knows."

Indeed. Shea tells a great story from her first days on campus. She called home to talk to her mother and said, "You wouldn't believe how much he cusses. He wasn't like this on my visit."

Samuelson: "I don't know. The worst moments are when he doesn't say anything or even come into the locker room.

“I'd rather have him yell. He probably doesn't think we're tough enough. But if we're in a situation and he starts (yelling), we'd have to adapt to it. If you can, you can. If you can't, you gotta go." Atta girl, Lou. Spread the gospel. The good news: As our conversation progressed, Auriemma seemed to be more accepting of becoming the lovable grump again.

"There's a good chance that guy will come out a lot this year," he said. "I kind of have it at practice, but not as much in games now. But because of the schedule we've got, there's going to be quite a lot of opportunities for CD this year.

"I think maybe it's also a good time to indoctrinate some of our younger players. I don't think I can get livid like I did with Meghan's teams and Svetlana (Abrosimova's) teams. But I think with today's kids, maybe I've given them a little too much leeway. I'm afraid they may not respond."

In which case the old Geno would issue the line Branch Rickey gave to Ralph Kiner in 1952, after Kiner led the league in home runs and the Pirates finished last anyway: "We finished last with you; we can finish last without you."

Not that the Huskies are going to finish last. But they're not necessarily the best team anymore. This much we know: Geno's teams never get worse as the season goes. And nobody's going to volunteer to play them in March.

"His hair is gray right now and might be all white by the time the season ends," Samuelson said.

Ah, but just because there's snow on the roof doesn't mean there's no fire in the furnace.

"It's coming," Geno said. "Maybe I'm not giving our players enough credit for being able to handle it. I'm going to give it a shot." This is the opinion of Day sports columnist Mike DiMauro