How UConn accidentally discovered Renee Montgomery and Jamelle Elliott on the recruiting trail

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• UConn to host 40th season celebration for Geno Auriemma and Chris Dailey on Nov. 20

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• Man charged with stalking, harassing UConn's Paige Bueckers (ESPN)

How UConn accidentally discovered Renee Montgomery and Jamelle Elliott on the recruiting trail

During UConn’s run of success over of the last 40 years under Geno Auriemma, recruiting has served as the backbone of the program. Not only do the Huskies land talented players that can help the team win championships, they also strive to find the right people to uphold the culture.

While UConn certainly has a high rate of success in picking the right prospects, it’s still an inexact science. There’s a laundry list of players who came in that didn’t ultimately work out because they either weren’t good enough, didn’t have the right personality to fit in, couldn’t stay healthy or just wanted something different out of their college career.

That uncertainty can work the other way, too. While Nika Mühl was recruited by some top programs out of Europe, nobody ever could’ve predicted that she’d become the Huskies’ single game, single season and all-time assists leader. There’s plenty of happy accidents on the recruiting trail.

That includes Jamelle Elliott and Renee Montgomery. Both of them had great careers at UConn even though they weren’t initially on the team’s radar as high schoolers. Auriemma essentially stumbled onto them while on the recruiting trail.

He told the story at the UConn Coaches Road Show back in June.

“I have to fly to West Virginia to see this kid play. We think it's down to two schools, us and another school — at least that’s what the father said, but he was lying to us the whole time,” Auriemma said. “Anyway, when I went to the high school to watch the kid play, the kid on her team was better than her. I had seen that kid a little bit but now I watched her for serious and it was Renee Montgomery, who turned out to be one of our great guards.

“Then the other one: In the summer, you can recruit all of July. So it's July 31, I'm ready to get off the road, go home. This friend of mine was coaching at Georgetown at the time, he says ‘Let's go to this summer league game and then we’ll go out to dinner.’ There’s a kid playing there that everybody in the country — including us — tried to recruit. I'm watching the game and halfway through the first half, I grabbed this little kid and said ‘Who's that (other player)?’ They say, ‘I don't know.’ I said ‘Well, you better find out by halftime. I want to know [her] name, where she lives, where she goes to school.’ This kid was like 12 or something, if you promise a 12 year old a t-shirt they’ll do anything, right. I walked out of there and we got Jamelle Elliott.”

While Elliott had a great career on the court — 1,387 career points, 1,054 rebounds while playing in every possible game to go with a national championship in 1995 — most of her impact came after she graduated. She joined the coaching staff in 1998 and has since amassed 17 years as an assistant to Geno Auriemma across two stints.

As for Montgomery, she was named a two-time All-American, won the Nancy Lieberman Award as the best point guard in the country as a senior and ran the point for the undefeated 2009 national title squad.

Sometimes even the best need a little bit of luck.

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