She ponders the question for only a few seconds.

What do you take with you after four years of playing for Geno Auriemma?

Behind her glasses, Willmet Crockett's eyes give the answer -- everything -- before her mouth even opened.

"What won't I take?" the senior forward for the Connecticut women's basketball team asks. "That's a good question."

Playing for Auriemma isn't the typical experience. He brings a unique flavor with his brutally honest -- yet sometimes charming -- style of coaching. When a player signs on to wear the Huskies' colors, she's committing herself to more than just four years of X's and O's. She's signing on for Life Lessons 101, taught by Auriemma himself.

He has been around long enough to know a few things. In 21 years at Connecticut, he has won 587 games, five national titles and is a 2006 inductee to the Basketball Hall of Fame. And he makes sure players leave Storrs, Conn., with more than just a degree. He wants them to leave with some of his acquired wisdom.

And what is that wisdom? It's not running a pick-and-roll perfectly or refining a jump shot to perfection. While those are important, it's more philosophical than that.

"These four years, people don't understand, it's not just basketball," Crockett says. "It defines you as a person and what you're willing to take, what you stand for, who you are as a person. I'll just take that more so just who I am as a person and what I become and I can be if I just believe in myself and obviously speak up for myself."

Auriemma loves when his players talk, when they stand up for themselves. He even likes when his players disagree with him. As he says, if a player won't even fight her own coach, who will she fight? In four years, Auriemma is tough on his players. Players admit that he'll tear them down before he builds them back up. But once those players get past the initial shock, what they're built into is nothing short of amazing.

They know he challenges them to be better, because he wants them to be tough. In his mind, he has to put the best product on the floor every night.

"It probably is different than other places," junior guard Nicole Wolff admits, "where he's not afraid to say what he really thinks to you, where some coaches would bite their lips ... It's for the best. You learn a lot from it."

Most coaches hesitate to compare teams to ones from the past. Every year is new. Players graduate, new ones take their place and times change, they say.

Not Auriemma. He doesn't shy away from talking about his past players or how he wishes his current players could be more like former Connecticut stars Diana Taurasi and Sue Bird. They were leaders, Auriemma says. Players who believed in themselves and believed they could make a difference every time they stepped onto the court. This year, he doesn't see that in his seniors.

"Our seniors this year, they want to be like that," he says. "They want to see themselves in that role, want desperately to be able to affect the outcome of games. They're just not as confident as a leader needs to be about doing it."

He asks his seniors how they can expect to influence the performance of juniors, sophomores and freshmen when they can't even control their own impact. Only once you develop that control, he says, can you really affect a game.

It's coming along, though.

In fact, Auriemma makes sure to tell the story of Crockett. She'll tell you herself, she's shy and avoids saying what she really thinks. That's not what her coach wants. He wants to see some fire. Just weeks ago, he did -- and he couldn't be happier.

While neither Crockett nor her coach would provide a detailed account of what happened, this much is clear. Crockett approached Auriemma with a question. His answer wasn't what she wanted to hear, and she let him know, ranting for more than 10 minutes.

"I just sat there and part of me wanted to laugh. Where's this coming from?" Auriemma says, flashing his trademark smile. "And the other part of me was like, 'Hey, that's pretty good. Will's kinda standing up for herself, standing up for what she believes in.' "

It's what he calls "a huge step."

"If you're not going to fight in your own little group or in your own little family that we have, you have no chance in the real world," he says. "I admired her for sticking up for herself. I mean, it was a losing battle, but at least she fought the good fight."

There's another thing: that Philadelphia wit. He's a man cut from the same form as St. Joseph's men's basketball coach Phil Martelli and Villanova women's basketball coach Harry Peretta, both known for their humor and charm. Not surprisingly, Peretta and Auriemma are good friends and Martelli and Auriemma shared the same high school in Bishop Kenrick High School in Norristown, just outside of Philadelphia.

It's that wit that really makes Auriemma a charming man, the reason throngs of reporters wait at every venue to talk to him, trailing him from press conferences to the locker rooms. He never disappoints and always has a joke or two.

His team entered this year NCAA Tournament under the radar, per se. It's not a No. 1 seed, and talk about the Huskies winning it all is limited. When a reporter asked him about the lack of Connecticut predictions, he joked, asking the reporter if he was a Sacred Heart fan, another tournament team from Connecticut. Then he gave an answer, one that when listened to carefully, hints at the lessons he wants to teach his players. He says the lack of talk is because he hasn't told the media that Connecticut will win the championship.

"I haven't said that yet. Nobody else is saying it either," he reasons. "You know, the media people can't think for themselves. You've got to tell them what to say, and I haven't told 'em what to say. So, I'm working on it."

The reporters laugh. Auriemma doesn't have any negative intent with the joke, he's just entertaining the room. But the message is clear: think for yourself.

Occasionally, his players will drop by his office with questions -- sometimes about basketball, sometimes about other topics. How can they be better leaders? How can they really make a difference?

Auriemma doesn't always give them an answer, not because he doesn't know -- he does. He just wants the player to answer it.

"He does that a lot. He wants us to learn the game, and he wants us to be smart players," sophomore guard Mel Thomas says. "Especially with me, he says I'm not the most athletic person, but he tells me that if I can outsmart people, and I can outthink people, I can be on the same page, or if not better than they are. So, I think the whole mental process is a big thing that he harps on a lot."

It's not an easy atmosphere to adjust to. Practices are stressful. At times, younger players have a difficult time getting accustomed to Auriemma's in-your-face style. If a freshman makes mistakes in drills, he'll kick her out. For a freshman, Wolff says, nothing could be worse.

In her second year, Thomas understands more now what he's trying to do. He challenges players to get the best from them.

"He always wants you to beat him," Thomas says.

While his players understand him, sometimes his image is projected to others the wrong way. He's been in well-publicized feuds with Tennessee women's basketball coach Pat Summit and has called out Penn State women's basketball coach Rene Portland in his book, Geno: In Pursuit of Perfection, released earlier this winter.

Just as recently as yesterday, he complained of the current tournament format, calling it "lousy." He thinks the best team should get home-court advantage. Not because his team is always one of the best, but because they earned it. He says it doesn't matter what he thinks, though, because others will construe it as "self-serving."

And while some will, he does have his fans that will dispute that.

Take St. John's women's basketball coach Kim Barnes Arico. She sees it differently. Three years ago, Auriemma signed New York recruit Kia Wright. Before her freshman season even started, Wright got homesick. Rather than give the young girl grief, Auriemma did her a favor. He called Barnes Arico and told her to take Wright in.

"He wasn't thinking about himself or his team at that time," Barnes Arico says. "He was thinking about Kia as a young lady and what was in her best interest, and he really put her best interests in front of his program and his team, and that shows you how unselfish he is."

He is unselfish. He asks for much from his players, but it's not for him. He wants his students -- and that's what they are -- to leave him prepared for life.

So what do you take from four years with Auriemma? A great basketball resume? A great experience? It's not explained quite that easily. It's not something that you can really explain. You just have to experience it.

"You just have to take it for what it is," Crockett says. "You take the criticism and you take the love, and you keep going."