Geno recruits coachable girls who also have talent. They do a lot of research on who they recruit. There are lots of All Americans they don't recruit because Geno does not indulge prima donnas who cannot be toughened up through Geno's very special brand of tough love and challenging those girls. I read that the assistant coaches delve very deeply into the kid's background and even if the parents are prima donnas Geno doesn't recruit them. I read a few years back that they nixed some top 10 girl because they met the parents and did not like what they saw and heard. Geno wants girls who are from solid families and have a good support network.
Geno did make some recruiting mistakes, a very big one was this girl Liz Sherwood from Colorado. Sherwood was a big stiff girl, slow as hell, no athletic ability and even her skill wasn't all that great plus she was enormously overweight. She was a huge girl but other than being massive had nothing going for her. Similarly they recruited a big girl from DC by name of Kaili McLaren who actually was a very skilled player and one of the best post passers UConn ever had. But they called her "Big Mama" and it was because she was huge and overweight and never could get in shape and she actually looked out of shape in games where they would take her out because she had no wind. Geno does seem to fall in love with scrappy players and even Breanna Stewart, who is obviously immensely talented, has a certain scrappiness and hustle to her game. Ditto with Moriah Jefferson. That girl has a huge heart beating in her chest, she plays hard 40 minutes every game. In the last 10 years they have recruited well getting highly ranked girls who are team players. All the girls on the current team fit that mold.