Geno Auriemma Played Quotations

We're 18-2 and it doesn't feel that way. I don't feel overly comfortable or ecstatic. I just like where we are right now, but I know that there's a lot in front of us, so I'm not ready to make any defining statements yet. We've played pretty good basketball, but I don't know that we've played an exceptional game at both ends. So I think there's a lot of room for improvement, a lot of room for growth.

She played way more than I wanted her to play. I was hoping that we could limit her minutes. Ann will take (today) off and go Monday (against LSU) and then take Tuesday, Wednesday off and we'll see what happens next week. But we needed all those minutes (Saturday).

I believe the way the game played out at Rutgers really stung them like nothing ever did before. I think there was a tremendous amount of soul searching and really trying to come to grips with who we are and what our strengths are and what our faults are and what we need to do.

I don't think it was as bad as it could get. If it had been like that in the second half, it would have been. We shot poorly, we played poorly, we executed poorly in that first half, but fortunately the second half was the way we like to play.

I think Brittany Hunter is capable of playing lousy against anybody like she did (Sunday) night. And I think she's capable of playing great like she played against Tennessee, against anybody.

I think it was harder than all the other 12 put together. I thought our guys battled through a lot of stuff tonight. We played against a really good team that played their hearts out.

That first half, they played us as well as any team has played us. I like the way we responded to that situation when they took the lead. I hope that sets us up well for Tuesday night.

I think if we would have played Wednesday, or Thursday, it might not have been as good as it was (vs. ND). I think we needed some time. It was more of just kind of getting our heads, rather than our bodies, right.

We've got some good basketball left in us we haven't played yet. There's a lot that still has to come together for us and hopefully it will be Monday night.

We played pretty good defense and took good care of the ball and got people involved in offense that we wanted to get involved. We got the right shot at the right time. We accomplished a lot.

We came out of this game feeling like Pitt lost the game rather than we won the game. We didn't beat them like we have so many other times. They are one of the most aggressive teams we have played this season. We won because we have a little more talent and little more experience.

Today we played almost well enough to win the game. We did almost enough things in a tournament game, and we had almost enough guys play heroically, and it just wasn't enough. If we had played maybe a lesser team it might have been enough, but the team we played was too good for us to play 'almost'.

We played almost well enough to win. We were almost good enough to win. Almost enough guys played heroically for us. But it wasn't enough. If we had played a lesser team, it might have been enough. But the team we played was too good to be almost good enough against.

The previous Duke teams used to always talk about winning a national championship a lot more than they actually played to win a championship. This team is a little bit different. They don't talk as much about it. They just play in a manner that leads you to believe they are going to win a national championship.

(Duffy) should get 40 points if she played the way she did in the last 10 minutes. She's just one of those unselfish kids who wants to get the other people on her team the ball. She showed in the last 10 minutes how hard she is to defend.

As it should be. When you've played here the longest, you should have a pretty good idea what to do. If you're going to be a good team, you have to do that.

They say you don't appreciate winning until you've had your share of losing. But you don't fathom how much losing hurts after all the winning you've done over the years. We played almost well enough to win. We played heroically. But Duke was too good for us to beat tonight.

It's easier to fix the plays at the end because they are one-shot deals. What got us 13 down is a little bit harder to fix. I'd have disappointed if it went from 13 to 20. The fact that it went from 13 to two, that's a positive. But getting down 13 on your home court against a Rutgers team that we knew coming in was going to be hard to guard in the perimeter, I'm just really disappointed in the way we came out and played the game.

It's a great barometer for not only what is happening with our team at the moment but what could happen, what might happen down the road. There are times we have played them at our place and played unbelievably well and beat them easily and I thought, 'You know what? I think this team can win the national championship.' There's times when we've played them at their place and got our heads handed to us and I left there thinking, 'You know what? I'm not sure we're a national championship-type team.

It's a lot like the old Virginia Tech teams we played. They're physical and they play pretty intelligently and they go after the offensive boards pretty hard. It'll probably be like the games we played against them a few years ago.

It's always been good. The last two times we've played in this building it's been exceptional.

That second 20 minutes was obviously like night and day. And that's a little bit worrisome for me. You always want to treat every game the same, treat every half the same. But I guess we had played pretty well up to this point and that was kind of the first bad 20 minutes that we've played in a while.

The kids know each other, believe me. They've all played against each other at various levels.

I knew we would find a different Notre Dame team than the one we played at their place. I knew we would have to play a lot better than we did there. Our post players came up really big. It went exactly the way I thought it would except for the last five or six minutes, considering the kind of week we had.

I like playing games here. I wish we played more games here; most of the kids like playing here, too.

I know everybody has talked about parity the last couple of years, and it hasn't played out at the end of the season. But there does seem to be more even teams than in the past.

I don't know if have played a team this year that was harder to play than Georgia was in every area of the game.