Geno Auriemma
Geno Auriemma
Luigi "Geno" Auriemma is an Italian-born American college basketball coach and the head coach of the University of Connecticut Huskies women's basketball team. He has led UConn to eleven NCAA Division I national championships, a feat matched by no one else in college basketball, and has won seven national Naismith College Coach of the Year awards. Auriemma has been the head coach of the United States women's national basketball team since 2009, during which time his teams won the 2010...
ProfessionCoach
Date of Birth23 March 1954
CityMontella, Italy
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.
In the short term, they have some kids they have plugged in there and are doing a good job.
In these types of pressure environments, I got to tell you, I'm really, really happy for these two in particular. This is as much of a complete game as we've had in a long, long time.
I haven't had time to think about that. But since you mention it, since I won't be in Boston Sunday or Tuesday, I wouldn't mind being in Indianapolis.
I haven't given that one thought. I haven't invested one second of energy on that. All I've been thinking about is how we can get to the Final Four, and now that we're not there, my thoughts are, unfortunately, not necessarily personal.
Barbara said she knew it was in as soon as she shot it. She's told me a lot of lies over the last four years, but that was the biggest one I've ever heard.
The NBA is all about winning, but at this level (college basketball) winning doesn't make you happy. You can win, and play lousy, and in my program, feel lousy. To me it's about: How good can we be.
With the absence of pressure, it's hard to do great things.
I don't hire good coaches, I hire good people. If they turn out to be good coaches, too, that's a plus.
Bottom line, you're either a risk taker, or your not, and if you don't take risks, you'll never win big.
It's about doing it in a way that it can't be done any better. That is the goal every day.
So, yeah, I'm going to try to win the national championship next year. But I'm not going to kill myself doing it. I'm not going to kill my players either. You really start to realize there's a lot more to what we're trying to do then winning games
You worry at this time of the year that you get a little bit hesitant, a little bit tentative, and it becomes a walk-it-up, grind-it-out game. I don?t want it to be like that. I don?t want to be afraid to run and afraid to lose and worry about ?What if.? I just want to go and run up and down the floor and make some plays and see what happens ? that?s when we?re at our best.
(The medical staff) doesn't want to rush her back. She did it once. She hurried up back to get back on the court because she's been out for so long and re-tweaked it. So now there's no point in rushing her back.