Geno Auriemma Quotations

We struggled with our regular stuff, so we never did get a chance to unveil our top-secret, super-sensitive, highly classified offense. That might be one of those experiments that never gets off the ground.

We're incredibly fortunate (to still be playing), and we're going to make the most of it.

We're incorrigible. All those threes, we were in a really bad zone. Mentally in a bad zone and a bad zone defense. I think we looked a little tired. Except when we had the ball. We didn't look tired when we had the ball offensively.

We're in a good bracket with good teams like everybody else is. Say all you want about who's in a tough bracket, who's not? The bottom line is, starting this weekend everybody will get to a chance to prove whether they belong there or not.

Watching them play kind of brought back memories of when you spring an upset. I don't remember the last time we had a chance to spring an upset on somebody. It's a great feeling for them.

You don?t lose the championship and forget about it. That?s always going to be there.

We're not a great free throw shooting team but the fact that we could make that many free throws here when we had to make them, I think that's a great sign for our guys.

We're quite unpredictable. I think the kids understand that. We go five possessions where we look really good, and then we go five where the kids on the bench go, 'What was that?' We're still getting there. We're not there yet.

Whenever we have to walk the ball up and try to attack teams in their half court, it?s not easy for us, because we don?t have a huge inside presence. So I?m constantly urging us to run.

Whenever we have to walk the ball up and attack teams in the half court, it's not easy for us, because we don't have the huge inside presence that can make teams collapse. I'm constantly urging us to run.

We want everybody to be one of the top players in the league, and it's not out of the realm of possibly to do that. We've got all the ingredients. It's just a matter of doing it.

We're playing a team that doesn't lose at home. I'll be anxious to see how we approach it.

We're 18-2 and it doesn't feel that way. I don't know why. Maybe because you know how many games are really hard to play in and you just keep thinking, 'This is really hard.' If someone figures out what we're not good at, it's good night, Irene.

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.

We hope to improve on what was a very, very disappointing year last year. My fans are adamant that if we're 25-8 again next year, heads are going to roll.

There are a lot of good players back, a lot of good teams. I'm anxious to see how this plays out.

What we did on Monday can really scar you for a long, long time. You are going to hear about it every minute of every single day from everybody. You have to have pretty tough skin to survive in this environment, and sometimes you don't come back from stuff like that very quickly.

When I look back, that's probably the one thing that I'm going to remember more than anything, not so much the championships, the wins, but I think we made the Big East take women's basketball seriously. I think we made people around the country pay attention to what we were doing. Because of that, it showed a lot of people out there that there's an unbelievable game out there that people were missing.

She's stretching it out. She does whatever she has to do.

She wasn't that thrilled to play. When I took her out, I had no intention of putting her back in. But all that went out the window in the second half.

She's very, very good under pressure. She doesn't get bothered by anything. That's why she's kind of hard for me to coach because when I talk to her, she don't listen because she's not affected by anything. I knew she was going to make the free throws.

She's very good under pressure. She's not bothered by it. I knew she was going to make those free throws.

She?s sneaky and she caught those guys a couple times. She?s not easy to guard, and I thought those guys did a pretty good job of making her work hard for everything.

She's one of those impact players that makes them when we need them. I can't think of anybody we'd rather have shooting the ball.

She's come a long way with this team. She's one of the great people in the game and I'm happy for her.

She's careless and when you're careless all of a sudden it starts to chip away at your confidence because you start making just enough mistakes that are just careless mistakes. Some of it is just that you've got to be more attentive and your intensity level's got to be a lot higher. We need Renee to play at a real high level in order for this team to move forward.

She has too much ability to not play well. She just came out and just shot it and made plays. She found a way to be a real basketball player (Tuesday) as opposed to just somebody who plays point guard at Connecticut and runs up and down the floor. (Tuesday) she was a real basketball player.

She finally realized that the more I do for others, the better it is for me, and in the end she ends up being better than she's ever been. I think you grow as a person when you start doing things for other people. So college was good for Barbara. The University of Connecticut was good for Barbara. And Barbara was good for the University of Connecticut.

She felt like during the regular season there were times when she may have had opportunities to take over games and didn't. And now that her career's winding down, in this scenario she wanted the ball in her hands and she wasn't afraid to take big shots.

Since I'm not going to be in Boston playing Sunday and Tuesday (at the women's Final Four) I wouldn't mind being in Indianapolis.

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).

She may be as difficult a player to match up and defend as anybody I've seen up to this point.

She is assembling a really great cast here. She is taking young players and playing them. Once they are older they will know how to play together. Pitt accomplished more (yesterday) then we did.

My initial reaction right now is I saw where it's going to be announced during the Final Four. So if I'm sitting here in Connecticut and there's four teams playing in Boston at the Final Four and I get a phone call, my first reaction is I'm going to be (mad) that I'm not at the Final Four. I can tell you that much. So if I happen to be in Boston with my team and I get that phone call, it'll be kind of a special weekend.

Nerves are not an issue. To me, Ann Strother is a perfect example of someone who came in here as a freshman and was never afraid to take the big shot, to have the ball in crucial situations. Some kids are just different and they have it in them. She does.

One or two people can't get you to where you want to go. The Yankees can get to the World Series almost every year. But one or two guys really have to step up for them to win it. We needed just a little bit more tonight.

Obviously, you can?t discount how much (Diana) meant because nobody?s ever meant more to any team than Diana has meant to this group of kids. So if you want to compare them to Diana, they fall short, but so does everybody else.

No one ever talks about our defense. Our defense has always been good. But when you have great offensive players like I've coached the last 15 years, it's hard to concentrate on our defense. But our defense has been pretty good.

More important than the win, we came out with a sense that we're pretty tough, pretty resilient. I don't know if we could have been like that awhile back. We've come a long way. I don't think this trip could have gone any better for us.

My family's grown up here. I've done a million things here that I'm really proud of. (And) 99.9 percent of the time I've been treated better than I ever envisioned that I'd be treated. So I'm not looking to go anywhere. I'm not looking to run away from anything. I'm not looking to find greener pastures.

Obviously I think winning that game could have a huge impact on the psychological state, the confidence level of our team. That's obvious. But at the same time, we're home. We're Connecticut. Everybody think we're one of the top-10 teams in the country. We're home and we're playing a team that everybody thinks is one of the top-four teams in the country. Going into the game, yeah, we expect to win this game. That's what you're supposed to think if you're us.

Obviously in the long term, as the season wears on, there's no way you can be as good a team without someone who is, I think, one of the best five players in the league. Meg can put up 20 points every night, and that has to be comforting. But this West Virginia team is still one of the best that I've seen. That team is very difficult to play against.

Obviously, coming off a game like that, we've got a lot of work to do. It's never easy to lose, and especially difficult to lose when a conference championship is at stake. It's magnified when we play as well as we did for 15 minutes and then go completely the other way. It takes the life out of you completely.

Right now, my issue is recruiting, and getting ready for the season and making sure that we put ourselves in position to win a national championship.

Right now, it seems like Will has made a commitment to herself to be one of the better players at her position in our league. And certainly it's not beyond the realm of possibilities for will. If you think about it, she's got all the ingredients.

Nicole probably feels like it's more important to get on with the rest of her life and what she wants to do. Nicole's a smart kid and obviously she put a lot of thought into it.

One of the reasons why we want to play in this tournament when we're eligible is because it's usually a good field and you end up playing pretty good teams. You find out quickly early in the season where you stand. We're a lot better today than we were last week.

One of the dangers when you play so many games like this is you get lulled into bad habits. That first half we were just content to go up and down and trade baskets. Army did exactly what I thought they would do. They were patient, they run their stuff, they grind it out.

One of the dangers that you run into when you have success so early, people tend to forget. It?s better to have success late then early because an awful lot of people may end up remembering whatever happened last year or whatever is going to happen this year.

I was flabbergasted we couldn't execute something we have run every day in practice for the last five months.

I would say for 32 minutes we were pretty good. Six or seven minutes I think in that first half maybe weren't that good, but I think this was as complete a game at both ends of the floor as we've had in a while.

I?d like to do enough to kind of get her winded, so I would think a couple possessions would probably do it.

I'd like to be able to dial it up when we needed it. Unfortunately, sometimes you keep waiting and waiting and it never happens. My hope is that some time in the next 24 hours we play as close to our ability as we can. Right now, I think we need to play one of the best games that we've played. I don't know where we are in terms of that, but I'd like to see us come close to that (tonight).

I don't even remember who the coach was before Sue. LSU and Sue became one and the same.

I'd like to see her shoot the ball more from the foul line. She's a good shooter from 15 feet out. And she still gets ahead of herself every once in a while, which is natural. Slowly, but surely, it's going to come. It's just going to look ugly at times. As long as she keeps making progress, that's all I care about.

I don't know that we ever go into a tournament that much under the radar. But if that's the case then this year would be certainly as close to that as I've seen in a while.

I don't know which team we're going to see: the team that we've known in the past that plays really well or the one we haven't seen before that's backed into a corner and in danger of not making the Big East tournament.

I don't care if you have the best team in the country or are Cinderella, this is the hardest game to play in that you'll ever play in. The goal for most people is to have an experience of being in the Final Four. After you've been to the Final Four there's no experience like it, except winning a national championship.

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.

Certainly it has become the game that everybody in the Big East points to.

I hate it because there's too much dead time. They don't do anything. I mean if sleeping was a sport these guys would be first-team All-American. So what happens is when there's so much dead time you've got to try to get them to understand that you've got to fill that time wisely.

I don't remember us ever being in a situation where I thought we had it won, then lost it, thought we had it won, then lost it. It was really an amazing game. It's a shame any of those kids had to be on the other side of that. I would think in the 21 years I've been at Connecticut, I don't remember more than one or two games that turned out like this.

If (Barbara) was a building after what she has been through, they would have condemned her long ago.

I don't want to be afraid to run and be afraid to lose and worry about it. I just want to go and run and up down the floor and make some plays and see what happens. That's when we're at our best.

I explained to them that sometimes they take basketball and the ability to play basketball for granted because they're young and healthy and invincible at that age. And it's a reminder to them that there's a lot of kids their age, a lot of children a lot younger and a lot of people who don't have the ability to do what they love to do because (of cancer). Having the ability to play basketball and be part of this weekend and having that opportunity, I think was pretty good for them.

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 don?t think she deserved any more than that, but it?s certainly beneath her ability. So, hopefully, she takes it as kind of an incentive to want to do more, want to be recognized for being better than that.

For whatever reason, this is the time of year when guys get banged up a little bit.

If we play as well as we're capable of playing, we're going to win (tonight) regardless of what Rutgers does. If we don't play our 'A' or to the best of our ability, then there's a pretty good chance that if Rutgers plays well we're going to lose. And that's the way it should be when you play against a really good team. But, you know what? We're home. We're in our building. And the expectation level is we're going to win. That's the bottom line.

If that's the way they had it planned, then I would say that's pretty good planning.

I always think the same thing when we have these,

I always thought Mel has a chance to be the poor man?s version of Shea (Ralph) and that?s exactly what?s she?s turned out to be. She can?t get to the basket like Shea could. She?s not old enough to go slam people just to see what it feels like, like Shea did. But she makes shots like nobody else in the country at this point.

Having a senior athletic enough that she can play inside and outside and can move some of their players away from the basket, not having that allowed them to pack it in. It made it difficult for us to get anything going, but at the same time, Pitt's defense and how physical they were had more to do with it than Turner not playing.

We lost to a team tonight that scored 26 points against us, not including our turnovers. They scored 22 points off our turnovers and finished with 48. They shot 20-something (26.3) percent from the floor, and we lose the game. That's probably the most incredible stat you'll ever see in your life.

Just when you think this kid's going to be a great point guard, the next three possessions you look at her and say, I don't know if she'll ever play again for us. It's just unbelievable.

Just when I wanted to get rid of her, now I don?t want the season to end.

I thought we ran so much that we got a little bit tired. We need more contributions from more people if we're going to keep playing like this. You worry this time of year that you get hesitant and tentative and it becomes a walk-it-up kind of game. I don't want it to be like that. I don't want to be afraid to run and afraid to lose. I just want to run up and down and make some plays and see what happens.

I thought we ran a little. I thought we got out in transition pretty well. I'd like to see us do more of that. That's when we're at our best.

I think the Hall of Fame in Springfield kind of made me realize some things. ... There's a lot of people in the Hall of Fame that are dead. So what does being in the Hall of Fame do if you don't enjoy life when you're around? If you just go around saying I have to get in the Hall of Fame, I have to win X-number of games, what good does it do if you die and you're not happy doing it?

I think the only time individual awards really impress upon you as a kid is when you get to share them with your teammates. What you share with your teammates is the big award, the conference championship. So if you get an individual award and the team gets nothing, you feel kind of like half-empty.

I think the game was pretty much indicative of what a lot of what this season has been all about. Nothing's come easy. You can't count on anything any more. Everything's a struggle, and maybe that's the way it's supposed to be.

I was afraid of that. We came off some of the games we just had and we were feeling pretty good. We're playing a game where their No.1 player is hurt, and physically we're not 100 percent coming out of the road trip. You put all those things in the mix, it made for one lousy game.

I thought we could get away with not playing Ann. I thought we were in pretty good shape at 12-4. I didn't know that was the highlight of the first half ? getting to 12.

I thought we executed the game pretty well for thirty-some minutes. This is as much as a complete game as we've had in a really long time.

I thought that we executed our game plan pretty well for about 30-some minutes. This was as much of a complete game as we've had in a long, long time and I'm really happy for our guys.

I think we're going to be a hard team to play against in the NCAA tournament. We play good defense. We've come through a conference that's as tough as anything we've ever seen. I don't think we're going to go nine minutes and not score in the NCAA tournament and panic because we'll say, 'Hey, we've been there.' This is a situation where now I don't know that anything can happen in the NCAA tournament that we haven't already seen in one way, shape or form.

I think we know pretty well after this trip that we?re pretty good. We?re not as good as you want to be yet, but we?re pretty good.

I think we have a reputation of being a really good NCAA tournament team. There does seem to be a little more of an edge to our game, a little more of a focus. I don't think we get up tight. I see teams that get very, very tentative and tense at tournament time and I don't see us being like that generally. I think our approach as a coaching staff is pretty laid back. We want to reward our kids for a great season.

I think we have a pretty good record in the NCAA tournament regardless of where we play. So the fact that we've won a lot of games here is probably indicative that we've had a lot of really good teams.

I thought Renee set the tone in the second half by how aggressive she was. She was looking to score and make a play every time down the floor.

I think that fear factor stuff is gone. I just don't think anybody in the country is afraid of anybody anymore. Teams just think they can walk in any building and win any game.

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 because of Diana (Taurasi playing for the Mercury), circumstances are different in this one, ... Maybe people sense that the climate is different at Connecticut than it was in the past.

I think Barbara, Ann and Will are going to really grab it and say I want this to finish right. I think they are and that?s going to go a long way.

I think a team like ours, they need to be constantly reminded of how hard every game is. This isn't the old St. John's where you're up 25. Those days are behind us. They need to know that every team we play, whether it's Cincinnati, St. John's, it's going to be tough.

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.

I think it takes some of the luster off the regular season championship. Now, it doesn't carry as much weight as it used to. Some years, there are breaks in the schedule. Some years are tougher than normal. It's not conducive to having a regular season champion.

It has been a ridiculous three weeks in terms of my thought process. During all that time when the Final Four was going on, flying out to California, Hall of Fame, all of that, there was a lot going on personally for me where I'm trying to sort out how long am I going to do this? Where am I going to go from here? What else am I going to do?

I think this is the first time in my life I have been rendered speechless.

I think we came out of the game feeling that Pitt lost rather than we won. We didn't really come out here and beat Pitt like we did so many other times.