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 think players sometimes don?t understand fully the amount of responsibility on their shoulders. As a senior, you have to take on that responsibility every day -- practice, games, travel, locker room, you name it. I think in the Big East tournament, they really, really, really did that. They took it to heart and made sure all the little things that lead to winning were taken care of. I really admire them for that.
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.
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.
You always go into the NCAA tournament and make a couple of little, subtle adjustments. You may take something that looks like this and just add one piece or remove one piece, or move it around a little bit, but it still looks like this. With this group, what I did was I took some stuff that we did in November and I showed it to them again, and they think it's brand new.
With Brittany, you're not quite sure what level she's at. She hasn't been able to practice much since the Big East tournament. It took a little toll on her. But even if she can play in a limited role, at least we have someone in the lane who can counteract some of the teams we can play. But how much, I don't know.
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.
That kind of got everybody off and running. And it just kind of took on a life of its own.
I don't know if Mel would've made that three if Ann hadn't made that one before it. That kind of took some of the pressure off.
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.