Geno Auriemma Quotes

I think our defense will be tested, no question. I think our offense is going to be tested. You have to be a good defensive team to win, don't get me wrong. I don't think non-defensive teams are going to win national championship. I don't think non-defensive teams are going to win the Big East championship.

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Fair or unfair, at Connecticut it's not good enough just to win. There's a perception that if we don't go to the Final Four, it's a bad season. I want the players to understand that the one constant in our program, is that we want to make sure we play hard and have fun.

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There's a lot of soul searching that has to go on. Maybe we just don't have it in us. Maybe we're just not good enough right now.

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I'm just really disappointed in the way we came out to play the game today. At home, that's not supposed to happen.

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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).

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That was one of the all-time favorites because we were accused of making the roof leak on purpose. We dont want to win by too much. Lets create a diversion, so we stop the game for an hour. ... yeah, its been a while.

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Mel said she wanted to play, so we gave it a shot. We'll see what happens today. I don't want to throw her out there and do anything and then have to re-fix it for the NCAA Tournament. I'd rather the thing get healed, because we have a long stretch after Tuesday.

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The one thing that she can do that is really, really amazing, compared to the other guys. She only has to see things once or twice and shes got it. So you can throw her in a lot of different situations and shes OK with it, which is kind of a comfort level for a coach.

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It's interesting when you know somebody when they're 17 and they come out of high school and spend some time with them on the college level. I remember the Duke game was one of the best games she ever had when I was there. Things like that just stick out in your mind.

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I think that Will, say what you will, she's going to rebound. She's going to chase balls down. She's going to play pretty good defense. And if nothing else, she understands our offense completely. She understands it like the back of her hand. She knows exactly what needs to be done.

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There's 22 practice days between today and our first game Nov. 12. You would like to lay the foundation, like you would with a house, and the success of your team depends on what you build those 22 practice days. Last year, we were never able to get after it because of those situations. I don't see that as an issue right now, cross your fingers.

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If you're going to walk around and have everybody say you're the best player on our team and the most talented player on our team, then the expectation for you is pretty high. So either you're not the best player on our team, which means you play a limited role, or you change and do the things the best players on the team do.

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The first week or so is not bad. It's those last 10 days where they've been cooped up. That's when it's awful. So, for now, the novelty hasn't worn off yet. But it's not an ideal situation. It really isn't.

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We got the big lead and we had a chance, when pressure came, to really make some plays to extend it. But we let one play lead to another to another to another. It just got completely away from us. I guess credit their defense, but I was just looking at the stat sheet.

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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 sometimes I think as coaches we get really caught up in winning games. Now that I look back, I'm going to try to take a different spin on it, and try to look at things differently.

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The big guys hurt us. And Essence Carson hurt us. They got contributions from the big guys and Essence Carson. And for us it was hard to find people to contribute.

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In games like this its usually when you do something rather than how many. And I thought today we made great plays, got the lead up, lost our composure a little bit, struggled a little bit offensively for a stretch but these guys have come a long way, Im really proud of them.

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I think today was another reminder for our team that we can be as good as we were on Monday but when we're not all on the same page and not properly focused where we need to be, we can be just like anyone else. I'm hoping that games like this remind us, because once you get into the NCAA Tournament, you play a game like this, you're going to go home.

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Sometimes you think things and you hope they don't happen. But you kind of know that it's coming. You come off some of the games that we just had and you come home and you walk around like you're feeling pretty good. You're playing a team that's missing their best player, and probably physically we're not 100 percent coming out of that trip. So if you put all those things into the mix, it made for one really lousy performance by us.

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I want them to be remembered for being at Connecticut for four years and having had an incredible experience during those four years that no one else got to experience in their four years. Its unfair to think of them as, Well, this is how it ended. It ended not great, but there was a lot of great stuff that they were a part of.

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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.

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We don't score on sheer individual talent. Sometimes we run stuff just to run stuff without an idea what we're going to get from it.

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To her credit, Wills hung in there this year when it could have gotten away from her. Now youre looking at a possibility of (15) more games, if youre lucky enough to play that long, so maybe somebody like Will in the next month can salvage something pretty darn good out of something that looked like it was really terrible.

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I told them before the (Providence) game started, every team that I've ever coached that was consistently good had seniors that were very, very consistent. And it's time now for this group to kind of separate themselves and say, 'Hey, it's time for me to have an impact every single game and not be in those peaks and valleys.' I think they've all kind of made that progression.

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I could see her going either way. I don't think there's a bad decision or a wrong decision. It's what your personal feelings are at that time. Knowing Nicole, I'm sure she's given it some thought.

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