|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
NCAA WOMEN'S REGIONAL SEMIFINALS AND FINALS: BRIDGEPORTMarch 27, 2017Geno AuriemmaGabby WilliamsKia NurseBridgeport, Connecticut UConn - 90, Oregon - 52 GENO AURIEMMA: Well, there's not much you can say about what just happened. Right from the opening tap, we just had a look and a feel about how we were playing and what we were trying to do. And I thought our defense was spectacular right from the opening possession and stayed that way pretty much throughout the whole game. I couldn't be happier for this group. They had a lot of question marks going into the season, and maybe they didn't have any in their own minds. Everybody else did, including me. But they seemed to have answered every single one of those questions, and they deserve to be in the Final Four. They've earned it. I'm proud of them, and I'm happy for them. Q. Kia and Gabby, did you guys have to take ownership of this team early on to ensure you guys were going to have the kind of success that you wanted to have? KIA NURSE: Well, I think both of us were forced into leadership roles because we were becoming the older guys on the team, and I think that was a challenge that we accepted, and I'm extremely proud of how Gabby stepped up to the challenge and has done a great job all season, being vocal. This is the thing that neither of us have had to do at all in our careers, and to have done it with the help of the coaches and the help of some of the players who have come before us and taught us the way, I think it's becoming more of a habit for us now. GABBY WILLIAMS: Yeah, just going off of what Kia said, we were just kind of thrown into this role. I mean, those guys did everything for us last year, last two years, but the thing about them, too, is they showed us and they taught us how to do it ourselves. They knew that once we got into this position that we would be ready for it because they showed us how to do it. Q. Coach said how this was a special time to be in the Final Four since everyone except for you guys thought you might be struggling for. Does it make it sweeter than maybe the last couple where you guys kind of knew you were going to get there whereas this year less was expected from everybody except for you guys to get back to the Final Four? GABBY WILLIAMS: Yeah, it feels really good. I think with us, too, we've seen it, you know, every day in practice. We see things that other people don't see. I guess for us it's not as surprising, but we did definitely still surprise ourselves. It feels good that we were able to fill in those shoes. KIA NURSE: I mean, going off of what Gab just said, obviously this is a special one for us. For us to be in this position when people didn't think we were going to be, and for us to have played as well as we did today to get there, it's a good feeling. Q. Gabby, when you came off the court against UCLA, wasn't a lot of smiles, you guys said the last couple of minutes was tough. Was there a conscious effort to really come out hard tonight? GABBY WILLIAMS: Yeah, we always want to throw the first punch, and it was kind of like we didn't want to give them any hope. You know, we were lucky enough to come out to a good start, and I think we executed our game plan really well. The key was not letting them back in because that team really knows how to fight, so we just had to stay tough. Q. When Stewie would talk about what her goals were, it was in terms of trying to be as close to perfection as possible. I wonder if both of you view it that way, and do you feel that this season has lived up to those goals? KIA NURSE: Well, where we are and the position that we're in and the school that we go to, perfection is a word that gets thrown around a lot, and I think that starts in practice, when we do drills, where we have to make a certain number of shots in a row, without any mishaps, without any balls being thrown out of the place, and I think for us to have a season like this, for us to have done it the way we did it, I'm proud of the team, I'm proud of how we stuck through it and proud of how we worked to get to where we are today. GABBY WILLIAMS: Yeah, I think sometimes it doesn't feel perfect, and the coaches kind of put the pressure on us, and you know, we lose a lot in practice, and I think that's where that kind of perfection idea comes from, because we just have such high standards for ourselves, and the coaches put so much on us so that when we get into the game, it's easier almost. It's fun. Q. Going off of that, a lot has been made of this season, lots of streaks going on, and that history, that perfection. What do you feel this team or when will this team be able to take ownership of that success, of that hard work that's happening in practice that no one else sees? KIA NURSE: I think we have an opportunity to do it right now. The streak, we're a part of it. We didn't do it all on our own. There was a lot of people who came before us to start the streak, and we are kind of carrying on that legacy that they left, and that's something that we focus on every day. We're focused on the fact that UConn is built into what UConn is today because of everybody who came before what we're doing right now. So to understand that, to want to go out and play great Connecticut basketball every game is a testament to those people who have done it before us. GABBY WILLIAMS: Yeah, I agree with Kia, and I think every team has an identity. I'm glad that we found ours kind of at the right time, and I think the momentum we have is really good. With that, I think we just want to add to the tradition. We want to add to the culture, and no team wants to be the team that's responsible for losing that, for being the end of it. Q. Of all the streaks that are alive right now, is 10 straight Final Fours one that you really are proud of? GENO AURIEMMA: Yeah, I mean, it's hard to put it into any kind of context, you know? I don't know what the previous record was. So I don't have anything to compare it to. It's such a hard feat to accomplish in so many ways. It only takes one loss. You're now playing best out of five or best out of seven. So in all those 10 years, all it took was one loss at the wrong time during March and you're out. So for us to have gone 10 months of March in a row and not having lost a game through a whole different cast of characters, over all that time, that's pretty darned good. That is pretty darned -- that's probably more than anything what really hits home for me. Q. Along those lines, you kind of said it before, but so much less was expected from this group coming into the season by everyone but them, and to have them get back to the Final Four and keep that streak going, does that make it more special in a sense than some of the others where you kind of knew that you were expected to get there and win a championship, or has this group had less expectations from everybody else? GENO AURIEMMA: It has a certain pattern to it, the seasons, and there's themes that run through seasons, either because a team wants an identity or because it's cast upon them, you know. So it seemed to me like these last couple have been all about Stewie and that group and her commitment to saying, I want to win four National Championships. So that became the dominant theme, and these guys were like a part of it. You know? And it became about four in a row last year. Never been done before. All the great things that were going on, and rightly so, that became the thing, and because we had the three best players in the country, three of the best players in the country at their positions, it was like a foregone conclusion. And the players that we have today, for the first time in their careers, they've owned the whole month of March. They weren't just along for the ride. It's theirs. And that's a huge step. That's what I told them in the locker room. That's a big step to go from riding in the backseat on a trip that you're going to, to all of a sudden you're in charge of driving the bus and you're responsible for getting us there. A lot of times people have to lose to learn how to win, and for them to just step in right where the other team left off and take immediate ownership of it, that says a lot about who they are. You know, I can't say enough about each and every one of them, but especially that starting five. I mean, there's just something unique about them right now that's going on, and they deserve all of it. And they don't have to share it with anybody; it's not anyone else's but theirs, and they're enjoying it. Q. Napheesa has obviously been great all year. Did you expect her to continue to play as well as she has in this tournament? GENO AURIEMMA: Yeah, I mean, you never know what's going to happen to kids when they get in this environment, you know? You don't know. Sometimes they think themselves into a mess, like they're just playing the regular season and then somebody said, well, you know, this is one-and-done now. We don't have three games this week and three games next week. You lose one and you're out. Sometimes that does funny things to players. So you know, I don't know. I didn't know what to expect. But having watched Pheesa play all year long, I can't describe what she does. She's effortless in what she does. Seriously, it's like a self-driving car. It's just effortless. She just goes. I mean, she's effortless on defense, too. Don't get me wrong. But the offense for her just comes effortless. I can't even explain it. She'll take some shots, I'll just shake my head, and there's no way to explain what she does. It's unbelievable. She had a bad night tonight. She missed eight shots. That's a bad night for her. She felt the pressure of the tournament, I think. Q. You ran Ruthy off the baseline all game long. Was that something you guys instituted in your game plan because that took her out of her game and rhythm in the paint? GENO AURIEMMA: Yeah, we know we can't just stand there and slug it out with teams. We're just not big enough. So that first half, I thought our quickness gave Oregon a lot of problems. They're very disciplined, but yet they're not very methodical. They're a very disciplined team that plays with a sense of freedom that they can make the play they feel like they want to make, and what happened in that first 15 minutes was everything that they tried to do, they found that they couldn't just make the next pass, make the next cut. You know, they're used to being able to do that, and tonight they couldn't do it, and their bail-out, throw it into the post and get a bucket, once Gabby and Pheesa started taking that away -- and that's not such a bad thing if we're not making shots, but the fact that we're scoring every time down the floor and they're having a problem at their end, I think it just compounds the problem for the other team. They're a really good team, but they struggled, and we made them struggle, not because they're a bad team, they struggled because we made them struggle. Q. When you talk about patterns, could you liken this with one major exception to 2003 after that whole group graduated but of course you still had Diana and nobody else, and also when Pheesa starts, everyone said no Americans, and now you're getting three in the votes? GENO AURIEMMA: Yeah, 2003, those first couple practices, that first week of practice, maybe the first two weeks of practice, I remember looking at one of our assistants, and I thought, we're going to win a National Championship because Diana had the ability to take two freshmen and two other kids that had never started a game and make them look like veterans. She did that to them. She elevated their game by who she was, the way she played, how she talked to them, how she led them. Going into this season, we didn't have anybody like that, so I didn't know what was going to happen. I didn't know who was going to be responsible for any of this stuff, and maybe that's the way it needed to be this year, so that they all had to depend on each other instead of all depending on one person. And they never were allowed to take a break because they all had to be there every night or we weren't going to be able to do what we've done. So you know, them becoming All-Americans, they earned it. Their reputation didn't get it for them. Oh, they play at UConn so they get special treatment. They earned it this year. They played the best schedule, they beat the best teams, and they did it under the glare of the lights that they play under all the time, and you know, maybe Gabby should have made first-team All-American, as well, I don't know, on the AP. I know it's a lot to ask to get three kids in the top five. But the fact that those three were three of the top 10 players in the country, they earned it, and they deserve it. Q. Playing Mississippi State on Friday in the Final Four, I'm guessing you probably watched some of the game last night -- GENO AURIEMMA: I watched the whole game last night. That's not the same Mississippi State team we played last year here. That's a whole different team. They have a lot of the same players, but that's a whole different team. They looked amazing last night. I mean, going into the NCAA Tournament, I thought Baylor had the best chance of winning based on if you check all the boxes and say, here's what you need to win, you need size, you need experience, you need athletic ability, you need good guard play, you have to have depth. So when you check off all the boxes, you go, wow, they're the only team that has all that. And for Mississippi State to keep answering and keep answering and keep answering and keep answering the entire 40 minutes, that was an amazing performance. We're playing the same team we played last year in the regionals, but we're not playing the same team. I think Vic should have been Coach of the Year. That was an amazing performance that that team put together last year. Q. Obviously your scoring is noticed, the turnovers defensive-wise is noticed. Can you speak about one thing that probably wasn't noticed tonight is probably the rebounding, which took away a lot of their second-chance shots and created more opportunities for you that probably is not going to show up on the stat sheet? GENO AURIEMMA: Yeah. You know, we talk a lot about rebounding at both ends is really the key to every game if you think about it. What did they shoot today? They shot 42 percent against us, and that is because they shot 75 percent in the third quarter. So if you eliminate that, there's not a lot of made shots on your first attempt. So we're pretty good at guarding people in their first attempt. But what happens is most people when they offensive rebound, their next attempt they shoot 80 percent because you don't miss lay-ups. So your shooting percentage goes up if you can get second shots, create more possessions, all the stuff like you mentioned. So if we can limit people to one shot, it's really hard to score a lot of points against us, so the game plan today was we weren't going to give them a lot of threes, and we weren't going to put them on the free-throw line. They shot four free throws, and they made five threes. So normally they get about 30 points from the three-point line and the foul line, and today they got 18. So those were the two things we were trying to do more than anything, and we knew how big they were, but our quickness, I think, negated their size today. Sometimes size wins over quickness; today quickness wins over size. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|