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NCAA WOMEN'S REGIONAL SEMIFINALS AND FINALS: ALBANY

March 28, 2019

Geno Auriemma

Albany, New York

GENO AURIEMMA: Just want to let everybody know that I'm still the coach at UConn, and I intend to be the coach at UConn next year in case anybody had any questions about that.

Getting to the NCAA Tournament and winning two games and then getting to a Regional, it's never an easy task, and it seems like it's getting harder each and every year, as evidenced by the way Buffalo played, and you watch some of the other games that took place around the country. So for us to be here again is a great accomplishment for our team and doesn't get any easier from here on in.

We may have gotten the worst draw of any team in the country getting UCLA right about now, as well as they're playing, and all the great things they've been able to do. It's not the same team I saw in St. Thomas earlier this year. Cori's done a phenomenal job with this group. So we've got our hands full tomorrow night.

Q. Geno, you've played UCLA the last couple years, but obviously there's no Jordin Canada and no Monique Billings this year. How are they the same and how are they different, and how about their younger players who have stepped up to get them here?
GENO AURIEMMA: I think that's the big difference, that their young players have gotten progressively better each and every game this year. When you watch them on film now, they don't seem to have missed a beat. You talk about not having their two seniors from last year -- I don't know. When I watch them play, their point guard right now looks a lot like Jordin Canada. And I watch their big guys, and they look a lot like Monique Billings. In some ways, they may even pose more of a problem.

Yeah, they lost two great seniors, but you would never know it watching them play on film. I'm just really impressed by what they do. I just can't believe it's the same team that I saw in St. Thomas.

Q. Two-part question. I'm guessing, based on your opening statement, you're not upset you're the only coach in this bracket that didn't get the Tennessee potential nod in the papers down there. And secondly, UConn is part of the AAC deal now for ESPN+, potentially losing games on SNY, and you've been a huge proponent of SNY helping out UConn basketball. What's your thoughts on the new deal for the AAC and how it affects you guys?
GENO AURIEMMA: Well, I mean, I don't have all the details of it, obviously. I know that it's probably a great deal for the league as a whole, and I'm sure that was the intent to get a great deal for the entire league. I think any deal that keeps us off of the kind of television we've come to understand and our fans have come to appreciate, specifically SNY, anything that keeps us from being able to do that for our fans is not such a great deal for UConn. Hopefully, they can work something out.

We have a great relationship with SNY. They've done a great job for us, probably a better job than anybody in the country does for their teams. So I'm hopeful that something can be worked out that allows us to continue that relationship.

Q. Coach Cori Close always mentions that you guys exchange bottles of wine. Can you talk about your relationship with her and how you guys met and your relationship thus far.
GENO AURIEMMA: Yeah, it goes back a ways. When Cori was at Florida State, we played them a bunch of times. And she brought her staff up to Connecticut for three or four days a few years back when she was just starting at UCLA. So I had a chance to get to know her and her staff. She has a lot of energy. I like the way she handles herself and UCLA. UCLA was great a long time ago, and then they were really good a long time ago, and then they were really bad for a long time.

Ever since Cori's got there, they recruited great. They've accomplished an awful lot on the court, and they seem to be in this position a lot lately. She's one of the bright young coaches that's taken a big job, you know, going from an assistant to taking the UCLA job. That's a big job. A lot of young coaches that have done that kind of a move have not been successful, but she has. So I'm happy for her. I'm proud of her.

Q. Geno, a lot of people have written because you guys got the 2 seed, that you're playing with a chip on your shoulder. Do you feel like that, or do you feel like you're playing with a chip on your shoulder?
GENO AURIEMMA: I don't even know what that means today. I know what it used to mean. Kids would get pissed. That's what it meant when they said they had a chip on their shoulder. They were pissed. They felt disrespected. And when they felt like that, you actually saw the results on the court. I remember some of my players telling me that, after we lost in St. Louis in 2001, from the day we got home from that trip until we won the National Championship in San Antonio the following year, not one day went by that those kids didn't think about that, and it showed up in practices every day and the way we played every day.

Today the chip on the kids' shoulders lasts until the next text. So we've got a chip on our shoulder, the chip in their phone. That other stuff, it doesn't exist anymore. How are you going to have a chip on your shoulder when your best friends are all the kids you play against? You've got everybody on speed dial because you played against these kids growing up. I liked it better when everybody hated each other. All the hate's gone. It's no fun.

Q. So forgive me, speaking of hate, but Doug alluded to this earlier. Obviously, a pretty big seismic shift in Knoxville yesterday with Holly leaving. I just wonder if you could sort of share your thoughts. I know they're an adversary, but the position she was in was difficult. And then what does it mean for Tennessee to be sort of entering this new world with a new leader? And you guys are going to be playing them next season.
GENO AURIEMMA: Well, I think if you look at -- if you look at any great program -- I don't care whether it's high school or college, pros. If you look at any great program that had kind of an iconic leader, you know, and that leader kind of defined the program, and then all of a sudden you're trying to replace that and you're replacing it with someone who's been part of that staff for the longest time, that's already not an easy transition because the specter of the former coach -- you know, Pat left a big shadow.

So it wasn't easy from day one to do that job. And then, you know, you add the pressures of what's expected at a place like Tennessee and the fact that everybody else has gotten better and it's much more difficult to recruit the same players that were being recruited back then, and you add it all up, and it's not easy. I don't care if you look at the Montreal Canadiens or go all the way back then, or the New York Yankees for the longest time. Anybody that takes those jobs, it's not easy, especially for a young, first-time head coach. It's not easy. So Holly was in a very difficult position from the minute she took the job.

Given the landscape that we're working in now as older coaches -- you know, she's a young head coach, but she's been around the game a long time, like I have. These are not easy times for coaches who hold on to -- want to hold on to some things that we think are very, very valuable. It's not easy. It's not the job that it used to be. Actually, it's not the profession it used to be. It used to be a way of life, a profession, and now it's just a job. And like any job, there's some pitfalls to that, obviously.

I feel terrible for her. Every school is entitled to have their own coach, obviously, and Tennessee is entitled to have whoever they want as their coach. I don't know the details of all that, but I just -- any time a coach is in that situation, I feel it because we're all part of the same community. Holly will land on her feet for sure.

Q. Geno, Michelle asked basically what I was going to ask, but just to follow up a little bit, how about whoever the coach is moving forward down in Knoxville, kind of the mix of recapturing what they've accomplished over history and the different -- the opportunity, and what it might mean if the next coach is able to push Tennessee back to the elite status that they once knew.
GENO AURIEMMA: Well, it won't take long. Again, getting the right coach is always a huge, huge key, and getting someone who knows how to coach, someone who's been in some pressure situations before. So I think if they make the right decision and the right person gets in that job, it won't take long for them to be back where they were. I don't think that's going to be very difficult at all.

But their fan base is a lot like ours. They're impatient. They want everything right now. There's not going to be a lot of patience for whoever the next person is, so they're going to have to be great right away.

But when you have the tradition that they have and you have the fan base that they have and the resources that are available to them, I don't think it's going to take very long at all. I mean, I think we have a two-year contract with them. I think we play them twice. I think depending on who the coach is, we may play them ten more times, or we may not play them at all. I'm anxious to see who the coach is because it may only be two years, maybe one. I may try to get out of it next year.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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