NCAA WOMEN'S FINAL FOUR

March 30, 2001

Geno Auriemma

Sue Bird

COACH GENO AURIEMMA: I don't think -- I don't think we can put into words, you know, how you feel when something that you really, really want, and come so close to getting, and you don't get it. I think anybody who has ever been in that situation probably understands, but, you know, I don't think we can play any better than we played in the first half. I don't think I've ever seen our team be as focused and ready to play as we were in that whole first half. And then it all kind of fell apart for us in the second half. I thought Notre Dame just made so many big shots, and made a couple big stops. And when we could not get anything to drop, I think it just took the wind right out of us, and we never really recovered. It's a shame, because, you know, you hope it doesn't happen, but it happened. To Notre Dame's credit, they made every big shot they had to make, and they deserve to win, they are a great team. The best team we've played all year; no question about it.

SUE BIRD: Well, obviously, they played very well. I mean, just like Coach said, they hit a lot of big shots when they needed to, got a lot of big stops. I think as the game was going on further and further into the second half, I think we did it, we lost our composure. We'd miss a shot and, you know, there was just like (shaking head) I don't know what to call it, like panic, urgency, "Oh, my God, we have to do this; oh, my God, we have to do that." Because of that, we were unable to get a stop, get a score, get a stop, get a score, like you are supposed to do it.

SUE BIRD: Yes and no. I could see the similarities, but -- I don't know.

SUE BIRD: As a team, it may not be our night? You know, Diana has played so well in this tournament, and, you know, it's tough to shoot the way she did tonight, but it's not all on her. We are a team. So when she was not hitting the shots, somebody else has to step up and make theirs and unfortunately we were not able to make enough shots to make up for that. But, you know, it's not her fault, not by any means.

SUE BIRD: We were playing, you know, without them for so long. It's not like I was like, "Gosh, Shea and Svet." If anything I feel horrible for them that they had to sit and watch what happened tonight and know that that's it for them. I just feel so horrible about that. But, I mean, like I said, I never thought, "Oh, I wish they could step in and win the game for us." Because I knew they couldn't. I knew they couldn't.

COACH GENO AURIEMMA: I don't know, I mean, you look at the game, and I thought that -- the key to playing them is you can't allow everybody to get the shots that they want. I think Notre Dame did a really good job of spreading the ball around, and the whole team played with so much confidence. I think the only thing that really would have had a bigger outcome on the game was -- I think the 3 they got right at the end of the half, for some reason, I just think that was really important to Notre Dame, because I think it sent them in the locker room with the feeling like, "Hey, you know, all we need is a couple shots to drop and we'll be all right." I think they all shot the ball too well and played too well as a team, to say that even without Ruth Riley -- even without her in there, obviously they are a different team. I think tonight, they just had too many players play well.

COACH GENO AURIEMMA: I actually thought we were in good shape, because I thought if Diana Taurasi has not scored and we are up 12, and you know Swin Cash wasn't really getting anything on the offensive end, you know, I thought we were in great shape, I really do. But, you know we came out in the second half and we ran something to get Sue, a 3, she knocks it in the first half of the second half. I thought if we can do that, I don't think we are going to hold them scoreless; they are going to make their shots. But I think Sue said it best, when our shots didn't drop, there was a sense of like, not enough people were in that situation enough times to be able to pull it off. And that's why Diana became so important, you know, because she took the pressure off of a lot of other guys, and when we were going good, we didn't need her, but then when we needed her, then she was struggling, put too much pressure on the other guys.

COACH GENO AURIEMMA: Well, I don't know. I think -- I think they are a pretty good team. I mean, they -- sometimes, you know, shooting percentages are misleading. One of the reasons why I think they are misleading against Notre Dame is you shoot a lot of 3s when you don't have to, and I think that's what causes low shooting percentages against them. You know, we were not able to sustain the play that we had in the first half. I mean, we had 49 at halftime? Did we have 49 at halftime? 49, that's two games in a row we scored 49 on them in the half. So it's not a matter of, you know, anything other than being able to sustain it. Maybe we got tired and maybe we lost our confidence. I don't know. I don't know.

COACH GENO AURIEMMA: You know, even with the players missing, I mean, you can't say that, because, you know, we played so well in the first 20 minutes, and I really think that if our post players had been able to get the ball more -- I think, you know, you've got to live and die sometimes with young players and Diana wanted to shoot her way out of her shooting slump. You know, best way to get out of a slump was to pass the ball to Schu; it was killing them in the first half, killing Tamika on the baseline. We didn't do that in the second half. You can't say it was because we were missing any players. It was just we didn't do the things we needed to do to be effective against Notre Dame. They are just too good defensively to just do one thing. The reason we scored 49 points and had a 12-point lead because we were getting them inside and outside the first half. Second half, we stopped doing that.

COACH GENO AURIEMMA: Well, it the same players. Just better. You know, they are a year old, more mature, more self-confident. That means an awful lot. You know, if every time they get an open shot, certain guys, they make them and that's the difference. They don't get rattled when they get down. The pressure doesn't bother them as much. You know, they are much more poised as individuals and as a team. They have been through a lot of bad times, that group, and that's -- that's how you learn, by going through the tough times that they went through.