NCAA WOMEN'S FINAL FOUR

March 29, 2001

Geno Auriemma

Sue Bird

Swin Cash

COACH GENO AURIEMMA: I don't know. It's kind of a tough situation to be in, where you lose to somebody once in 12 tries and it's traumatic. So I guess we've got to live with that. You know, in our league, that's just the way it is. If we lose to somebody, we've got to answer that question for the next five years. We've put ourselves in that situation, and that's part of the deal. So the fact that we lost at Notre Dame -- That's a Notre Dame grad. John, you okay there? (Chair falls over in audience). I hope their team plays like him tomorrow. That's just the way it is. We've come to accept that. If we lose, it's a big story. If we lose to anybody but Tennessee, you know, it's a big story all over. Our players are accustomed to that, and we are accustomed to every game that we play. We know that if we don't win, we don't do our part, and if somebody beats us, then we have to answer, you know, a thousand questions. When we lost to Notre Dame at Notre Dame, it was -- everybody's going to play Connecticut two-three zone the rest of the year because Notre Dame beat them with two-three zone.

GENO AURIEMMA: All bets are off. We have Coach of the Year, Defensive Player of the Year, Student of the Year, Best Shooter of the Century, Most Improved Player, so all bets are off. We just want to not get blown out.

SUE BIRD: I'm looking forward to it. She's a really good player. Played against her a couple times now. I think Notre Dame really struggles when she doesn't have the ball in her hands. We're going to try to throw the offense off by just keeping the ball out of her hands as much as possible.

GENO AURIEMMA: Yeah. I think that's natural, though. I think that's what happens. I think that's the case in any sport, at any level. Until your team wins big, and wins on the national level, it's very difficult to be recognized as a -- being as good of a player as you are. So is Jackie Stiles a better player this year than she was last year? Probably. But the fact that their team is better and they are in the Final Four, now everybody thinks Jackie Stiles has been a great player. She's been a great player all along but until you win, win on national tournament, win in the NCAA Tournament, people tend to not pay that much attention to you. It's unfair, but that's the way that it is.

GENO AURIEMMA: Well, this isn't their first trip to the Final Four. I mean, they have been in the Final Four before. It's -- it goes in cycles, you know. I mean, I remember in '90 when we made it, it's like, how can a team from the northeast make the Final Four. That's never happened before. And then a couple years later, Southwest Missouri State was in, Texas Tech was in. All of the sudden, you get all of these new teams coming in. Then it went back the other way for a while, started to become Stanford, Tennessee, Georgia, and now we are back to, you know, some new teams become in there. I think this goes in cycles, but there's more good players at more good schools. I've always said, as the officiating improves, you're going to see more upsets and more teams, rather than traditional powers make it to the Final Four. I'm not surprised at all that there's new faces here this year. There's more good players and more good schools.

SUE BIRD: The coaching? No (laughs). I think first, it is definitely difficult to kind of swallow when two of your best players go down. But at the same time, you know we realized that the season was not over, and we knew that if anyone, both Shea and Svet would want us to get to the Final Four and win another National Championship. And we also had that mentality, and we did have to regroup and gain our focus on what we've wanted to do. We've done that, and that's why we are here right now.

GENO AURIEMMA: Oh, I don't know. I mean, I know it's hard to get tickets back home, but the only thing harder than getting tickets is getting flights out to St. Louis. But, you know, we are going to be in a dome next year, and we'll see.

GENO AURIEMMA: Yeah, I think so. We have 10,000 seats filled every night when we play at the Civic Center, there's 16,000 every night. Those people are season ticket holders and they would all want to get tickets if they could. Like even last year, we're at Philadelphia, it's a four-hour drive from where we live, and you only get 700 tickets or whatever. So it's really tough on the fan that is following you all year that can't get tickets. So when we move into the domes, I think it will make it easier for everybody.

GENO AURIEMMA: Well, if Sue had shot the ball earlier more in the Notre Dame game, we would not have needed the last shot to win. That's the way I look at it. (Smiles). But people have to play to their personalities. Swin has got one personality, Sue has a personality, Asjha Jones has another personality. Everybody has a personality that they carry on to the court and whatever it is, it is and that's very difficult to change. Some people are very aggressive. Swin is very aggressive when she gets the ball. Sue is very passive. She would rather pass it to somebody than shoot it, except when there's a lot at stake, and she feels like she has to shoot it. It's very difficult to change that. But I'm glad it's not the other way around, where she loves to shoot winning games on the line and doesn't want the ball when the game is on the line so I think we've got a pretty good situation. I think in this tournament, there are a lot of good guards in this tournament. You know, there are an awful lot of good guards. Kelly Komara and Katie Douglas and Sue Bird and Jackie Stiles, Niele Ivey and Alicia Ratay, there's a lot of good guards in this tournament. You know, hopefully we've got some big guys that might be the difference.

GENO AURIEMMA: I don't think it had anything to do with that. I think that night ended when that shot went in. That was it. That was over. That was for the BIG EAST championship. There was, you know, an exclamation point at the end of that. Boom, this is over, now we are starting another part of the season, the NCAA tournament. You know, that shot -- had we lost, I'm not sure it would have -- it would have made that much difference, and then we would have lost the BIG EAST championship. But going into the NCAA tournament, we put the BIG EAST tournament behind us and move on. It's a completely different season as far as we are concerned.

GENO AURIEMMA: Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's got two days to catch up to us, so we've been able to run from it this long. We lost two guys that played key roles in winning the National Championship last year, and they are not here. What we would miss the most, besides their points and rebounds and assists, that's 3,500 points and they are in the Top-5 in just about every category, but what we will miss the most Friday night is the steadying influence they would bring, because now we have Taurasi and Johnson out there, and maybe that will catch up at some point during the game. But with Shea and Svet. You knew it would not catch up to them.

GENO AURIEMMA: Have we changed? We are bigger in the front line. We start three forwards now instead of three guards. We don't press as much. We probably haven't gotten out on the break as much because we had two of the great finishers in college basketball out on the wing. But we have made some changes that hopefully will show up tomorrow night in the way we play and that will get our break back. But we've had to scale it back a little bit, play a little more halfcourt.

SWIN CASH: First part of that question, I think this year more than last year, Kelley Siemon and Ruth Riley are a great combination, especially when she gets trapped in the post she always seems to find Kelley. I think we have to just step up and defend them inside, throw a couple different looks at them. Ruth Riley is a great player. She is going to score points in different parts of the game, but if we can contain her the majority of the game I think we'll be all right.

GENO AURIEMMA: Yeah, the first game was really bad for us. So the shooting percentage in the first game kind of through it out the window because we just played lousy. The second game, even if you take away Sue's 3-pointer at the buzzer, we scored 49 points in the first half, and Shea played I think 13 minutes or something like that, and without Svet. In the second half, we shot the ball poorly, but we figured out a way to win the game. I think if she would shoot the ball well Friday, we are going to be in a great shape. But you have to control over that. You know, once you shoot the ball, it goes in or it doesn't go and it's out of your hands. We just want to make sure we get good shots. And if we do, we'll be fine. We'll be fine.

GENO AURIEMMA: Well, I think that's disrespectful to the other two teams. I don't think that's fair to two really good teams that are here, because if we act like that's the National Championship game, Friday night, then whoever does win that game is going to lose on Sunday and I think everybody will have egg on their faces. I think there's four really good teams here, and I think all our of them that are here are capable of winning the National Championship. The National Championship game is Sunday night. That's the way we look at it. The semifinals are Friday.

GENO AURIEMMA: Well, you only see her once in awhile. That's why you're saying that. I see her every day. It's like grandparents: They love grandkids because they don't have to go home with them. I have to live with her every day. (Laughs) so I see her freshman side but what people see on the court is absolutely right. She doesn't play like a freshman. And somebody made a good comment. They said, we have all been here so before, so we understand the pressures of going into this weekend and what it's all about. She's a freshman, she doesn't know any better so she thinks there are just more basketball games to be played. But even beyond that, I think she has a way of looking at things that's unique. Nothing bothers her. If she misses eight shots in a row, she's kind not even worried about it, which kind of bothers me, but she just plays the game like she's in a playground with a bunch of games. And that's probably the way you should play it. If more people played like that it would be a better game to watch.

SUE BIRD: That's a tough question. I just think our preparation -- I mean our preparation was good for the game. I just think how we approached that first Notre Dame game, we didn't do that the right way. We all went in there kind of like, yeah, we've beaten them eight games straight, whatever it was. We just kind of like went in there, we always beat them, we are UCONN and they are Notre Dame. I think because of that, there were not people who said anything about that, and got everybody ready. That's kind of where I was coming from when I said that I blame myself, just because, you know, even though I'm not a senior, I've still been here for a long time and I still am one of the leaders on this team and it's up to somebody to do that. And from then on, I kind of wanted to take more responsibility of getting this team ready to do what we have to do on the court. I guess he'll answer how I've been doing that.

GENO AURIEMMA: We have kind of a unique situation on our team. We don't have designated leaders, so to speak. We have a lot of players on our team that are pretty self-motivated, and they -- they seem to step up when we need them. It's hard to put in words. I mean, I've been here before when we had definite -- these are the two players that are our leaders. You know, I've been here other years when this is the player that everything revolves around, and this team is not like that. And that's why I don't think any one of them puts all the pressure in the world on themselves to be that person, because they know that they all have the ability to do it at different times. I think that's what makes us who we are.

GENO AURIEMMA: Ruth Riley? Well, there have been times in the past when Ruth Riley has played really well against us and Notre Dame still lost because the other players around her were not able to take advantage of some of the things that were left to them. And then there were times like last year at the Civic Center where she just played poorly and got flustered by the pressure and got herself in foul trouble and lost her composure. I think the improvements this year are she's much more mature. She's much more patient in the post. She knows when to make her move, when to pass the ball. She doesn't lose her composure as much. You know, it's compounded by the players around her are all a lot better. I mean, Kelley Siemon deserves to be the most improved player in the League because she takes advantage of all of the things that happen because of all of the double-teams on Ruth. Ratay, she needs like a split second to knock it in and she has been much more consistent. You know, they have managed to stay on an even keel, and I think that's the biggest thing. Their emotional level from the first time I saw them play this year until now has not changed one bit. It's probably a result of they have got three seniors that are very mature and they lend a lot of stability to that team.

GENO AURIEMMA: That was a different recruiting -- that was much different than any of the other ones I've been involved with, to be honest with you, because her father was born not far from where I was born in Italy. You know, it's just one of those things. It's luck, you know. I kind of knew that there was a -- I collect some wines and there's a wine called Taurasi and it's from the town next to where I was born and it's spelled exactly the same, and I figured, you know, what are the chances and I kind of followed it up and asked about it. And it turns out that it was exactly right. Her father doesn't speak English very well, and neither did my father or mother, and so I could relate to that. So the home visit was done a lot in Italian, a lot in English. It was pretty interesting. It was pretty unique. And I could really relate to what Diana is doing, because when I was in high school, you know, my parents had no idea what I was doing. They had never been to school. My mother had never been to school a day in her life. So when you are in high school and you are getting ready to go to college, if you have parents that have been in college, you know that they can give you some guidance. Her parents really weren't in a position to help her make a decision or help her with the whole recruiting process. So I knew what she was going through, and I think we connected on some level, because of our experiences growing up. Now I treat her the way my dad treated me; I yell at her every day, and I'm never happy with anything she does. (Laughs).

SUE BIRD: I played with her this summer on the USA basketball team. I got to watch her in action a lot this summer and I am not surprised by anything she has done here. She is an incredible player and her work ethic is something, just by watching her, it's something I've learned from. She never gets tired, which is incredible. I think that's the one thing that really impressed me the moment, besides her shooting and her ability to play the game. It's like she never gets tired. It's like ridiculous, just in some of the drills we did. I think she's a great player and I'm not surprised at all she has carried her team this far. I think they are very dangerous right now. So, look out.

GENO AURIEMMA: Four.

GENO AURIEMMA: You know, when Tonya was in toys, I was coaching in Virginia and we started recruiting her. And then I went to Connecticut and I didn't think we would be able to recruit a kid -- a player that good. We were not ready for somebody like that at that time. But I always liked Tonya. There's just something about her, that quiet confidence that she has. That play. You know, I've coached a lot of kids, and it's supposed to be fun. And when I saw Tonya running down the floor, going after a loose ball and fell, it was just instinctive. I just gave her a big bear hug and I tried to drag her off the court and tried to kidnap her. It was -- I just tried to have fun back then. It wasn't as serious as it is now. We tried to have fun. Honest to God, if she had not made those four free throws in the last minute, I think we would have won, but if she had not made those four freethrows, I would not have hired her, either. So it all worked out the best for everybody.