	products recent interviews FastScripts archive about ASAP Sports

Our Clients:

Browse by Sport

Find us on

Subscribe to RSS

Click to go to
Asaptext.com

View our
e-Brochure

NCAA WOMEN'S FINAL FOUR

April 5, 2008

TAMPA, FLORIDA

THE MODERATOR: Joined up on the dais by Connecticut head coach Geno Auriemma as well as Ketia Swanier and Renee Montgomery. Coach.
COACH AURIEMMA: Thank you. If you're not careful when you get out to this place, it's easy to get caught up in all the things that you have to do and all the obligations that you have and it becomes about everything except basketball.
And we're all anxious to get through today and finish this part of it and start worrying about actually playing the game tomorrow. And it's been a long time for us to get back here, and for these players it's been something that they've wanted to do. Ketia, since she was a freshman and obviously Renee for the last three years.
I think tomorrow night can't come soon enough for all of us.
THE MODERATOR: Questions for the student-athletes first.

Q. Renee, it was written in the paper how there were six minutes to go in the Rutgers game she looked and saw a look in your eye that said this team is not going to lose. Is that the first time that someone has made a comment similar about that about you, and is there something that clicks in your head and you say I'm going to put the team on my back now and is that how you've always been?
RENEE MONTGOMERY: I think it's realizing how the game is on the line, think back how hard you've worked in the past and everything you've been through and you look at the clock and you realize you've got this much time to get it right and win the game. I think that's what clicks in my head. I don't think anyone wants to lose. I think as a clique as a whole, we realize now is the time.

Q. Can you just talk about this first Final Four experience, what it's been like so far and what you want to get from it?
KETIA SWANIER: It's great. It took all my years in college to get here and just to know what this team has been through, the adversity we've came through and the ups and downs and how hard we've worked.
It's exciting to be here and I can't wait to play tomorrow.

Q. Renee, can you talk about being an All-American this morning and what that meant to you?
RENEE MONTGOMERY: It's a tremendous honor. You grow up working hard to try to be all these things, and when you actually get chosen for something of that -- something that prestigious, it's overwhelming. It's hard to realize -- it's surreal. It's a blessing. I'm very honored to be put in that category.

Q. I'm sure you've seen a lot of film on Candice at this point, what have you seen that you can do to stop her, slow her down a little bit?
RENEE MONTGOMERY: Somebody of her caliber you're not really going to stop them. You want to try to contain them. I think as long as we can limit her open looks and make her have to work for everything she's going to get, that would be the best we could do. She's a tremendous player and she goes hard all the time. And I think there's no stopping Candice Wiggins, but we want to try to contain her and limit her touches.

Q. Can you talk about how much different the Stanford team you see on film now is from the team you played back in November?
RENEE MONTGOMERY: I think they're different because they're more mature. They've gotten more patient in their offense. I think in the beginning of the year they really focused a lot on Jayne Appel and Candice Wiggins, getting the majority of their points. Now they have a lot of other players that are contributing, people are stepping up and making big shots in the games now. I think throughout the year everyone's gotten confidence. And now everyone's playing at the same level instead of just depending on two people to carry the team.

Q. Renee, you're a very underrated defender. Coach talked about it in the conference call that you're usually assigned to the star player in the back court which is really hard because you are also responsible for a lot of the offense. So you're kind of on both ends working very, very hard every single game. Can you talk about how comfortable you feel with that role and how it's brought you here?
RENEE MONTGOMERY: I feel very comfortable because I know it's not just me against another player. I know even if I am guarding their best offensive player that my teammates, if I get beat, are going to be there. I don't feel like it's just me against her.
And on offense, we're so balanced that they don't depend on me for a lot of scoring. I wouldn't even have to score a point, we can still maybe win the game. I don't think it's that much pressure on me on either end because I know I have my teammates.

Q. They talked about how Stanford was different from last time you played. You guys have obviously lost two players since then. Can you talk about how your team is different and are you better? Have you matured since then?
KETIA SWANIER: I think we're a whole different team. Like you said, we lost two key players. And we pretty much had to become a different team and people had to step into different roles. And I think we've gotten smarter and more comfortable with each other, and we feed off of each other.
At this point in time it's just whoever is on the floor, I think we feed off of each other well and just mesh well with each other.
THE MODERATOR: Thank you all very much.
Questions for Coach.

Q. Having had the full week to look at tape and sort of break everything down, what are the keys to this matchup, what do you guys need to do, what do you need to avoid doing?
COACH AURIEMMA: At this point in the season, when you get down to the last weekend, the only teams that are left are teams that are really, really hard to play against. So to be able to sit there and watch a lot of film and say, okay, we can exploit this weakness, this weakness and this weakness and we can take advantage of these areas that are strengths, that's not easy to do at this point in the year, because if a team had a lot of weaknesses, they wouldn't be here.
So what you have to hope to do is play to your strengths, and that's what we've always done when we've been in this situation. And obviously Stanford's team is a reflection of Candice and the energy level that she brings and the fact that she can single-handedly keep them in the game when everyone else may be playing poorly. But if it was just the one-man operation, then it would be a lot easier.
But I think that beyond Candice, I think the keys to Stanford are how much balance they have now and how much they've grown since November when I saw them.
It's funny to say this, but the reason why Candice is scoring so much is because the other guys are better. And back in November, I don't think she was able to score a lot of points against us because we didn't have to guard the other guys as well as we're going to have to guard them tomorrow.

Q. When Baylor and Maryland won in consecutive years, there was reason to believe that parity had come finally to women's college basketball. I'm sure you're going to tell me or likely to tell me the fact it took you four years to get back here, that it's harder than ever to get here. But Moore, Parker, Wiggins and Fowles are probably four of the top six or seven players, are all here right now on perennial powerhouses. So are the best players still coming to the same powerhouses?
COACH AURIEMMA: Yeah, yeah. The best players are still going to similar schools that they went to five, six, seven, ten years ago. But I don't think we're that much different over the long haul. Other than Memphis, there's three schools in the Final Four this year on the men's side that are no strangers to the Final Four. This is UCLA's, what, third in a row. Carolina won it a couple of years ago.
And I'll bet you of the 20 kids that are starting for those guys, I'll bet you 15 of them were First Team All-Americans coming out of high school. So it's like that in just about every sport.
The problem that we have in women's basketball is that there isn't a big enough group to choose from for more teams on a regular basis to put themselves in this situation. And that may take a little more time.
But certainly, given where it was 10 years ago, 10 years ago you wouldn't have had the run that a Maryland or a Baylor or North Carolina or Duke has had in the last five, six, seven years. That wouldn't have been possible. And now it is. But just because that's possible for them, that doesn't mean that Connecticut and Tennessee are all of a sudden going to be worse.
We're still going to be who we are; it's just that other people now are catching up. How much are they catching up? That depends right now.

Q. It's been a long time since you've been to a Final Four with players that haven't already been to a Final Four. What kind of things have you done to try and prepare them and keep them from getting distracted from, like you said, all the peripheral events, all the other things besides the game you have tomorrow night?
COACH AURIEMMA: Can you give me a little bit of that question again? Just a little bit of it.

Q. Since this is the first time in a long time you've been here with players that haven't been to a Final Four, what you can do to keep them from getting distracted by all the other things than the game you have tomorrow?
COACH AURIEMMA: I got distracted. (Laughter).
It's virtually impossible. It's impossible not to be distracted. And we've been here since Thursday -- we got here Thursday night and I'll bet you since all that time we've spent three, four hours actually working on the game of basketball to prepare for tomorrow. It's neither here nor there. We're outside in the sunshine today for 40 minutes signing autographs and kids are sweating and getting sunburned. And you have to do it. And went to a dinner last night. We got there at 6:00 and left at 10:00.
So there's a lot of things that go on as part of this that you have to be able to handle it -- I think we're a little more fortunate because the kind of three-ring circus atmosphere surrounds our program on a daily basis. So this is not that far removed from what we deal with on a regular basis.
So all you can hope for is that your team is mature enough and you'll know that, unfortunately, after the fact. But I think the 37 games that we've played up to this point, or 36, whatever we've played, if they're any indication, I think we'll handle it pretty well.

Q. Have you ever had to put together or kind of reconfigure a team in the middle of a season with losing a couple of key players the way you had to do it with this team? And how do you prevent the kids from getting the "woe is us" look on their face when they lose two players like you lost?
COACH AURIEMMA: Never had to do it in this scenario. In 2001, I thought we had the best team ever to play college basketball. Our guards were so good, Diana Taurasi was coming off the bench, she couldn't crack the starting lineup, and neither could Tamika Williams or Asjha Jones, Kelly Schumacher, the guys that went in the top 15 in the draft the following year or two years later. Svetlana Abrosimova and Shea Ralph both went down, one in January and one in March, and we got to the Final Four and we're up 15 against Notre Dame and we lose the game.
There's just some things you can't overcome. There's just some things that they hit your team so hard that you can mask it and camouflage it and put some makeup on it, but sometimes you just can't get over that hump.
This year it happened early enough that it did allow us a chance to regroup. But we've been hiding it and we've been masking it and we've been covering it up. Hoping that it would never catch up to us.
So far it hasn't. But, no, I don't like any of my players, so when a couple of them can't play, they don't necessarily feel like, wow, we just lost two of Coach Auriemma's favorites, now they're going to pout. They know I don't like any of them during the season. So when those two kids got hurt, I went up to the guys already playing. Well, I said, by the way, the way you've been playing is lousy; you need to play a lot better.
Fortunately Renee, Ketia, Tina, Maya, all the kids that were already playing really, really well, we just somehow or another got them to play a little bit better.

Q. In the story about Maya Moore, I saw a, quote, tribute to you saying that in some ways "I've met my match in her." And I was wondering what you meant by that.
COACH AURIEMMA: She's just so different that it's hard to pinpoint what it is that you have to do on a regular basis to keep the motor running. And I don't ever let kids drive their own car, you know what I mean. I feel like I have to be there to kind of kick the tires once in a while most every day and fool around with the car.
And with people like Diana and Svetlana and some of those guys, I knew what I had to do to get them, because I knew that they would want to punch me and it was really cool. It was a lot of fun. It was a great way to get through the season. But with Maya, she just kind of looks at you and just gives you that smile and nods her head a little bit and I just keep going. I'm waiting for a reaction. I'm trying to get something. Because once I get a little bit of a reaction it will give me something to go on.
Just smile and nod her head. And it bothers me because I'm thinking: This kid is so smart. In the back of her head she's thinking: This idiot actually thinks he has anything to do with what I'm going to do. I'm just going to do what I'm going to do and I'm going to let him think that he does. And she just (smiling) goes (smiling) uh-huh, uh-huh. And today I even tried -- what's this world coming to that a kid has to stand out there, become First Team All-American as a freshman WBCA and she can't put two dribbles together with her head up. She has to constantly look down at the ball and she turned around and looked at me and said, That's not true, and just like walked away. What are you supposed to say to that? You're supposed to get an argument. She won't argue with you. I can't stand her. (Laughter).

Q. When Michael Jordan was a freshman, Dean Smith wouldn't let him pose with his teammates for the cover of Sports Illustrated. I can't help but notice that Maya Moore is not up there right now. Why is that? Do you find yourself nurturing her along in terms of that or do you think she has to earn something in terms of publicity? How do you handle that?
COACH AURIEMMA: I've never liked the idea of freshmen being exposed to having to represent your program in a public forum without them having complete understanding of what your program really is.
And I think Maya probably understands and grasps it and can articulate it like she did today at the All-American press conference as well if not better than anybody else.
But I guarantee if Maya Moore was right here right now with Ketia and Renee, there wouldn't be anybody in our locker room. So part of me thinks that she needs to be like all the other kids on the team, because that's what she wants. Otherwise she wouldn't have come to Connecticut. She would have gone to someplace else.
She wants to be treated like everybody else and at some day, some point, she'll be up here representing us but right now the two guys that I brought up here are the ones that know what it's like to not be here. So it's fitting that they come and answer the questions as to what it means to be here.

Q. As the previous two questions have shown, the second Rutgers game you said has been Maya, Maya, Maya, all year, referring to Lorin and how she did in that game. But Renee is so much of your floor general, she kind of steers the car, if you will. She kind of -- you've said that all year long and Chris Dailey has said that, too. Could you talk about what she brings to this team and how you've seen that, how that's led you to the Final Four?
COACH AURIEMMA: I've never been in a Final Four situation or had a team that was capable of winning the national championship where you didn't have the best guard in the country. I think that's almost impossible to do, unless you get lucky.
But at some point if you want a legitimate chance to win this thing, in my mind, the way we play anyway, when you're getting great, great guard play and great leadership from that position, I think everything and anything is possible.
And the last three years, 2005, 2006, 2007 after Diana left, we didn't have that. It's no coincidence we're here and I think Renee is as good if not better than any guard in America in every area. And maybe what she needed to prove herself was one more player that could take some of the pressure off of her.
It's not unlike when we had Jen Rizzotti, who I thought was the best guard in America. But once we added -- once we surrounded her with Rebecca and Jamelle and Kara Woelters and Carla Berube and Nykesha Sales, once we put these people around her, it came together.
But without that person there, it's not going to happen. And not for us, anyway. It might happen for other people. So we're here because Renee Montgomery got us here with a lot of help.

Q. Because of your exalted position as vice president of the WBCA, you would have had to come here even if Rutgers had beaten you. I'm wondering what you're going to miss the most about your administrative duties. Would you rather do that or coach in the Final Four?
COACH AURIEMMA: Well, I used to come to the Final Four all the time and always dreamed of what it would be like to coach at the Final Four. Then when we came here I thought, wow, I never saw this side of it. And then you come five years in a row and seven out of like nine or ten, whatever it was, you forget what the other half is like. And then last three years I was with the other guys and not playing.
And it just felt weird. It felt like you had nothing to do. You didn't want to talk to anybody. You had no friends. You had no direction. You were just here wandering around the place.
And then you get involved in this WBCA and now all of a sudden it's one meeting, one press conference, one dinner, one luncheon, one thing, one thing, one thing, and I thought, you know, the only thing worse than not playing in the Final Four is having to be on these committees at the Final Four.
So I'm excited about being a vice president. I'm excited about becoming president next year. And it's a two-year run. But I hope in the next two years I miss every single solitary thing that they have going on this weekend and that I'm playing. I will physically threaten my players in that final eight game if they force me to go to those meetings at the Final Four.

Q. Can you tell us about recruiting Maya and how you think you got her and what made her decide to come to UConn?
COACH AURIEMMA: See, all that time at Philadelphia served you well. Don't ask the rest of the question.
Recruiting Maya Moore. I think the number one reason why Maya Moore came to Connecticut is beyond a shadow of a doubt, and she'll tell you this, Maya Moore came to Connecticut because she's smarter than the average kid. And she doesn't buy into the recruiting nonsense. She doesn't buy into recruiting pitches. She doesn't buy into the flash and the glitz and the glitter and she doesn't allow you to recruit her mother, her coach, her boyfriend. She doesn't get into all that.
Maya Moore came to Connecticut because I got to know one person during the recruiting process, and that was Maya Moore. And that's all I ever wanted to know and that's all I ever wanted to show her. All I ever wanted to let her know is what Connecticut had to offer her and what her four years at Connecticut would reward her with.
And I told her that nothing else was ever going to matter. It doesn't. It won't, and it never will.

Q. You saw her in high school, was it the same level of excitement with Taurasi or anybody else?
COACH AURIEMMA: No, because she wasn't like that. As a matter of fact, this is how ironic this is. I went down to the Georgia State championships to see Ketia Swanier play in the state championship game, after we had already signed her. And as I'm in the building I'm watching one of the other games and I said to somebody sitting, I said, Who is that kid? Her kneepads were bigger than her legs and she looked like this gangly ninth grader. I said, Who is that kid? They said that's Maya Moore. Is she any good? She's unbelievable. Do you know her? Ninth grader. I'm not one of these guys that goes to seventh grade and rates the top seventh graders in America.
And so I got back home and I said you're allowed to send a thing as long as you don't -- I don't think we started cheating then. I think that was after that. (Laughter). Probably get in trouble for sending a letter when we were in ninth grade. But I remember contacting the school and before you even know it, a newspaper article in an envelope arrived on my desk and it was from Maya's mom with two pictures of Maya inside talking about the state championship and all that and said, Coach, just want you to be aware there's a great player down here; her name is Maya Moore and you might want to keep an eye on her in the next couple of years.
Maya doesn't know this. I have that in my desk a picture of her in ninth grade like (grinning) like you get in ninth grade. At some point in time when she thinks she's really hot stuff, I'm going to pull it out and show it to her. But no more complicated than that.
THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Coach.

End of FastScripts

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297