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NCAA WOMEN'S FINAL FOURApril 7, 2009Geno AuriemmaTina CharlesRenee MontgomeryMaya MooreST. LOUIS, MISSOURI Connecticut – 76 AMY YAKOLA: Pleased to be joined up here on the podium by Connecticut head coach Gene Auriemma as well as student-athletes Renee Montgomery, Tina Charles and Maya Moore. Coach, when you're ready. COACH AURIEMMA: The worst part about doing something like this is you have to be asked what it feels like. Now, I'm not saying it's because we don't want to say what it feels like, it's just you can't put into words what it feels like. This is the first time since the brackets came out that I don't feel like I'm going to get sick, physically sick, thinking about everything that was ahead of us. And I told these guys in the locker room, ever since 1995 and the team went 35-0 at Connecticut, every team after that was compared to the 35-0 team and they couldn't handle it. They didn't want to handle it. And after that 2002 team, every team was compared to that team. And now this year, after these guys ran off a bunch of wins, they had to live with the whole aura of going undefeated and winning a national championship at Connecticut. And then the more we won by, the margin of victories kept getting bigger and the more it was expected that, well, of course they're going to win. Of course they're the best team ever. Of course, of course, of course. Well, there's nothing that I'm more proud of than the fact that especially these three came in every day from September 1st until today and gave me everything they had every single day. And, like I told them, I hope I gave them as much back, and tonight we gave you the best of what we got. AMY YAKOLA: Questions for student-athletes. Q. Renee, just describe the feeling for you guys to put in all the work all year and to come out like this tonight? RENEE MONTGOMERY: It feels great. I mean, it's hard to believe just because when preseason was going on -- preseason was so hard. And I'm like, oh, my goodness, we haven't even played a game yet. And then you get to practice and the practices before the game and that's even worse. And it's just, you think, okay, we need to win 39 games to get there. It seems like forever away, and now I'm actually sitting here and we won 39 games. And, I don't know, it's just really hard to explain because it's something you wanted so bad and a lot of people I don't think get to feel the feeling when you want something really bad and you work hard for it and then actually get it. I think that's one of the best feelings, that it wasn't, you know -- the scores might have showed that we won by a lot, but it wasn't easy. And just to work hard at something and win with people I love is the best feeling -- I don't know how to explain it. Q. Tina, Coach was saying the other day that he believes that somewhere inside you lies potentially the best player in the country, it's just a matter of convincing you of that. After tonight's game, are you closer to being convinced? TINA CHARLES: I was always convinced ever since I went to Connecticut that I do have the potential to become the best center in the country if I wanted to be. I just needed the players around me to help me, which they always do every time I was in practice, and just having Coach in my ear, just pushing me all the time. One of my first -- when I came to campus and -- on my unofficial visit, the one thing I keyed in on was just Coach saying the only way you're going to play is if you work hard, and that was something that was a challenge and I just accepted it and went with it. Q. Renee, could you just comment on Tina's game tonight? RENEE MONTGOMERY: She was great. Before we went out there, Coach told us we needed to establish the post game. And I think she took it personally. She really came out there and she played aggressively on both ends of the floor. And I think that might be the best game I've seen her play in a long time, not only because of the stats, but because how she carried herself and how she scored. Even though she was getting fouls, she made sure she made the basket anyways. And on defense she was trying to block all kinds of shots. I don't know, just the way she carried herself during the game was unbelievable. Q. Tina, just to follow up exactly on what Renee said. I was going to ask, you seemed like you were smiling the whole game on the court. You had a demeanor like you were having a totally great time. Can you talk about how you were feeling as the game was unwinding? TINA CHARLES: I felt great. It was always fun to come out and just play with this team, specifically. The past two years I had fun, too, but just with this team and how hard we worked since September, like Renee said. And just the fact that it hit me that this is going to be my last time, like, playing in a Connecticut jersey with Renee. So I wanted to have as much fun as possible. Q. Tina, a lot of kids dream of this stage, national championship on the line. Your team needing you to come up big. Can you just try and describe your emotions that your team needed you, Coach needed you, and you were able to deliver at the most important time of your career? TINA CHARLES: You know, like I said, it was just another challenge, and I just wanted to show my teammates that they could depend on me, and that was just basically it. I just wanted to show that I'm going to send off Renee just feeling happy and everything. She's about to be drafted, God willing, and everything is going to go great for her. But I just wanted her to have all smiles in the next step of her career. Q. Renee, you talked about how the beginning of the season, all the expectations on you guys and you going through training camp and it was so hard. I'm curious about all three of you. Now that all those expectations are over, is the predominant emotion happiness or relief? RENEE MONTGOMERY: I think a little bit of everything. I think we can actually finally like breathe. I feel like every time we've won something this year -- I'll start back in preseason. Salt and pepper won the challenge, but everything we won, the Cancun tournament, the regular season, Big East, we always couldn't be too excited because we have another game to follow up. We can't dwell on that win because we have another game that we have to win. So I think this is the first time we actually can just stop and really enjoy the win for more than a couple days. And I think that's just the biggest thing that we can actually -- because I think the mentality of our team is we're happy with what we did but we're always looking to the future. And now I think we have, you know, time to enjoy this win and all the other ones. Q. Maya, with the team this close, what does it mean for you guys to accomplish the ultimate goal together? MAYA MOORE: Like Renee said, just to be able to achieve this goal with people that you love. I mean, I just -- I couldn't stop crying at certain points because I was so happy to have won with every single one of my teammates. I just really feel like this year we really just sacrificed and put each other first and genuinely cared about each other. And that's the best way to win it, because if we were on a team that we didn't really get along or we just came, did our work and went our separate ways, it would be nice but it wouldn't feel as good as it does right now to have your family up there with you and win it. That's why I came here. And when I signed, that's what I was hoping to get. I'm just glad I got one and I was able to do it with these wonderful girls. Q. Maya, when Becky Burke hit a 3, made it a four-point game, Coach ripped into you guys a little bit. You went on a defensive run, they didn't make another field goal pretty much the rest of the half. Just run me through that stretch in the first half, beginning of the second half and what you were able to do to turn the game around defensively. MAYA MOORE: Anytime somebody scores on us or they do hit a 3-pointer, especially, we really try to defend the 3-point line very well. It just fires us up. I mean, we know that when another team scores, we want to drive it right back at them. And usually when that happens, you know, Renee will push it in transition and the next thing find Tina and we will get one in and we'll just keep thriving on that momentum. I think it's a maturity, sign of maturity for our people to be able to have a team come close and be battling with us the whole half and just be able to get on spurts and get on runs like we were able to do. And that run right there and the way we started off the second half was key to the margin of victory that we ended up having. AMY YAKOLA: Thank you. Congratulations. Questions for Coach. Q. Geno, you mentioned yesterday that you couldn't remember wanting anything as badly as you wanted the title for Renee. Could you just speak on that now that she has one? COACH AURIEMMA: Yeah. When you've been fortunate enough as we've been to win multiple national championships and to have a couple of undefeated teams, you know it was because somewhere along that line there was probably a great guard that defined who we were, because that's just the way it is. It's like if you win a Super Bowl, you probably have a quarterback that defines the team. And every one of those players that were All-Americans and great players had the same characteristics as Renee. And she did everything they did. She handled herself exactly the way they did. She worked as hard as they did. Led as well as they led. So for a lot of them, it happened before their senior year. You think back to all the great ones that we had, Jennifer and Sue and Di and, you know, all of them, Shea, Svet, all of them, it happened before their senior year. By the time their senior year came around, it was like, okay, well, whatever, if it doesn't happen at least it happened once. But to have Renee go through three years and do what she did, the thought of it not happening for her was just, honest to God, I've been ill. Doc said, Is there anything I can give you? Yeah, I said, Give me a sleeping pill so I can wake up when the game ends. I've never felt like I felt. You would have thought -- if you followed me around the last two days, you would have thought that my team had no chance to win. That's how -- it was incredible. And now I'm so speechless. I'm so overwhelmed by how I feel about the way that it ended, that I feel like -- you know what, I kept telling myself all day long today, I said, you know, look, I know God loves everybody, and I know he's a benevolent God, and if for some reason I've done something to offend him and he doesn't like me, don't take it out on me. These kids deserve it. She deserves it. Even if I don't. Which I don't care if I don't or not. But all I kept thinking about was, man, I do not want to get up tomorrow morning with that feeling. I don't. And now I don't have to. Q. You said about two weeks ago how legends are made by winning national champions. Did Tina cement herself as a UConn legend by her performance tonight and the rest of the tournament? COACH AURIEMMA: Yeah, she's kind of like a legendary make a blockbuster movie and now we're going to wait to see how she follows that up next year. That kind of legendary. She's not Meryl Streep yet, but she is getting closer to where Tina wants to be. And that's what I'm happy about. Tina's always wanted to be what she did today. It's just that when she looked out there and said, Ooh, I'm not sure she believed that she could do it. And it had to happen for her so that now she knows she can do it. And one of the things we talked about was: You can't be a great player unless you play great in this game right here. If you ever want to be called a great player, you've got to play great in this game. And she did. I said, Go out and get a triple-double. Score as many points as you want. Block as many shots as you want, go ahead. Play like you're the best center in the country. And maybe I should have said that before every game instead of going in there, Tina Charles, blah, blah, blah. Maybe she was waiting for me to say that. I wish she would have sent me an e-mail or something. I would have said it earlier. Q. Geno, when Renee was talking about the mentality of the team, always looking ahead to the next game, in past experience of five national titles, how much have you allowed yourself to enjoy it before you started to look ahead to the next challenge? And the second part of the question is based on what you've seen of Maya, Tina, the freshmen, what you know is coming next year, do you think this team, the core of this team is capable of pulling off a Taurasi-like kind of run over the next couple of years? COACH AURIEMMA: Well, as far as the enjoyment part, there have been wins that I've enjoyed over the course of the season that I thought were really, really special and really cool. There have been moments in practice that I thought were really neat and I've gotten enjoyment out of it. Honest to God, the longer I'm doing this, the more I'm in this situation, the harder it is to enjoy it while it's happening. But the better it feels after the fact. So as we were going along on this ride, I'm constantly looking around the corner to see what's next, so I'm not appreciating the scenery along the way. And it's not until afterwards you look back and you go: Wow, that was really cool. I'm glad we did that. And, yeah, for me, you know, I have a tendency to put the season behind me immediately. Like starting tomorrow, I'm not going to be thinking about this past season. I'm not going to be thinking about next season either. So I've got a couple months where I can just clear my head and think about nothing. Come the middle of August, I'll be trying to figure out how we can do the same exact thing next year. And the minute we lose our first game, I'll start screaming at these guys: You're nowhere near as good as last year's team, they were unbelievable. Because, I don't know, I can't get past looking to the next thing. But having said all that, I do not ever want to burden these guys with what Diana did. That's just too much. That's just too much. I think they're capable of doing anything next year. But to sit here and think, you know what? Yeah, we've got what it takes to win three in a row. Man, come see me like middle of November. And by the middle of November I'll have a pretty good idea. Q. Geno, you said yesterday you were interested in finding out how that -- or before that, in fact, how the men's game would turn out given some similar situations. A, to what extent did that, you know, soothe any concerns that you had? And, B, what did you draw from that that did make you feel like, hey, you know, things have a way of turning out the way you want them to? COACH AURIEMMA: Yeah, when I saw last night's game I thought, man, you know, Michigan State just ran into a whirlwind. Carolina was the best team in the country all year, just people forgot about them, a couple of injuries, a couple of losses, but all year long everybody said Carolina was the best team, and they proved it last night. And I kept thinking, I wonder how many times the best team in the country wins the NCAA championship. Sometimes it's just the best team for six games or the best team for one night. I thought, well, that's what's going to happen with us. We're the best team in the country, we're going to win it. Then five minutes later I like, nah, just too much coincidence that it would happen two nights in a row. So you start to have like these jitters. But in '91 I went down and I touched Stan Musial's statue in the front of the old Busch Stadium and he was only good for a half (laughter). So this time I got them all. I got the whole crew down there, went all the way back, all the way back. And I figured, you know what? Now I'm a true St. Louis guy. I got to touch all the statues, rubbed all their heads. This was great. Q. Geno, I think the Yankees might be the only other team besides yours where people can say, You haven't won in five whole years, what's wrong? COACH AURIEMMA: I know. I know. Q. My question is, since you have not won, did you start to doubt how you did things, the players you were getting, are we doing something wrong, anything like that? COACH AURIEMMA: Uh-huh. It is kind of the most insane thing when you think about it, that who knows what could have happened. With a little bit of luck we could have won five in a row. We could have -- we could have eight or nine by now. I don't know anybody else that's had the injuries we've had to their great players. So with any kind of luck, we could be sitting here with eight or nine and all that. I could be second to John Wooden. That's the way some -- although, actually, you don't ever want to compare yourself to the men's coaches because that's a completely different ball game. There came a point during the last four years that it really was about you haven't won five national championships. As a matter of fact, you haven't won one since 2004. And some people, including me, I would just as soon walk away from that, because that means, you know, that there's not an appreciation for what we did. But, again, that's the world we live in. That's the world we created. And there was that four-year period where I really, four years? Five maybe? I started to question a lot of things. I started to question our recruiting. I started to question whether or not we had slipped in the way we prepared, the way we did things in our office, preseason conditioning, practice, the way practices were structured. I started to question everything, post-season workouts. Whether I had it anymore. Whether our coaching staff had been too stagnant. And, yet, every one of those years we were winning 30 games. Like in every one of those years we won 30 games except one, if I'm not mistaken. I think Renee's freshman year maybe, maybe we won 30 games all four of Renee's years there. I don't even know. I know we lost in the final eight. Final eight overtime. Final Four. And you're thinking, you know what, maybe it's just time to hang it up, we're not any good. That's sad, isn't it? That's like going to the World Series five years in a row and now winning it. Well, then you, you know, I don't want to be called the Atlanta Braves. You know, you win the most games and you don't win titles. People go -- like you're not any good, my point is. Like you're not any good, you know? Even though you're really good. But that's the world we live in now. Nobody remembers our string of accomplishments. They just remember you haven't won a national championship in four years. But I'm glad I stayed. Q. If you still do not want to declare which of your teams was the best ever, could you at least compare and contrast your undefeated teams in approach and how they handled the pressure of what they did? COACH AURIEMMA: The first one had no idea what they were doing. As a matter of fact, I just had this discussion with Jamele and Rebecca recently. The first one had no idea what they were doing. We got to Minneapolis. We stayed so far from the Final Four, they didn't know there was a Final Four going; they thought we were on a road trip and they were just going to play two games. Then we played Saturday-Sunday. It's like, What are we doing here? Then we win and we go home and there's people lining the streets of I-91 and kids are going, It's like the O.J. chase, cops everywhere. Helicopters. It was unbelievable. And it dawned on them that they had done something that was just incredible. Then the 2002 team, they were so pissed about what happened in St. Louis in 2000, they actually thought the first day of practice, if we lose a game, it's a disgrace. They actually thought that anybody that walked on the court that really believed they should be on the same court with them was out of their mind. And they played like it. This team, this team is young, fun-loving, enjoy each other's company. They're fun to be around. They get a kick out of spending time together, going to practice. And as it's all unfolding in front of them, they're kind of like, yeah, everybody thinks this is like something big. Like Renee said, we've got another game Wednesday, yeah, who do we play Saturday. And it wasn't until late, late, late in the season that they really started bearing down on it. And that's when I think I started to see a different side to them. But all three teams in and of themselves are separate, but they all had that one quality that they were really, really tight together, loved each other for the most part. And they were easy to coach. Really, really easy to coach. Q. Coach, I went and looked and saw that your first team at Connecticut actually lost more games than it won. This did not happen automatically. This did not happen by magic. It took a while to build the program to where you are right now. I see schools where the administration has a commitment to women's athletics and for whatever reason they don't win. I see very few that win that really establish a standard of excellence that don't have the real commitment from their university for that. Tell me a little bit about how University of Connecticut has played a role in setting the standard of excellence that you've got with your basketball team. COACH AURIEMMA: Well, I think if a school wanted to win a national championship right now, it would be a lot easier than in 1985 when I got the job at Connecticut. When I got the job at Connecticut, 1985, the goal at Connecticut was don't finish eighth or ninth in the league. And try to get up from eighth or ninth to fourth or fifth and live happily ever after and everything is good. Why would the expectations be high when you don't have a locker room? You're playing in a place where they roll up the bleachers, metal bleachers, and you're treated like an intramural team. So the expectation level was just try not to finish last, Coach, that would be a really big deal. Today, every BCS school that wants to win a national championship can do it. Every one. Every BCS school in America, if they wanted to, could do it. At Connecticut, they want to. Now if they didn't want to, in '85, in '86, '87, '88, '89, I mean, there's a long time there where they didn't want to, because they couldn't. They couldn't afford it. But that doesn't mean I didn't want to. I wanted to. But I think if every BCS school, and others maybe -- see, in men's basketball anybody can win a national championship. You don't have to be a BCS school. You can be any Division I school and have a shot at it. Mid-major, high major, doesn't matter. In women's basketball it's a little bit harder. But there's a lot of BCS schools out there that have a tremendous amount of resources, great facilities, tremendous tradition in their university and in their athletic department, that if they wanted to, they could. Half of them just don't want to. Now, more and more each year want to because they can see, you know, it's pretty cool if you can do this. It means a lot to the university. It means a lot to the community. It means a lot to a lot of people. It's something significant now. But that hasn't been the case yet. And it's getting better and getting better, and five years from now I would venture to say a lot more BCS schools are going to be trying to win a national championship than there were five years ago. And that's kind of the progression that we're making. There might have only been five in 1991 that could win it. Maybe now there's 30, 35 that are committed to winning it. So maybe in five years it will be 70, 55, who knows. But I think we're doing our part to kind of help that. AMY YAKOLA: Thank you, Coach. End of FastScripts |
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