|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
NCAA WOMEN'S FINAL FOURApril 3, 2013Geno AuriemmaNEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA THE MODERATOR: We're joined by Geno Auriemma. Opening remarks, please. COACH AURIEMMA: I think the committee did a terrific job this year each and every year, especially recently, we're getting a lot more parity in the tournament, a lot more excitement in the tournament. And I'm sure you appreciate a lot less coaches complaining about their region. I want to say thank you on behalf of all of us coaches, and it's the most important time of the year for these players. It's what they work for for 12 months out of the year and coaching staff's put a lot of time and effort into this, and this is our reward. And I want to thank you and the committee for making all this possible for us. As far as our team, we've played really, really well since the NCAA Tournament started. The Idaho game carried it right on through. And we beat four really good teams and the last two in the regionals, I couldn't imagine that we could play any better. Getting great contributions from a lot of different people. This is where we'd hoped we'd be when we started practice in October. It's a familiar place for us, fortunately. Familiar opponent, unfortunately. I know starting today when we begin our preparation, this team is focused on one thing and one thing only. And that's putting ourselves in a position to win a national championship. And I know we're all anxious to get started. THE MODERATOR: Questions. Q. Coach, despite all that Kelly has done and all that she is in your program, we still call her underrated. Is she the most underrated great player you've ever had? And Sunday she's going to go against Skylar Diggins for the 15th time. It's two Hoosiers who have become elite players in storied programs. I wonder if you have any thoughts on how they've represented themselves and their programs. COACH AURIEMMA: Well, I think Kelly is for sure, or has been, I should say, one of the more underrated players, both in our program and nationally. Underrated in terms of what the expectation level is of what a Connecticut player is supposed to look like and people view scoring or stats as a way of measuring how good someone is. In the last four years for us, she's been invaluable, starting with her first game of her freshman year. There's no one I would want to represent us in everything that she does, more than Kelly. I think she is what Connecticut basketball is all about. Just show up every day, practice hard, play hard, compete for a national championship and not worry about whether you get any credit or not. As far as the rivalry with Skylar Diggins, it's been great for them for four years in high school and now four years in college. I don't know what the record is against each other. It might be 7 and 7, it might be 8 and 7 or 7 and 8, I have no idea. But I do know that there's a tremendous amount of respect there. I know Kelly has a lot of respect for Skylar and what she's done. And I think the two of them have represented the state of Indiana like you think they would. The state has a tremendous reputation for hard‑nosed basketball players. They certainly have done the state proud. And I'm not surprised, and I don't think the people in Indiana are surprised either. Q. It is 7 and 7. COACH AURIEMMA: That's appropriate since this will be the last time they'll be playing against each other. It's been a heck of a rivalry, I think individually maybe less so than team‑wise. But Skylar's gotten a lot more attention and certainly a lot more accolades for what she's done for Notre Dame. But I don't think Kelly would trade her national championship for anything in the world. Q. I don't know if anybody pointed out to you but New Orleans is the first city to host three Final Fours and your team has been in three of them. Wondered what you thought about the significance of that and what does it say about the consistency of your program? And also you got a couple new bosses with local connections in Warde Manuel and Debbie. How have they been to work with this past year? COACH AURIEMMA: You're right about the three Final Fours in New Orleans. And we're 1 and 1 the first time we came down here in 1991. We're like Louisville is this year or Cal. No one expected us to be there, but we came down there and we enjoyed every minute of it. And when we came down in 2004, I think everyone expected us to win a national championship, and we did. As far as the city's concerned, I love it. I've been down there a bunch of times. I enjoy the people. And certainly enjoy the atmosphere and I'm looking forward to coming down there, and every time my family's been down there, especially in 2004, I can assure you that my family, after that championship game, really enjoyed the city. And Warde, everybody's heard about my new contract. That was contingent on us getting to the Final Four. Warde being from New Orleans, there's a clause in my contract that it was going to be ripped up if we didn't win and get him back to his city. He's been absolutely fantastic for me personally, for our team, for our athletic department, for our university. And Debbie, bringing Debbie up here has been like a dream come true for me. I've never had an advocate for our program in all the years I've been here that works as hard as Debbie does to make sure that our basketball program is the best that it can be. So I'm really, really in great company and I'm really happy for them. Q. Moriah has been on the floor with Bria a fair number of times recently. Can you talk about that dynamic and what her evolution might mean for you guys in terms of getting a better result against Notre Dame? COACH AURIEMMA: One of the things we wanted to do a little differently after the Big East Tournament was we wanted to get Bria off the ball a little more and allow her to concentrate on scoring more so than she was earlier this season. She's been in a bit of a slump. She struggled all year long with injuries at first and then just not playing well enough and getting down on herself a little bit. So the fact that Moriah is playing so well right now has allowed us to move Bria and the two of them I think work great together. They really compliment each other well. Defensively they were great last weekend. Offensively, they were both super aggressive. It changes our team obviously when the two of them are like that. It gives us a whole different look than when we have Caroline in there. So I hope we accomplished our goal that when we saw, bring people off the bench the game changes, and it certainly has this past weekend. Q. I know you've played Notre Dame quite a bit obviously, as you mentioned a familiar opponent. And all the games have been close. I'm wondering, with all your experience, to what degree do you worry about there being a mental edge that Notre Dame has here or mental obstacle that your team has to overcome? COACH AURIEMMA: Well, I do believe‑‑ I believe in that theory to a certain extent. I know we have beaten them 12 times in a row. And I'm sure not all of that was physical. I think some of that was that we had a decided mental advantage when you know that you can beat someone, it certainly does give you maybe more confidence and it certainly does give the other team more cause for concern. And the fact that every game has been so close and every game's gone down to the last, in some cases, last possession, it would be a really different scenario if we had really, really played poorly and lost a lot and felt like they're just too good and we don't have it right now. But the fact that every game has come down to the last minute means there's a couple of things that we didn't do well. And there's a couple of things that I need to impress upon my team over the next three or four days. And I think come Sunday night, when that game starts, I hope‑‑ and I want to believe that what's happened in the past is not going to be a factor. Q. Couple questions on Morgan Tuck. Obviously she had a bruised knee and then she slipped on the ice. She did start in the triple overtime game against Notre Dame and played 34 minutes‑‑ didn't play, didn't start after that. Can you just talk about the ups and downs for her season, typical ups and downs? And also her sort of counterpart from this area, Jewell Lloyd has been a huge contributor to Notre Dame. Can you talk about what you've seen of Jewell in the three games you've played them. COACH AURIEMMA: Yes, as far as Jewell is concerned, I think she's added another dimension to Notre Dame's team. They lost two really quality starters from last year, Natalie Novosel and Brittany Mallory. And being the center, I think Jewell Lloyd defensively has given them a lot. Offensively has given them an awful lot. She's a great athlete. And she's played really, really well in big moments for them. As far as Morgan's concerned, I thought the first month of our season, when we were practicing, I thought Morgan Tuck was the best post player on our team. She did everything right for an entire month. And her knee all of a sudden became a real issue and she starting missing practice more and more and she started to lose a little bit of her confidence and it's been an up‑and‑down season. But I gotta tell you this NCAA Tournament, she's been terrific. And I trust her. Her teammates trust her. I wouldn't hesitate to put Morgan out there early and often on Sunday, and I think she's going to have a huge national championship tournament. Q. Wondered if you could please address two things, first being the total contrast in the size of the bracket with two teams that know each other as well as any two Final Four teams in history. And, two, surprising to a lot of people is that they are there and they don't know each other at all. And also if you could address sort of the bittersweet nature of what a triumphant Final Four this is for the Big East, with three teams, the Big East as we know it is going away? COACH AURIEMMA: I was talking to Pat McKenna, our SID, maybe we ought to do with the NFL and reseed the teams when they get to the Final Four so we wouldn't have to play Notre Dame every year. But that would take away from the Cinderella nature. Cal's never been to the Final Four. Louisville's, this is their second opportunity and both Jeff and Lindsay have done a great job at their schools, and one of them is going to be playing in the national championship. And that's something that I'm sure very, very few people predicted that both of those schools would be in that position that they're in right now. So that's just part of the NCAA tournament's beauty. And, yeah, on the other side of the bracket you've got the complete opposite thing. And it's become a great rivalry. It's become a game that people look forward to, and we certainly have had some memorable games already this year and last year as well. And we have three Big East teams in the Final Four and we have two on the men's side. So we've got five of the eight Big East teams, five of the eight national championship contenders are Big East schools. So I guess the shoutout should go out to all the presidents for having the foresight to tear apart the greatest basketball conference that ever existed. But as basketball coaches, I'm sure Rick and Jim Boeheim and Muffet and Jeff. And I feel we wouldn't want to be anywhere else. And we wish it didn't happen but we have no control over it. But I guess it's a great swan song. If it's going to end, this is a great way for it to end. Q. To follow up on the question about the mental aspect. Do you feel your team is at a different place mentally than it was going into the Big East championship game, and also could you update us on Stefanie Dolson? COACH AURIEMMA: Stefanie's‑‑ we haven't done anything obviously since Monday night. And she's in great hands. Rosemary Ragle and our medical staff are spending every waking moment that we can with her, and we're going to get together this afternoon so I'll know a little bit more this afternoon. But obviously she's not going to be 100percent come Sunday night. But I thought she was magnificent over the weekend. 21 rebounds on one leg against those two teams is pretty amazing. So I'm hoping, keeping my fingers crossed, that we're going to be able to get her best effort. But I'm not sure about that. As far as where we are: Yeah, that's one of the things we try to do here. We try to separate the regular season, the end of the Big East tournament from the NCAA's. And I've always thought that we've entered the NCAA tournament certainly in the last 20 years with a different mindset than what we had at the end of the season. This is a completely different animal. It's a completely different atmosphere, and we approach it completely different than we do our regular season. So physically we're not exactly where we want to be. But we haven't been all year. Mentally, we're probably in a better place right now than we have been at any time this season. Q. First off, I think a lot of people thought Notre Dame would be a good team this year. I'm not sure anyone would have expected them to have the season they did. Why do you think for that team things came together as they did? COACH AURIEMMA: I remember‑‑ I remember when we went to the Final Four in 2002. And we won a national championship and we lost four starters. And Diana Taurasi was the lone starter returning. And I don't know that anyone thought that we could win another national championship but we did. And we did it on the strength of the best guard in the country. And you can't underestimate what having the best guard in the country means. And when you've got somebody like Skylar Diggins who can control every single game and make her teammates better than anyone thought they could be, you have what happened this year. And I think Muffet's done an incredible job of guiding that team to where they are today. And Muffet by herself would not have been able to do it. And Skylar by herself would not have been able to do it. And I think those two working together have taken a team that most people thought would be really good to being a great team. And they both should be commended for that. Q. Mark Cuban today, I'm not sure you saw this, today said he would consider drafting Brittney Griner in the 2013 draft. He said she would obviously make the team but he was thinking seriously about giving her a shot to do that. And I wanted to get your reaction to Cuban's comments today. COACH AURIEMMA: Well, obviously Mark Cuban's a genius, because he's been able to parlay some great ideas into billion‑dollar industries, and he's done a great job as the owner of the Dallas Mavericks and he's won an NBA championship. And he's done a lot for basketball. His genius would take a huge hit if he drafted Brittney Griner. And if Brittney Griner tries to make an NBA team, I think it would be a public relations thing. I think it would be a sham. The fact that a woman could actually play right now in the NBA and compete successfully against the level of play that they have is absolutely ludicrous. Q. Wonder if you could just talk about, what do you think is the trademark of a team coached by Muffet McGraw, what do you see in that, and can you talk a little bit about your relationship, is it a rivalry between you two? COACH AURIEMMA: Well, the trademark of Muffet's teams is they play well together. They pass the ball exceptionally well. They play a real intelligent brand of basketball. They're tough. They're tough kids. They get more than their share of loose balls, 50/50 balls. They get more than their share of free throws, because they attack the basket as well if not better than any other team. So you watch them play, and all you can think of is they're really, really good. They're sound in every area of the game. As far as our competition, Muffet and I, we play golf together a couple times. And she gets all fired up about driving the ball further to me, which is a big deal when your teeing off 50 yards in front of me. That goes to show you how competitive Muffet is. She's incredibly competitive. But I think the competition between us is about Notre Dame versus Connecticut, not necessarily about Muffet versus Geno. She doesn't have to prove anything to me and I don't have to prove anything to her. Q. You mentioned a few minutes ago about the mental edge or possibly a mental edge. But on the flip side there's also the law of averages. I think two years ago when it was the opposite way, you had won three straight and talk about you had never beaten a team four times in one year and didn't. How much do you think is that a factor in this game, is that there's three games where it's down to the last possession, how tough is it to beat a team like that four times? COACH AURIEMMA: I think it's difficult. I don't think it's undoable. I mean, obviously it's difficult when you're talking about two teams that have played games that were decided at the last seconds. But if you can do it three times, you can do it four times. As I said, I don't know that what happens on Sunday is going to have‑‑ that's going to be the result of the previous three. I think if we play exceptionally well, we're going to beat them. If they play exceptionally well they're going to beat us. And I don't know that the law of averages‑‑ obviously if we play each other enough, it's going to turn. That's why it turned from where we were with them before to where they are with us now. Q. Wondering about the big picture in terms of the Cinderella teams and Griner and a stalwart like Stanford being out, is it good for women's college basketball to have new faces out, or is it not a detriment to not have Griner, the biggest star the game's had for a while? COACH AURIEMMA: Well, one of the things I talk about, when the NCAA tournament starts with my team is, is the beauty of the NCAA tournament is that it's not about which team is supposed to be there, which players are supposed to be there. The NCAA tournament, the beauty of it is you have one night six times or actually four times. You have one night four times to prove that you deserve to be in the Final Four. And the team that proves it the best, they deserve to be there. So just like in the years we've gotten beat, Baylor doesn't deserve to be there. They didn't play well enough. Neither does Stanford. Neither does any other team that lost. If we had lost or Louisville had lost we don't deserve to be there. So that's the beauty of the NCAA tournament. The fact that you've got new faces, I think it's great. I think we don't have a face that everyone knows like Skylar Diggins or Brittney Griner or Elena Delle Donne or all the First Team All‑Americans, Chiney Ogwumike, we, don't have anybody like that this year. But I've been there with Diana or Maya Moore and all those people so I know what it's like to have everyone focused on one individual or two individuals, and this year I'm sure the focus on the Final Four is going to be on Skylar Diggins. But I think because it's only one person a lot of people are going to get to see some other really, really good players that people haven't talked about this year. I mean it's just now that Shoni Schimmel and Jude Schimmel are coming into the limelight. They've been great all year. And if you were in our league you would know how hard they are to play against. The kids that Cal has because they haven't been on national television a lot, people don't necessarily know who they are. Well, now, for a few days people are going to be talking about those kids. And that might not be the case if all the big names that everyone expected to be there were there taking up all the attention. Q. You already talked about the Big East being the greatest conference in college basketball, I guess both men and women, could you give us with your familiarity with the league, what is Cal in for exactly? They would have to beat two teams from your conference, you know all three obviously, to win. I don't know if you would highlight differing styles between the way they play and the way the Big East plays and kind of along those lines what are your thoughts on that? COACH AURIEMMA: Well, I'm not sure‑‑ you mean what are the styles of our three Big East teams and how they differ from‑‑ Q. How hard is Cal‑‑ given how good the Big East has proven to be now, they're going to have to obviously beat Louisville and either you or Notre Dame. COACH AURIEMMA: Okay. Well, that kind of cuts both ways. You know, if Louisville wins, then it's going to be two Big East teams playing for the national championship. Two teams that know each other, two coaches that know each other. That presents its own challenges. If Cal wins and beats Louisville and Cal is playing for the national championship against a Big East team, sometimes what you don't know doesn't hurt you. If Cal wins, they're going into a game against a Big East team saying, okay, so what. If they had played a bunch of Big East teams before and knew, oh, boy, this is what we're up against, sometimes that's worse. So I think the inner struggles in our conference, the way we beat each other up all season long, thank God we don't play each other all of us twice, home and home. We might not have any teams left to play in the NCAA tournament. But I do think we look forward to playing other teams from other conferences, that's why traditionally we've done well in the NCAA tournament as a conference. But I think for Cal it could go either way. They could be intimidated, which I doubt, or they could show whoever wins our game with Notre Dame a side of a team we've never seen before. So that's the beauty of it. Q. There's another story about what's acceptable in coaching today in practice and that, where is the line in coaching behavior. I wonder if you could briefly comment on how maybe difficult it is for people who don't coach to understand where the line is between acceptable and not acceptable practices. COACH AURIEMMA: I know each coach has their own line that they think is the acceptable line. And that maybe varies by how a coach perceives they need to coach to get their team to be successful. And maybe some coaches are on that line. Some coaches try to stay below that line. I can't speak for other coaches for sure. And, believe me, I acted like an idiot at practice more times than I can ever, ever recount. But some of the stuff that I saw, and I've got a friend of mine whose son is on that staff, so obviously it's difficult for me thinking about it, but if what I saw is accurate, and I would assume it is, there is no line that could be drawn that would make that behavior acceptable. I don't know where you would draw the line that you could say, well, we were on the line or below the line. From what I've seen, that behavior is the kind of behavior my son played college basketball. I would not want any of my kids or anybody be put in that situation ever. Q. We were talking a little bit about Louisville. You played Baylor this year. Can you just tell me what it took for Louisville to beat them and what you feel like they bring to the table against Cal. COACH AURIEMMA: I know Jeff Walz is going to get a lot of requests at every clinic this year to explain his defense against Brittney Griner. And I know he's probably going to get some job offers. Thank God I signed my contract or they might be looking to hire him. I know all that, if you had said before the Baylor game, Jeff, you know something, you're going to make 16 3s tonight and some of them they ought to give you five points because of where you're shooting from, he would have told you you're crazy. So what happened in the Baylor game? It was a perfect storm. Louisville played hard. They played aggressive. They were tough. They played the way Baylor always plays. Baylor plays hard. They're aggressive. They're tough.  And Louisville played exactly the same way. And then they added to that just a ridiculous shooting night that you just can't ever anticipate, and there's no way that Baylor was, I guarantee you, there was no way that Baylor was expecting anything remotely close to that. So that helped them in the Tennessee game because they came out with the same level of confidence that they played against Baylor. And right now, let me tell you something, those Schimmel twins‑‑ not twins‑‑ but those Schimmel sisters, they might be the most exciting players in the country right now. And if I was Cal, I would say I don't know how we're going to stop them. And that's just two of them. Right now that whole team is playing with an amazing amount of confidence. Q. Geno, just to follow up on that last point you made about the Schimmel sisters. I wonder if you could explain what you've seen from them that makes them maybe the most exciting players in the country. COACH AURIEMMA: I watched the game. I saw pictures of them when they were young. I couldn't quite listen because my grandson was running around. Where do they live, Canada, Vancouver, someplace, I'm not exactly sure where they're from, but they had their outfits on and they had some traditional Indian or Native American clothes on. And I thought, man, to go from there, where if there's a traditional recruiting area for coaches, and then to go to Louisville, which is a great program, but not necessarily a traditional national championship contender, or won a bunch of national championships, that the road that those kids have traveled and where they are ‑‑ and no one knows their story probably, but what they've done in the last week has had everyone stand up and take notice of these two kids and the joy they play with, the fearlessness that they play with. They love the game, and you can tell they love the game. They're tough kids. They're fearless, obviously. Man, I gotta find my way to that spot, wherever it is. I don't know if you have to take a helicopter in there or you need guides or something to get in there, but I told Jeff Walz this morning I gotta get a couple of those players for myself. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Coach. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|