Geno Auriemma

Geno Auriemma
Luigi "Geno" Auriemma is an Italian-born American college basketball coach and the head coach of the University of Connecticut Huskies women's basketball team. He has led UConn to eleven NCAA Division I national championships, a feat matched by no one else in college basketball, and has won seven national Naismith College Coach of the Year awards. Auriemma has been the head coach of the United States women's national basketball team since 2009, during which time his teams won the 2010...
ProfessionCoach
Date of Birth23 March 1954
CityMontella, Italy
I think if we would have played Wednesday, or Thursday, it might not have been as good as it was (vs. ND). I think we needed some time. It was more of just kind of getting our heads, rather than our bodies, right.
We were lousy. I told the players the one good thing that game out of this was we won the game. Other than that I can't think of really anything that came out of this that was good.
Whether it's Phoenix or whether it's any other team in that league, they're not going to offer me more money than I'm making at Connecticut. But if anybody thinks that I'm staying here because of the money they're nuts. I didn't come here for the money and I'm not going to stay here for the money. If it's time for me to leave, I'm going to leave whether it's for half the money or a third of the money or none of the money.
I think, for now, it works. I think it?s the best way to get her some minutes. And going into conference play, if you were to ask me what you want other than obviously talent, the thing that you probably look for the most going into this part of the season is experience ? people who have been in that situation a few times.
I think it would have been hard to keep up that pace that she had that month. There's a little bit of a dip in games, but I think she'll be back.
I thought in the second half our defense was a little bit better. We tightened up some things and changed a couple of things.
I think this was as complete a game on both ends of the floor as we've had in a while. These guys are really committed right now to keep playing for as long as we can. I love the way we played.
I'm sitting her speechless. And that's not me. I feel at the end of the game I'm powerless. I can't instruct. I can't coach. I can't direct. I'm used to being able to do certain things. Our guys come out on the floor and play a certain way. And none of that is happening right now.
(Mel) has an intensity level about her that keeps the fire burning inside, she never lets the fire die. Nicole's the same way. We had two guys guarding that kid that don't get tired. She could have run them off screens all night and those kids aren't going to get tired.
We needed some time. The only days we did anything was Friday and Saturday. Both of the days were more of just getting our heads rather than our bodies ready. We had a talk last night with the team and a lot of really good things came out.
We needed to get a big lead and execute to withstand the pressure that was coming. That's the way we've beaten them in the past. But we let one play go into another into another and it just completely got away from us.
We know we are capable of scoring a lot of points. And in the NCAA tournament, all you need is to score one more point than the other team. That is the beauty of the tournament.
We can be as good as anyone in the nation on any given day, and we can be worse than anyone in the nation on any given day. I never know what team is going to show up to play.
We came out with a sense that we're pretty tough.