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
Our defense bails us out a lot of times. Say what you will about both Rutgers games and how bad we were offensively, we had a chance to win. I used to have teams that made every play, every time. Now we're looking at a team that maybe doesn't have the ability to make every play, every time. But what we have to do is make certain plays at key times. If we can do that, we'll be all right.
Sometimes the reaction (to losing) is more of you're just stunned and you have no (outward) reaction. So you just sit there and you stare into space, and there's a pretty good chance that that will happen to you again because you have no idea what just happened and you don't know how to deal with it.
Diana said afterwards there's pretty good vibes. There's a good feel to the group out there and the way they're approaching things right now. All I can tell from looking at them is they really think that this can be something pretty special for them. And as long as they think that, there's a chance it will happen.
Everybody can say all they want about who's in a tough bracket and who's not, but starting this weekend, everybody gets a chance to prove whether they belong there or not.
Watching them play kind of brought back memories of when you spring an upset. I don't remember the last time we had a chance to spring an upset on somebody. It's a great feeling for them.
We struggled with our regular stuff, so we never did get a chance to unveil our top-secret, super-sensitive, highly classified offense. That might be one of those experiments that never gets off the ground.
We're in a good bracket with good teams like everybody else is. Say all you want about who's in a tough bracket, who's not? The bottom line is, starting this weekend everybody will get to a chance to prove whether they belong there or not.
Whereas before, we didn't know whether we could go on a run like that and get up big on some teams. Now we know that. And we also know that if they come back, we've got what it takes to finish the job. Whether we do or not next time we're in that situation, I don't know. I don't think anybody comes through 100 percent of the time. ... As long as we have a chance to win with three minutes to go, I like our chances.
They say you really don't understand what winning is. You really don't appreciate what winning is until you've had your share of losing. I think the opposite is also true. I think you can't quite fathom how much losing hurts when you have had as many chances to win, that we had, over the years.
As long as we play good defense, we have a chance to win the game. We're starting to believe in each other a little bit.
Any time like you have a really good point guard like they do, you have a chance to have a really good team. Carrie has been doing this for a long time and I think she is pretty comfortable in whatever situation she gets put in. She has a really good group of players that are pretty versatile.
I think there are a lot of teams that are going to make the NCAA tournament that are not as good as Texas. With their conference, they have a chance to play some really good teams and if they can knock off one or two of them . . .
Pitt has a chance to be really good. They have a great facility. They are located in an area that is really good for high school basketball. The hardest part is winning, especially being in such a tough league. But they are winning and scoring a lot of points. People will notice. The men's program has done just that. Pittsburgh is a city that likes winners.
If we play as well as we're capable of playing, we're going to win (tonight) regardless of what Rutgers does. If we don't play our 'A' or to the best of our ability, then there's a pretty good chance that if Rutgers plays well we're going to lose. And that's the way it should be when you play against a really good team. But, you know what? We're home. We're in our building. And the expectation level is we're going to win. That's the bottom line.