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
Brittany did a lot of good things tonight. If we know we can get 10-15 minutes from her every night like that, that changes things.
(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.
Yeah, we just woke up one night and she was gone. It was kind of like a camp, we check every night on our kids. We got up one morning and did her bed check and she was gone. Next thing you know, we're playing St. John's and there she was in the lineup. It was just one of those things.
It's going to be like this every night on the road. And I told our guys, more important than the win, I think, is we came out with something that was really important. We came out with a sense of, we're pretty tough and we're pretty resilient, and I don't know that we could have been like that a while back. So we've made progress. We've come a long way and I don't think it could have gone any better for us.
As long as we play defense like that and keep people in the 50s we'll be all right. Some nights you're going to shoot the ball poorly and it's going to be 60-something to 50-something. Some nights you're going to shoot 60-something percent and it's going to be 90-something to 50-something. But you've got to be able to play with the game on the line, which I think we showed (Saturday).
That second 20 minutes was obviously like night and day. And that's a little bit worrisome for me. You always want to treat every game the same, treat every half the same. But I guess we had played pretty well up to this point and that was kind of the first bad 20 minutes that we've played in a while.
I don't know if our guys were taken aback by the first 20 minutes, but the second 20 minutes were like night and day. And that's a little bit worrisome for me. You want to play every game the same. That first half left a lot to be desired.
If you want to win the conference, every road trip is important. It is not just all pomp and circumstance on the road now where you just show up, go to a great dinner the night before, roll in and win by 30 and leave. Those days are over. There are some tough kids in our league.
We weren't sure whether or not it was real serious or mildly serious or whatever. When we got back, it was X-rayed and there's no fractures. It's just a bad ankle sprain and she's definitely out for Saturday and then we'll take it from there.
We got the big lead and we had a chance, when pressure came, to really make some plays to extend it. But we let one play lead to another to another to another. It just got completely away from us. I guess credit their defense, but I was just looking at the stat sheet.
I've seen (Strother) go through stretches where nothing's gone in, but she had that one stretch where she made everything. It all evens itself out, I think. I think all she needs is a couple to drop. ... She'll come around.
The strength of your league is what is going on in the middle. We have always been good at the top. But we will have teams finishing 10th, 11th 12th in our league who are pretty darned good, and I don't know that anybody else has that.
The time she broke her ankle standing still. Do you know how hard that is to do?