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've been in their situation enough times where you come in and you feel like you've got every answer to every question that comes up. And you know the only way you can lose is if you don't play to your ability. I'm sure Duke feels the same way. (Duke) plays in a manner that leads you to believe they're going to win a national championship.
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 don't remember us ever being in a situation where I thought we had it won, then lost it, thought we had it won, then lost it. It was really an amazing game. It's a shame any of those kids had to be on the other side of that. I would think in the 21 years I've been at Connecticut, I don't remember more than one or two games that turned out like this.
The one thing that she can do that is really, really amazing, compared to the other guys. She only has to see things once or twice and she?s got it. So you can throw her in a lot of different situations and she?s OK with it, which is kind of a comfort level for a coach.
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 we're going to be a hard team to play against in the NCAA tournament. We play good defense. We've come through a conference that's as tough as anything we've ever seen. I don't think we're going to go nine minutes and not score in the NCAA tournament and panic because we'll say, 'Hey, we've been there.' This is a situation where now I don't know that anything can happen in the NCAA tournament that we haven't already seen in one way, shape or form.
That first half, they played us as well as any team has played us. I like the way we responded to that situation when they took the lead. I hope that sets us up well for Tuesday night.
I?m not going to put her in a situation where she?s going to play and then next year she?s going to need another (surgery) just to walk; I?m not going to do that.
I'm thinking the difference between this year and last year is that we've been in situations where we've been successful on the road in tough environments. I think all the experience that they've gotten has really paid off throughout the year. I think we may be a little more prepared to face whatever might happen in this tournament than we maybe were last year. It might be a little bit of a confidence thing. They probably do, right now, have a lot of confidence. If they don't by now, they never will.
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?