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
It has been a ridiculous three weeks in terms of my thought process. During all that time when the Final Four was going on, flying out to California, Hall of Fame, all of that, there was a lot going on personally for me where I'm trying to sort out how long am I going to do this? Where am I going to go from here? What else am I going to do?
I was trying not to play her a lot. I thought we were in pretty good shape at 12-4. I didn't realize that was the highlight of the first half.
I believe the way the game played out at Rutgers really stung them like nothing ever did before. I think there was a tremendous amount of soul searching and really trying to come to grips with who we are and what our strengths are and what our faults are and what we need to do.
It's been kind of hectic in some ways because you're here, there and everywhere trying to cram as many activities in as you can in a short period of time. But I think the closer you get to the actual event, the more it hits home with what's real about it opposed to in the beginning it's just an idea, just a thought.
It seems like we're in the late game an unusual amount of times compared to maybe some other schools. I guess that's a good thing that people want us to be in that game. Or maybe they're trying to keep women and children from being exposed to some of the stuff that we do on the court, and hoping everybody's asleep by the time we play. I do think it's difficult on the players.
I've always had enough people around me that I've come to know a little bit about it. We're trying to do as many things as we can to help the process.
The only thing you can do is go ahead with what's there in front of you. If she can play, then you play her. If she can't play, you don't play her.
When you get to be a senior, a certain amount of responsibility falls on your shoulders, like all of it. Everything that happens on our team, you're responsible for it and you can't not take responsibility for it just because you're not playing. ... I think (Turner) understands that now and she was really different the last couple of days in practice.
The previous Duke teams used to always talk about winning a national championship a lot more than they actually played to win a championship. This team is a little bit different. They don't talk as much about it. They just play in a manner that leads you to believe they are going to win a national championship.
This time of year, it's the individual player that makes the difference. The things you do as a program gets you to this point. Then individuals decide the outcome of the games.
This time of year, a team's systems don't matter. It's individual players that end up deciding the outcomes of the games.
This time of the year, it's individual players who make the difference. Your style of play, your system as a program gets you to this point and then individual players end up deciding the outcome of the game. Ann stepped up and made some huge plays.
To their kids' credit, they play hard, even last year when they were losing. Their mind-set is, 'We can win,' where before they were hoping not to get beat by too much. Watching on film, they act like they can win.
With Brittany, you?re not sure what level she?s at. How much will she play during the tournament? I don?t know. How much can she play? I still don?t know.