Earlier in the day on Saturday, the UConn Huskies women’s basketball team met with the media at the Pepsi Center in Denver, CO before their matchup tomorrow against the Notre Dame Fighting Irish in the 2012 NCAA Women’s Final Four.
Here are the quotes from UConn head coach Geno Auriemma as well as Tiffany Hayes and Kelly Faris.
Transcript courtesy of ASAP Sports
THE MODERATOR: We’ll begin with an opening statement from Coach Geno Auriemma.
COACH AURIEMMA: We got here Thursday night, and we still have to wait another 24hours or something to play, and I think the hardest thing about‑‑ the only hard thing about being at the Final Four is how long you have to wait to play the actual game.
After we won Tuesday night, I wished we could have played Thursday, because we’re playing so well and we have such a good feeling about our team.
But at this point I’m sure all four teams feel the same way and are anxious to get going tomorrow. And as I told the players, it may not happen this way, but I know they do and I know I do, I think we’re about as prepared, we’re about as ready to play tomorrow as we’ve ever been. So I’m really anxious to get going.
THE MODERATOR: Questions for the student‑athletes.
Q. What were the things that you did differently as a team in the last time you played Notre Dame that you didn’t do the first two games?
KELLY FARIS: I think one of the big things is that we had a bunch of individuals step up at different times. And I think we’ve been doing that a lot more recently in the last few games.
But, specifically, I think it started in that last Notre Dame game, we just had‑‑ like I said, it was just each individual at different pivotal points in the game just stepped up and we didn’t rely on just one person.
TIFFANY HAYES: I agree with Kelly. I also think we just wanted it more. We were tired of losing to the same team over and over again.
And I definitely think we hustled a lot more in that game, a lot more hustle plays, a lot of togetherness in that game. So I think that definitely helped us out a lot.
Q. Kelly, Notre Dame said about 25minutes ago how you guys know each other inside and out and the biggest thing is the hustle plays, and that really tomorrow night will probably come down to that because you know the plays, you know the personnel. But the thing that you can control more than anything else is how much you guys hustle and make the loose balls and whatever it may be. Can you talk about how important that’s going to be and how the familiarity‑‑ there’s probably not much you don’t already know about each other.
KELLY FARIS: I definitely agree. When you play a team that many times, like you said, you start to know every player in and out, the plays, their tendencies, that type of thing. So it does‑‑ it will come down to effort and the hustle plays.
And I think, like Tiffany said, we’ve been doing a lot better job of that recently. So if we can keep that up, it will be good.
Q. Connecticut, the UConn brand is so huge. This is my fifth Final Four and this is your fifth for the school. But it’s not the same team this year. It’s been a little bit more vulnerable than it has when Maya’s been there. How has that been as far as the mindset, not‑‑ maybe Baylor is the big dog now and you guys aren’t?
TIFFANY HAYES: I think it’s good for us that all of us are able to step up in one night and we don’t just have one person doing everything. So there’s no superstars on our teams. We’re all superstars, because any given night one of us could score 20 if need be.
So I think it works out in our favor.
KELLY FARIS: I agree. I think it took us a little bit to kind of grasp that concept that we don’t have the superstar on our team that we can rely on. I think we’ve been kind of used to that the last few years.
So it’s good, though. I think it’s all coming together at the right time. And, like Tiffany said, it definitely works out to our advantage, I think.
Q. Has it been easier with this team because of the kind of tenacious defense that you play, that that starts, that ignites everything else that goes on with the rhythm of the game?
KELLY FARIS: Well, ever since I got here, defense is obviously what we take most pride in. So I think that’s every year day in, day out we work on defense. And especially this year, I think a lot of our offense we try to get it to stem from our defense, whether we get a lot of pressure and turnovers and get out in fastbreak.
So it’s good because we play‑‑ obviously we play a lot of 4 guards, and we can be a faster team, get up and down the floor a lot quicker.
Q. It seems like a different role for you guys this year. The underdog, so to speak. You’re No.1 seed, but you weren’t the team that everyone’s talking about coming in here: Baylor, Baylor, Baylor, Notre Dame winning the Big East regular season. Is it a little bit easier in a sense that there isn’t that overwhelming pressure of UConn is supposed to win this year? I mean, I know at this school you’re supposed to win every year, but there isn’t that coming in, that, wow, UConn is the favorite and if you don’t win it’s a terrible year for UConn basketball?
TIFFANY HAYES: I don’t know, being the underdog, it’s okay, because it’s not as much‑‑ like you said, you don’t have a target on your back. That was cool and everything the first two years, but I guess now we gotta take on another role with being the underdog.
Like I said, it’s fine with us. It just gives us a chance to prove people wrong.
KELLY FARIS: Basketball’s basketball in my mind. So whether you’re the top dog or the underdog, it’s still going to be the same game. When you come to Connecticut, there’s always going to be expectations. And we have them of ourselves. Our fan base has them. It’s not easy to live up to them, but that’s what you come here for.
So I don’t know that we’re going to necessarily go into the game thinking that we’re the underdog or all that type of stuff. In the end, it’s just another basketball game.
Q. How important are these guard matchups, especially since you guys do, like you said, play four guards sometimes, how hard are the matchups going to be tomorrow? And, Tiffany, what have you specifically learned against the last two games against Brittany?
TIFFANY HAYES: I definitely think it’s important. Like she said, we run four guards. So it’s big on the defensive end and leads to more scoring on the other end. And, I mean, I’ve learned a lot from everybody on that team. You just know that the whole team is a fighting team.
And she’s definitely a great player. She puts the team on her back sometimes and carries them. So we definitely gotta watch out for everybody.
We just can’t focus on one person.
To see what Auriemma had to say, please click on the read more button below if you’re on the home page.
THE MODERATOR: Questions for Coach.
Q. So much to talk about familiarity and how you guys know each other inside and out and eight times in two years and whatever it may be. But what’s the biggest thing for you guys to win tomorrow night? Because it’s probably not going to be the plays, because you know what you run; you know what they run. But what’s the biggest thing you guys have to do to be successful and get to the championship again?
COACH AURIEMMA: Notre Dame has three losses this year. And I don’t know the other two, the box score. But I know in a game where we played at their place, in the game we played in the Big East championship game, we rebounded the ball and we kept them off the free‑throw line. And I think if we do those two things well tomorrow night, then we’ll be in good shape.
Notre Dame is maybe the best team in the country at getting to the free‑throw line. And I would think that more than anything else that might be the key to the game; to make sure that they have to make shots rather than just give them free throws.
And offensive rebounding and shooting free throws go hand in hand, because every time you give up an offensive rebound, you end up fouling the guy who is going back up with it.
So those two things in my mind are going to be the keys for us anyway.
Q. Looking back at the box scores, Natalie Novosel went to the line 11 times, nine in the second. I know she had some foul trouble the last game, but it was also caused by a couple of charges by her, and she ended up with only a couple of free throws. What do you hope to happen? Because she initiates contact just about every time she has the ball. What, from your standpoint, do you hope happens tomorrow night?
COACH AURIEMMA: I hope the referees don’t show up (laughter) and just let the kids play basketball for 40minutes and don’t blow the whistle at all. If the game is a parade to the free‑throw line, like the Kentucky game, it’s going to sting for everybody.
I think there’s a fine line between knowing how to draw a foul and just mindless blowing of the whistle because you just anticipate that somebody’s going to draw a foul.
And I know what it’s like to be on the other end of that, because Shea Ralph was the same way. If Shea Ralph had a wide‑open layup, she’d wait until you got near her and then punch you and shoot a layup and go to the free‑throw line. It’s just the way it was with Shea. And I think Natalie is a lot similar. Very similar to Shea.
So we’ve got to be smart enough to make sure that every shot that Notre Dame makes is contested. But, at the same time, you can’t not play hard. You can’t not be aggressive.
And really, really good offensive players, they’re just hard to stop. I mean, it’s not like we’re going to keep them from getting some of the shots they want. But the way you get a really good offensive player out of their rhythm is you make them play defense and you turn whatever they’re using against you against them.
So depending on how the game’s being called, we’re going to have to do as good a job as they do at getting to the free‑throw line.
We’re just not as good at it as they are. That’s the biggest problem.
Q. How confident or not confident were you through the course of the season that you guys would end up here?
COACH AURIEMMA: Well, before the season, at Connecticut, it’s kind of tantamount to treason if you say we’re not going to win a national championship. And it’s something even worse than that if you say I don’t think we can get to the Final Four.
So I actually thought when the season started, that when practice started, anyway, that a lot of things would have to go right for us to get to this point where we are right now.
And in November I thought we had a chance. And in December I thought we had a chance. And as January and February came around, I thought we had no chance, because our immaturity just kept popping up.
I mean, every time we had a chance to prove how mature we were, we were immature. But, unlike other places, we just kept winning. So it added to the frustration. I knew we were immature, I knew we were doing lots of things we’re not used to seeing at Connecticut, but we were was winning, and it took a couple of losses for us to finally understand that we needed to grow up and we needed to grow up quickly.
So it wasn’t until the Big East tournament that I really, really thought we had a shot at this thing. And once the Big East tournament ended, I thought we’ve got as good a shot as anybody of winning this thing.
Q. Just wanted to see about talking about your relationship with Muffet and even in the face of some of the things‑‑ I know in the Media Day you talked about Notre Dame football kind of imploding the Big East and how many points they scored against Pittsburgh this year and that sort of thing, and how that all fits in the relationship.
COACH AURIEMMA: My relationship with Muffet goes back to the mid‑’70s when I left St.Joseph’s University to go coach on the men’s side and she took my place at St. Joe’s. And I’ve had a great relationship with Muffet all this time. And that hasn’t changed. That hasn’t changed one bit. And the people on her staff as well. Love every one of them. Have tremendous respect for all of them, as friends and as professionals, as colleagues.
My relationship with the University of Notre Dame, that’s a different story. Goes back to when I was a kid, probably, going to Catholic school all my life. And not being able to get into Notre Dame, that probably missed me off, too. And it just escalated from there (laughter). Because I had a couple of friends that went to school there and played there, and you want to kill yourself every time you came home for vacation.
Q. Wanted to follow up with what Michel was asking you. Since the Big East Tournament, in the last three weeks, what have you really liked about how the team has responded to what you wanted all season?
COACH AURIEMMA: The number one thing that a player has to have to be successful is confidence. And the one thing this team lacked was confidence. They pretended and they acted like they had it, but it was fake. And every chance I got in practice I wanted to kind of try to shake their confidence. And I always kept winning. And it bothered me that this year more than other years I kept winning more than I normally win, and I usually win all the time in practice.
But at least the other teams got sick and tired of me winning and would fight back. This team just kind of took it on the chin and just said, okay, Coach you win, fine. The more they did that, the more I got pissed. I’m like, How are we ever going to get beyond just being mediocre, just being good? We can’t operate like this.
These guys just‑‑ they take getting beat at practice. They take it way too casually. There isn’t this‑‑ they’re not incensed about losing. And I’ve had teams in the last four, five, 15, 20years that if they didn’t get a question right on a crossword puzzle before you did, they want to choke you.
So I wasn’t used to this. And it wasn’t until, again, that last week of the season that it started to affect them. And after we won the Big East Tournament, they don’t react that way anymore. Something clicked that week between the last regular season game and the start of the tournament.
And what we did during that week was we went to practice and I made them force the issue, so that for the next five days everything we did was about building confidence in ourselves and in each other to the point where we could trust ourselves and trust each other.
When you had this many young players‑‑ I don’t know how many sophomores are starting tomorrow for either team. We have two. And I don’t know how many freshmen are coming off the bench and playing huge roles tomorrow. We have two, maybe three.
So we’re counting on people that haven’t done all the things that they hope to do. And with that comes, as I said, a lot of immaturity and a lot of mistrust. If you’re Kelly Faris and you operate at a certain level from having won a national championship and being undefeated and now you’re having to deal with players who just don’t understand what it takes to do that, I think it creates a little bit of doubt in your mind about whether you can trust your teammates.
And, like Kelly said, ever since the first game of the Big East Tournament, that’s gone. And I think you’ll see that tomorrow.
Q. You’ve played both Baylor and Stanford; want to offer a little expert analysis on the second game tomorrow?
COACH AURIEMMA: The big kid at Baylor is really good. She’s really good. I don’t know why, but I think this is a good matchup for Stanford.
And I think it’s good because they haven’t played each other. So Brittney and Odyssey Sims and Baylor, they don’t know anything about how to defend Stanford. And Stanford’s big kids don’t know anything about playing against somebody like Brittney Griner.
So I really like this matchup. I really do. And all the people that are saying this is a walk for Baylor, I don’t think they’re right. I’m not saying they’re not going to win. I don’t know who is going to win. But those people that say Baylor’s got an 80percent chance of winning tomorrow night, I think they’re dead wrong. They might, but it’s not going to be as easy as they think.
Q. When you’re talking about building the team’s confidence during that five‑day stretch, I wonder if you can offer a specific example of what you or the coaches did to do that. How do you do that in practicality?
COACH AURIEMMA: Well, think about this. I’ll go back to my father, God rest his soul. He only knew how to drive‑‑ he got his license, I think, when he was 60 because all the guys who used to drive him around died, I think. So he needed a way to get around, and I left home, so he was stuck. And he only knew how to drive from my house to where he worked and my house to where he went to hang out with the guys on Friday nights and drink coffee.
So when my mother would ask him to take him someplace, he would refuse, and then she would make him because it was someplace where he didn’t know how to get to. So he would eventually get to an intersection, stop, three or four lights would go by, people were honking, everything, he would turn around and go home.
When you’re scared and you don’t know what to do, you just stop and stand there and you don’t want to make any moves. You don’t want to make any decisions because you’re afraid to make the wrong one. So you go back to what is safe for you.
And that’s what my team had become during the whole month of February. During the whole month of February we were a team that stood around and waited for something to happen because we started to be afraid.
So those five days of practice, every practice was about us attacking things rather than waiting. So the way you saw us play in the Big East Tournament, first couple of rounds of the NCAA Tournament, the Regionals, we were constantly on the attack. We were constantly the aggressor.
So what we did as a coaching staff, we took the thought process out of it and just put the action back into our team instead of the thinking.
And I’m hoping that tomorrow we can carry through on that. Because the worst thing for a young kid to do, all the young kids we have on our team, is to be thinking about what to do. And I thought that’s where we were.
Q. Every time you look up there’s different men’s basketball players who leave after their freshman or sophomore years to go to the NBA. In the WNBA, you either have to be 22 or play four years. One, do you think that’s fair for women? And, two, with all the All‑Americans that you’ve had over the years, has that ever been an issue with some of the players that may have wanted to turn pro early?
COACH AURIEMMA: Yeah. Is it fair? I’m on both sides of that fence. If you go to college, supposedly you’re going to college to prepare yourself for a career. So if you go to college and your career presents itself to you after your first year and you have an opportunity to start a career that you’ve always wanted and it’s something that’s going to be financially and other ways rewarding, why shouldn’t you go ahead and do it?
I always use this example: If you’re a music major and you go to college and you play the guitar and the E Street Band and Bruce Springsteen shows up on campus and the guy says, Oh, man, you’re pretty good, do you want to travel with us? No, I’m sorry, I want to finish my college education. Yeah, right.
So from a basketball standpoint, I think it hurts the college game that kids can come for one year and leave, because I don’t think they put their heart and soul into going to that school. They’re just drive‑bys, you know? And I hate that. I hate it with a passion.
It hurts those kids. They leave after one year and they think they’ve got it all figured out. And maybe 2 out of every 200 make it. The other ones end up regretting it.
I wish on the men’s and women’s side we had the baseball thing; either go right from high school, God bless you, don’t set foot on our campus because you don’t want to be there. Or if you make a commitment, you’re there for three years. Then after your third year, God bless you, you’re free to go.
But‑‑ there’s always a but‑‑ but, on the other side, you wouldn’t have the four best teams in the country playing in the national championship in women’s basketball almost every year. So that’s the plus side of it.
Q. Muffet was asked earlier about her relationship with you and whether you got under her skin and she said no, because having grown up in the Philly area as a coach you’re supposed to be flamboyant and sarcastic, so for her it’s easy to let it roll.
COACH AURIEMMA: Was she talking about herself?
Q. She’s talking about every coach in Philadelphia.
COACH AURIEMMA: About being flamboyant and sarcastic? Is she talking about Tara?
Q. She said it’s easy to let it roll off her back because you’re supposed to be like that if you’re from Philadelphia. Do you notice you can’t get under her skin because she’s from that area and she knows, you know, no coach from Philly is going to be a wallflower?
COACH AURIEMMA: Come on. You know, Muffet and Kim Mulkey are pretty much of the same era, I think, and they’re what women’s basketball coaches are supposed to be like.
They’re tough. They’re competitive. They have a unique style about them. They can give it right back to you as well as take it.
I don’t think I’ve ever consciously tried to get under Muffet’s skin. I do that at the meetings, I do that privately, where we have fun with it. But I don’t think publicly I’ve ever tried. I bet you if she wasn’t at Notre Dame I probably wouldn’t try as hard to get under her skin, but the fact she’s at Notre Dame it’s easy.
And I think that goes with the territory. It’s like I’m the coach at Connecticut. So there’s a lot of things that go along with that. If I wasn’t the coach at Connecticut and we weren’t this successful, nobody would care, nobody would say a word.
But the fact that Muffet’s from Philly and I’ve known her for 35years and she’s at Notre Dame, and if they keep beating us, we’re in for it. She’s in for it, big time. She’s going to need more than a leather skirt. She’s going to have to wear body armor. I’m coming after her.
THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Coach.
Click on the link to see the Notre Dame Fighting Irish pregame quotes.
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