Geno Auriemma Quotes on Countries (16 Quotes)

I'm just happy she's been able to have the kind of year, and her team has had the kind of year they've had. Tina desperately wants to win. She loves winning more than anything else. For her team to be No. 1 in the country and to be named the player of the year in the country, it's deserved on all fronts. She's a great kid and, I think, the best player.

If you would have asked me how would I want it to go ... it went exactly the way I was hoping it would go. I was happy for the kids today because Im not usually one to think in these terms, but if you do what we did on Monday anywhere else in the country, its not a big deal. But what we did on Monday can really scar you for a really long time if you play in this program because youre going to hear about it every minute of every day, everywhere you go from everybody. You have to have pretty tough skin to survive in this environment. I was really proud of our guys to come back after the kind of week that we had to do what we did (Sunday).

I always thought Mel has a chance to be the poor mans version of Shea (Ralph) and thats exactly whats shes turned out to be. She cant get to the basket like Shea could. Shes not old enough to go slam people just to see what it feels like, like Shea did. But she makes shots like nobody else in the country at this point.

Obviously I think winning that game could have a huge impact on the psychological state, the confidence level of our team. That's obvious. But at the same time, we're home. We're Connecticut. Everybody think we're one of the top-10 teams in the country. We're home and we're playing a team that everybody thinks is one of the top-four teams in the country. Going into the game, yeah, we expect to win this game. That's what you're supposed to think if you're us.

If you want to be thought of as one of the better players in the country, then you have to go to a place thats really, really difficult, tough to play and play really well. Most good teams play good at home, but the really good teams, the way they separate themselves is they play well on the road.

It's different than it was two years ago, ... People buy into teams and into personalities. We were coming off a national championship and we had the dominant personality in the country. Now we're coming off losing in the Sweet 16 and we have a bunch of nice kids that are just happy to be here. Maybe I'm going to have to rile some people up, start saying and doing stuff that stirs the pot a bit.

I can't believe there's 64 teams in the country better than that team that are going to be playing in the NCAA tournament.

Anybody that knows Rene, knows that she loves to say things that irritate people and she's one of the best in the country at it.

I don't care if you have the best team in the country or are Cinderella, this is the hardest game to play in that you'll ever play in. The goal for most people is to have an experience of being in the Final Four. After you've been to the Final Four there's no experience like it, except winning a national championship.

When I look back, that's probably the one thing that I'm going to remember more than anything, not so much the championships, the wins, but I think we made the Big East take women's basketball seriously. I think we made people around the country pay attention to what we were doing. Because of that, it showed a lot of people out there that there's an unbelievable game out there that people were missing.

When she's calm, she knows where she's going and we get her in the right spot. I don't think there's anyone in the country that I would trust to make a big shot more than her.

I think that fear factor stuff is gone. I just don't think anybody in the country is afraid of anybody anymore. Teams just think they can walk in any building and win any game.

Duke has more good players than any other team in the country right now. You can say (North) Carolina is talented, Tennessee is talented and Maryland is talented. But look at Duke's roster, the size and speed and quickness and shooting and experience and depth. You name it, they've got it all covered.

I'm not sure what happened. Something clicked. Renee has a habit of doing that. She looks kind of lost and not sure and then she looks like the best guard in the country.

Starting next week, however many games we have left, if there's 20, then in 17 of those games, she's going to have to play like the best point guard in the country for us to win some of the games that we're going to have to win. That's a lot of pressure on a freshman.

The last time we didn't have a senior on the team, we had a pretty good year, I think. We were (37-1) and we won a national championship. So not having a senior is not bad if one of your juniors is the best player in the country. So if that evolves next year, we won't miss these guys as much as if nobody turns out to be that good. Then we'll miss them a lot.