Geno Auriemma Quotes on Games (18 Quotes)

It's been a long haul here. There's been some pretty emotional games. I think we're going to be really tested Monday, physically and mentally. We'll see if we have anything left.

Strother is one of those impact players that makes them when you need them. I can't think of anybody we'd rather have shooting the ball. When we get Ann off and running like that, it gives everybody else so much confidence. All of a sudden a three-point game becomes an 11-point game and everybody takes a sigh of relief. It makes everyone around her a better player. She's pretty special when it comes to big moments in games.

To her credit, Wills hung in there this year when it could have gotten away from her. Now youre looking at a possibility of (15) more games, if youre lucky enough to play that long, so maybe somebody like Will in the next month can salvage something pretty darn good out of something that looked like it was really terrible.

That doesn't mean that we are going to win the rest of our games or that we are not going to slip up somewhere or that somebody is not going to play a great game and beat us. But I do think we aren't going to give it away. That's for sure. I thought a while back that we might give some games away. I don't think we will give any away now. If we get beat, we get beat.

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 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.

It's a lot like the old Virginia Tech teams we played. They're physical and they play pretty intelligently and they go after the offensive boards pretty hard. It'll probably be like the games we played against them a few years ago.

I told her in the locker room after the game, I said 'You should feel terrible, you wasted away about 10 games of your college career. She got more accomplished tonight than she did in 10 of our games.

I was afraid of that. We came off some of the games we just had and we were feeling pretty good. We're playing a game where their No.1 player is hurt, and physically we're not 100 percent coming out of the road trip. You put all those things in the mix, it made for one lousy game.

We have won some big games on the road against some good teams, which has given the group the confidence that you need to play in these games. I dont know that we went in feeling like we were good enough to win this thing last year. I think maybe we thought we were, but Im not sure we really believed it.

So, yeah, I'm going to try to win the national championship next year. But I'm not going to kill myself doing it. I'm not going to kill my players either. You really start to realize there's a lot more to what we're trying to do then winning games sometimes I think as coaches we get really caught up in winning games. Now that I look back, I'm going to try to take a different spin on it, and try to look at things differently.

I think players sometimes dont understand fully the amount of responsibility on their shoulders. As a senior, you have to take on that responsibility every day -- practice, games, travel, locker room, you name it. I think in the Big East tournament, they really, really, really did that. They took it to heart and made sure all the little things that lead to winning were taken care of. I really admire them for that.

I feel bad for the kid. She was working so hard and just when you thought she had it going, that happens, and now shes kind of back to, not exactly square one, but ... Im hoping these next four games, we can get her ready.

Renee set the tone in the second half by how aggressive she was, looking to score, looking to make a play every time down the court. When she's aggressive, she's as good as anybody. She's got all the skills, and her best games are on the road. That's a great sign.

In some places if you get to the Final Eight and lose to the No. 1 seed and win 32 games, there's 6,000 people waiting to meet you at the airport when you go home. But with us, with our tradition, people say, 'What happened' We're just a team that came close . . . a team that almost had a chance to be great.

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.

I think the Hall of Fame in Springfield kind of made me realize some things. ... There's a lot of people in the Hall of Fame that are dead. So what does being in the Hall of Fame do if you don't enjoy life when you're around If you just go around saying I have to get in the Hall of Fame, I have to win X-number of games, what good does it do if you die and you're not happy doing it

Sometimes you think things and you hope they don't happen. But you kind of know that it's coming. You come off some of the games that we just had and you come home and you walk around like you're feeling pretty good. You're playing a team that's missing their best player, and probably physically we're not 100 percent coming out of that trip. So if you put all those things into the mix, it made for one really lousy performance by us.