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Geno Auriemma Presser - Pre Syracuse March 24 · Coaches Corner

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  Joined by Yukon head coach Gino Oriema. We'll go right into questions and answers.
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  Please wait for the microphone. State your name and affiliation for your first
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  question. We'll start look back right I coach Mario Sack with new shown I'm
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  out of Syracuse. I understand the season goes on and you don't get to
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  watch much of other teams, But can you look on a fara of what
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  Felicia has done at Syracuse and on the flip side after that, do you
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  see maybe Yukon Syracuse renewing a rivalry at all down the line? Uh?
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  Well, I would say that with everyone, it's not so much on on
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  my end as it is on their end. You know, whether it's a
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  former player of mine or anybody that just takes over a program. I kind
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  of leave it up to them, like whatever your timeline is, you know,
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  you pick up the phone, you call us. It's pretty easy to
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  get a game with us. As far as uh, nothing, nothing about
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  what's happened that Syracuse is remotely surprising. I tried really really hard to get
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  Felicia to that job before, and they finally realized the obvious thing for them
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  to do so the way they play, the way she coaches them, and
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  how you know how successful they've been in such a short period of time.
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  These are the same exact things she did at the University of Buffalo, right,
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  And she loves the school, she loves the community. I recruited her
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  out of high school when uh I was at UVA, and and I've been
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  really, really a fan of hers from back then, you know, So
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  yeah, I when I saw that they were in our bracket, I wasn't
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  too pleased. We'll go front row on the right hair Pat, Pat Eat
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  and rub from the Associated Press. Do know it's no secret that you guys
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  have had trouble with high level guards this season, whether it's been Hidalgo or
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  Harper or any of those, And now you face another one tomorrow. What's
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  different about this team and what's going to allow you to prevent her from going
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  off like the other guards did nothing. She is going to go off.
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  You know, she is going to score a lot of points. That's what
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  she does and she's really good at it. And I don't know that you're
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  going to be able to go, hey, make sure she gets ten tonight.
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  I mean might be like, hey, can we keep her under twenty.
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  That would be a great accomplishment. So sometimes you know, one player
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  can beat you, one player can be that dominant, and I think she
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  is that dominant, and I don't think one player on our team is going
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  to be able to do it by herself. And she does get some help
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  from her teammates. But in those games, except for the NC State game,
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  in those games the struggle for us was as much offensively as it was
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  defensively, because even when the even when guards get thirty something, as Adago
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  did, the score was sixty to sixty on into the fourth quarter and we
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  fell apart offensively. So I don't I don't know that you can just go
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  out and take somebody out of the game. That's that good. On the
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  other end, you've gotta you gotta, you gotta score, and you got
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  to continue to score the entire game. So we know she's going to score,
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  and we hope we're going to score. Third row on the left,
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  justin Gersham with the Daily Orange. Going back to your relationship with Felicia,
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  you know what about her as a player made you want to recruiter to UVA
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  and then over the last forty years, have you really seen her grow so
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  many years forty and then you know, over that time period, how have
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  you really seen her develop as a coach and a leader for Syracuse. First
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  of all, let me just say I really missed my trips to Syracuse.
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  That was one of the best places for us to travel to. It was
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  a paying the ask there sometimes, but it was great to go to.
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  We had the same restaurant all the time, and we had the good fortune
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  to have five hundred journalists Lisam Major sitting there asking me goddamn questions that I
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  had to answer. And then no other place in America do you go you
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  find that? So I kind of missed those interactions. And as far as
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  Felicia's concerned, I loved her as a competitor as a player. You know,
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  she was, she was active, she was as I said, she
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  competed, She could score. She has an infectious personality. You know,
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  she was a great leader on her team and as a coach. I think
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  she's found her way, you know. I think there were some you know,
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  struggles early in her career, which there are for most people. And
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  sometimes you're in too big of a job too soon and you're not quite sure,
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  you know, But I think she found she found the perfect spot for
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  her at Buffalo, and it was just a matter of time until she ended
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  up at a place where she can compete for a national championship. And you
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  know, I saw her yesterday and you know, chatted a little bit,
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  and she's one of the bright young stars you know in UH in our game.
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  UH. Just a follow up also, you mentioned that, you know,
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  you kind of vouched for her to get the job. Stay just you
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  know, what did you really do behind the scenes and how do you think
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  that maybe helped her belongs? Hm? I I really didn't do much.
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  I just you know, said to John Wildhack, I said, what the
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  hell is your problem? And that was pretty much though the extent of the
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  conversation. Fourth row on the left, UH Cooper Andrews with The Daily Orange.
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  UH, your coach downstairs. Page talked a little bit about, you
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  know, coming back from injury after missing the tournament life last year. But
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  there's still no excuse. She still feels a lot of the pressure with you
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  know, the standard that Yukon has. What have you seen from Page this
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  time around in terms of her drive and her motivation to kind of get back
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  to where she was her freshman year at the kind of the top of the
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  pedalstal there. In some ways, pages is had much better year this year
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  than she did her freshman year. Freshman year, she was new and exciting,
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  and everybody was all hopped up about the legend of Page Becker's you know,
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  when she came in. I remember I told her she was famous for
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  being famous. She hadn't played any games, she hadn't done anything, and
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  she was famous. I couldn't understand why. You know, I was calling
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  her Page Kardashian for a while when she was a freshman, and everybody fell
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  in love with the way she played, as they should. And then she
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  disappeared through no fault of her own. And she's back and she's better than
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  she was. But doesn't translate into anything other than, you know, she's
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  on everybody's own market team because they remember what a good player she is.
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  And in this postseason, I think she's been the best player in the postseason
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  in the country. I don't know anybody that's had a better postseason from the
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  biggest tournament to now. I think she's averaging twenty seven a game something like
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  that, and everything else that she's doing. Somebody who just told me she
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  would have to miss the next one hundred and fifty shots to have as bad
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  as shooting percentage as some people she plays against around the country that are viewed
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  as great, great, great players. Think about that stat she would have
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  to miss one hundred and fifty straight shots. That's how higher her shooting percentage
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  is. So she's very efficient. She's a great leader, and we wouldn't
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  be here talking about her if she wasn't playing. Yeah, what kind of
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  similarities do you see between her and someone like Brianna Stewart, who you know,
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  kind of led your kind of previous era on this team and winning the
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  blow to national change. They actually have a lot of similarities. I wish
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  Page was six to four and you know, had a seven foot wingspan.
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  I wish she was built like Stewie. But they have a lot of similarities.
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  They really do very quiet confidence. You know, they obviously impact the
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  game. They don't impact the game the same way, but they have a
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  tremendous impact on the game. And she expects to win every single game she
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  plays, regardless of who we're playing. So her and Stewie are very very
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  very similar in that respect. You know, people have asked me about her
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  and Diana and her and and Diana have absolutely nothing in common other than you
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  know, the impact. But in terms of like the other stuff, they
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  have nothing in COmON but her and Stewiet. That's a very good comparison.
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  Go to the back left corn Chris Carlson from the S He's post standard.
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  Do you know, I think you recruited the Asia for a little while earlier,
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  early in her high school career. What do you remember from that?
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  I guess experience. These kids have been around for so long you kind of
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  forget, you know, yeah, to be honest with you, so so
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  much as as passed, and I don't know that we got very far in
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  that recruiting, So, you know, college recruiting is kind of fun funny,
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  I should say in that. You might look at a kid and say,
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  I don't know, I don't know why I like her, but I
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  like her and I want that kid on my team. You might look at
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  another kid and go, I don't know, I don't know that it would
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  be a great fit for us to have her, And then when you play
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  against her, you go, why didn't why didn't you guys make me take
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  that kid? Why didn't we recruit that kid, that kid should be on
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  our team. So you make these decisions and sometimes you get right and sometimes
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  you wish you had, you know, done it differently. But we never
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  got far enough with her to really feel like, man, I wish we
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  would have, you know, I wish we would have been able to pull
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  that one off. Lok Christy third row in the right, Christy Winter Scott,
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  ESPN. Do you know, assess the synergy that you've seen in the
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  postseason with Paige and Aaliah, especially in March. Well, obviously they've played
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  a lot of basketball together. They've also taken on a lot of responsibility.
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  When you're playing with with freshmen, you have to you have to be really
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  good every night. I thought Paige and Aaliyah throughout the season, you know,
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  whenever they struggled, we struggled. Whenever Leah struggled a lot, we
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  struggled a lot. So as we've gotten into the postseason, there obviously is
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  no room for er, no margins for her. So when Aliah got hurt
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  in the Big East Tournament, I think Page took on an even bigger role
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  and I think she's she's happy that Aliah's back because those two do have a
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  a connection, and they do work really well together. And and and if
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  they play great tomorrow night, we have a great chance to win. If
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  they play really, really bad, then the things are gonna be really really
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  bad for us. That's a lot of pressure for them to work under.
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  But you know, every team has one or two players like that that they
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  can't win without. There was a up front of pat front real here right?
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  Sorry? Do you know I I know you like to talk about how
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  eighteen and nineteen world shouldn't be getting tired at all. But Syracuse played Arizona
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  yesterday, which is a team that also has seven players, and Arizona got
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  in fouled trouble and Arizona got worn down in the fourth quarter. What have
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  you done this season to make sure your team stays out of those situations?
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  Have you changed anything on offense or defense? And how do you keep them
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  fresh? Uh? Well, we really haven't done a lot differently because we
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  are very imaginative. We've had to do things differently because we had no other
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  choice. So we don't practice as long, which is good and bad.
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  You know, we don't practice as long, so it keeps them fresh.
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  We don't practice long, so they would keep making the same dumb mistakes over
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  and over again. So it's a you know, to toss up. We
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  don't play a lot of defenses because that would take a lot of time to
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  teach, and we don't have a lot of time. We don't play a
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  lot as own because we're too small. So there's a lot of things that
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  we have to do because that's all we can do. Our offense is basically,
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  you know, the same as it's been for the last thirty years.
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  A couple of tweaks to you know, help some of the players with their
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  particular strengths, but not that much different. You know. It's just the
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  amount of time that we can spend in the gym. You know, and
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  and Andrea Hoodie and you know our strength and conditioning coach, and you know
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  Francisco are athletic trainer. You know, those guys have their hands full and
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  they've done a fantastic job with our kids. But no, we just we
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  just don't practice much. That's the only thing we can do. We are
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  out of time. Coach. Thank you, Oh you got a question now,
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  all right, go ahead, there you go. Oh, thank you,
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  coach. But going back to page a little bit, you know,
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  with you mentioning, Well, if I know it's gonna be about Page,
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  but you know you're going to ask about me, go ahead with you mentioning
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  that. You know you feel like that she's playing at her best right now.
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  Can you take me back to when you first recruited her and what did
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  you envision as her ceiling could be, you know, with the program here.
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  First time I saw a Page play, she played like a minute and
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  a half at a time because she was hyperventilating or something. She weighed about
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  ninety pounds, and she will go one hundred miles an hour. She's like
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  the proverbial balloon, you know, when you let it out, it just
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  and then and just falls to the ground. That's how she played. And
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  then she run over to the bench and then come back out do something crazy
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  and go back to the bench. And then and I remember saying to Marissa
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  Mosley was with me. I said, seriously, this is the best player
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  in the country. I said, you gotta be Kidney can't stay on the
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  court. She just, you know, was such a young kid and so
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  not filled in like I mean, she's big now by her standards. If
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  you look at her now, like this is huge. This is the biggest
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  she's ever been. So she was just like this very frail kid, but
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  she had something about her that only the great ones have, and you could
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  see it, you could feel it. She just sees the game the way
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  only great players can see the game. You can't teach someone, you know,
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  Coach Knight, Bob Knight said this a long time ago. You can
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  always teach a player to look, but you can't teach them to see,
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  because they might be looking, but they have no idea what they're looking for.
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  And she knows before she even looks what she needs to see, and
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  she sees it quicker than anybody else, and then she has the guy given
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  talent to pull it off. And she spends hours and hours and hours in
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  the gym. To your point, like, if we practice forty five minutes
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  or an hour, I know because when we leave, she's going to sneak
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  in there and put another half hour forty five minutes on, which doesn't make
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  anybody happy. But she can't stay out of the gym. So people think
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  you know you're born with that. You're born with some of it. The
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  rest she's worked her assof for, and she deserves everything that she's getting and
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  I said this yesterday to somebody. I said, she's the least she's the
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  worst officiated superstar in college basketball. And you saw yesterday there are things that
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  happened to her that if she was allowed to play defense the way people play
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  defense against her. Yeah, she's good. Thank god, thank you all.