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Geno Auriemma - Postgame Presser USC · Coaches Corner

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Charlie, you said yesterday you'd like to see the game
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: close to the last couple of minutes.
• 0:04
  Speaker 2: It was two, right, So it kind of came down
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: to that, right, was so fun? Was the disappointed? What
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: where the leading with? Yeah?
• 0:18
  Speaker 3: The second half? Yeah, the second half was more fun.
• 0:23
  Speaker 3: I am mm hmm. I'm really I'm really proud of
• 0:33
  Speaker 3: the the team that they came out of the locker
• 0:38
  Speaker 3: room to play in the second half. Kind of disappointed
• 0:41
  Speaker 3: and I'm not at all happy with that team that
• 0:44
  Speaker 3: came out to start the game. So we gotta we
• 0:48
  Speaker 3: gotta figure out what the difference is between those two teams,
• 0:57
  Speaker 3: and yeah, we can hold them to less points in
• 1:01
  Speaker 3: the second half than they scored in the first quarter.
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: So you know, mm hmmm, a lot of.
• 1:13
  Speaker 3: A lot of great things to be proud of that
• 1:16
  Speaker 3: second half that we can that we can build on.
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: You know, obviously, we played at a really good.
• 1:26
  Speaker 3: Team that shopped the ball really really well in the
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: first half and gave themselves that big cushion.
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: So I you know, obviously they're.
• 1:42
  Speaker 3: They got a little bit of everything that that that
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: they can throw at you, and we just have to
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: get better, you know, we have to get better at
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: some of the things that that we need to get
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: better because we don't look like them, so we can't.
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: We can't necessarily just do things, you know, we gotta
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: do them right, and we gotta we gotta execute better.
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: I thought the execution part in the first half was
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: just as bad as I've seen in a few years
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: here at Connecticut. So it's not that we can't because
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: we spend twenty minutes doing it. You know, if you
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: look at the stats, you can't really pick anything apart,
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: you know, but I don't know that the stats tell
• 2:33
  Speaker 3: the whole story. But again, and we retired with two
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: forty or something that got left in the game, and
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: you know, we had a chance and.
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: I didn't.
• 2:48
  Speaker 4: Well to have your two modified stars up a gage
• 2:52
  Speaker 4: and jusually going out in a game where it's sold
• 2:55
  Speaker 4: out arena, it's on branch signe. I mean, this kind
• 2:57
  Speaker 4: of shows the growth of women's basketball. What what is
• 3:01
  Speaker 4: it like to watching it? I mean we all watched it,
• 3:03
  Speaker 4: but to.
• 3:03
  Speaker 3: See it, it's it's obviously, ah a moment that.
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: M has happened a lot in this building.
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: It's just not as many people were paying attention, you know,
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: outside the building.
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: So I'm happy that we can.
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: Put uh two players like that on the floor and
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: that the whole country is UH familiar with and.
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: Wants to see, you know, play well.
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: And they both have their unique styles of of playing.
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: And and as.
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: I was driving in today to the game, it brought
• 3:52
  Speaker 3: back to me the very first game we played here
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: might have been eighty six or eighty seven, and I
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: don't even know, Uh, I don't it was a doubleheader.
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: We played like at five pm, and the man we're
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: going to play at maybe seven, seven thirty eight o'clock,
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: I don't know.
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: Maybe we've been played at four thirty. I don't know.
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: And I don't think there were one hundred people in
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: the building. I don't And to drive up here and.
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: Know that there's gonna be sixteen thousand people here, plus
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: the game on national television, it doesn't seem like.
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: That, you know, we're talking about the same same universe.
• 4:38
  Speaker 3: But this is what's happened, this is where we are today,
• 4:42
  Speaker 3: and I'm proud to be.
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: A part of the past.
• 4:50
  Speaker 4: Stage to you the second half, it seems like you
• 4:52
  Speaker 4: guys did a lot better job double a judrew which
• 4:54
  Speaker 4: is all on the floor, But you like about the
• 4:57
  Speaker 4: defense then, and how.
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: Did you was it?
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: I think anytime you know, you have somebody that you're
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: trying to limit, trying to minimize how many how many
• 5:11
  Speaker 3: opportunities they get, you're going to have to give up
• 5:14
  Speaker 3: something else, you know, And the decisions that we made
• 5:20
  Speaker 3: sometimes backfire.
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: But the other team has to make it make it.
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: Back far, which means that all the people that were
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: helping off of they're going to get opportunities and they
• 5:30
  Speaker 3: have to they have.
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: To make shots.
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: But you can't get upset of your team for that
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: because that's what you wanted to do. The dilemma comes
• 5:41
  Speaker 3: when they start making shots and the guy you're trying
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: to mint, uh limit, is.
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: Still getting getting shots off.
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: You know, So credit to them because they took advantage
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: of you know, what we wanted to do. We changed
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: it up a little bit in the second half, and
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: obviously it worked much better.
• 6:00
  Speaker 4: You know, you're Roger after the learning said one of
• 6:03
  Speaker 4: the biggest creases, there was a lot of contributions from
• 6:06
  Speaker 4: everyone else. How did you feel everybody socially regards to
• 6:09
  Speaker 4: contributed and.
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: Who weren't the starters?
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: Well, it's funny because I said the same thing and
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: you know, you look at there there there two best
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: players at twenty five and sixteen hours had twenty two
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: and twenty two, and then their guys had six nine, five,
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: six five and our guys had nine five five five two.
• 6:35
  Speaker 3: Not that not that big a difference, right, But in
• 6:39
  Speaker 3: order for us to win, generally speaking, you know, we
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: it's when do you make them? And it's also how
• 6:50
  Speaker 3: many ways do you have to score? They could score
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: inside on us today, which we understand that, but they
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: made threes they don't make, so that that ends up
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: being the margin in the end because we sho have
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: more free throw We made more free throws in them.
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: But in these games, if we don't make more threes
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: than the other team, it's going to be really hard
• 7:16
  Speaker 3: for us to really hard.
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: Ochay, do you know two things you said? First of all,
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: you saw a lot of great things in the second half.
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: What were those great things? And then Sarah, a lot
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: of people look at this game and remember that she
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: missed free throws at the end, but the overall performer,
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: she yet and I really seemed like she matured.
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: Well, she's always been mature, she's always had that game,
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: and I think.
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: She's devastated at the second free throw.
• 7:46
  Speaker 3: The third one she missed on purpose, so I've done that,
• 7:48
  Speaker 3: but the second one is the one that bothers her.
• 7:51
  Speaker 3: But just the fact that that's where she was at
• 7:54
  Speaker 3: that moment in a game like this, and how she
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: plays and how she performs, and the fact that we
• 8:04
  Speaker 3: go to her in big moments, that says a lot
• 8:10
  Speaker 3: of what I think of her. What we did in
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: the second half, the second half, we ran some stuff
• 8:19
  Speaker 3: that we actually practiced, like we didn't make up an
• 8:24
  Speaker 3: offense and then run out there and try to run it.
• 8:26
  Speaker 3: Like in the second half, the ball moved, people moved,
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: We got the shots we wanted, We got shots from
• 8:32
  Speaker 3: where we wanted to get them, by who we wanted
• 8:34
  Speaker 3: to get them. And as I said, the entire first
• 8:37
  Speaker 3: half there was none of that. Zero when I say
• 8:41
  Speaker 3: you're exaggerating, no, I mean there's zero of that.
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: The first half was just a mishmash.
• 8:48
  Speaker 3: And the average person said, well, why is that? Well,
• 8:54
  Speaker 3: I'm an average person too, and I would say, yeah,
• 8:57
  Speaker 3: why is that?
• 9:00
  Speaker 4: Emily thin Daniel, it seemed like KP really epowered that
• 9:04
  Speaker 4: back for you guys. In the third port Pole to
• 9:06
  Speaker 4: her acted pasically and then what led you to move
• 9:09
  Speaker 4: away work?
• 9:13
  Speaker 3: If if you're if you're struggling on on the defensive
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: end like we were, I do think you got to
• 9:24
  Speaker 3: change up the way the game is being played. And
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: we talked to KK a lot about that, that one
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: of her biggest roles should be to come in and
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: disrupt the game and change the way the game is played.
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: And I thought she did that, and.
• 9:44
  Speaker 5: Uh, we did it as a team, but she has
• 9:49
  Speaker 5: the physical ability to do a lot more and today
• 9:55
  Speaker 5: she did.
• 9:59
  Speaker 3: That leads to or getting some opportunities, and obviously it
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: led to us getting a lot of opportunities.
• 10:06
  Speaker 4: You've been saying to this point in the season that
• 10:09
  Speaker 4: once you get through this stretch to get to Christmas,
• 10:11
  Speaker 4: here have.
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: A much better idea for your team. So now over here,
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: where do you feel your teams? Well, if you look
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: at our first half team, we're nowhere.
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: If you look at our second half team, we're a really,
• 10:25
  Speaker 3: really good basketball team that can probably beat anybody in
• 10:28
  Speaker 3: the country. So I lied, I don't know any more
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: now than I did when I told you that I
• 10:37
  Speaker 3: would know before Christmas. But obviously certain things are evident, right,
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: you know, we have to get more contributions from our bigs.
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: We have to continue to work on, you know, our
• 10:56
  Speaker 3: younger guys not getting like this, you know when it
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: gets like when shots on falling right away, to stay patient.
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: But all I know, all in all, it's it's if
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: I just focus on the first.
• 11:21
  Speaker 3: Half, then I would be really disappointed going going into
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: the holidays.
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: But if I take it as half.
• 11:29
  Speaker 3: Of that and then the other half, I really really
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: think can help us win any game that we play, well,
• 11:35
  Speaker 3: we just can't put ourselves in holes like that. So
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: I know we're going to fight, and I just don't
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: want to wait until we're bloodied and half beaten up
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: before we start fighting.
• 11:46
  Speaker 4: Fam all, I self bad teeth Chris Copland, Washington, ghost
• 11:51
  Speaker 4: of what was your impression of Tiki or and the
• 11:54
  Speaker 4: challenges that she presented today?
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: Same as very similar to when she was at Stanford,
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: you know, and similar to when she was in high school.
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: There's a.
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: There's a limit on what you can do because she's
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: so quick and so powerful.
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: So if we can keep her.
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: We thought, if we could keep her outside the lane
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: and make her take shots without getting two feet in
• 12:23
  Speaker 3: the lane, that would be to our advantage. And she
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: made a bunch of those, So now all of a sudden,
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: you have to come out a little bit, and now
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: her quickness starts to become a factor.
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: And uh and then.
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: She's matched up a lot in the second half against
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: one of you know, Sarah as a freshman, and I
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: think she showed her experience and how to you know,
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: how to get positioned and how to get the shots
• 12:44
  Speaker 3: you want. And there's nothing that she did today that
• 12:52
  Speaker 3: surprised me because I've always had so much respect for
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: her as a player, but her strength and her quickness
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: and if she starts making that opened fifteen sixteen foot,
• 13:01
  Speaker 3: then it's it's lights out.
• 13:05
  Speaker 6: Awesome, Gina.
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: Two kind of maybe related questions.
• 13:08
  Speaker 4: First, another game where you guys just could really hit
• 13:11
  Speaker 4: any shots from three? It's kind of happened in some
• 13:13
  Speaker 4: of these bigger games too, So I mean, is that
• 13:16
  Speaker 4: just a matter if you guys are cooking easy?
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: Can help with that? She's fully back? Or how can you?
• 13:21
  Speaker 4: Uh?
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that that's that's the million dollar question, right, how
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: do you how do you learn to make these in
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: these games? And as I said, how many we get tonight?
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: Twenty twenty four? Yeah, twenty three six for twenty three.
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: That's on sixty two shots. That's about the ratio.
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: That we want. But I don't know that.
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: I don't want to see how many of them were like
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: great and how many of them.
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: Were like mediocre.
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: So if we continue to get great ones, I mean,
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: I think we're a good three point shooting team, but
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: I can't keep saying that we have to prove it
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: and not just one night. You know, we got to
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: do it more than one night.
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: So then what else you went to the Chili Sarah
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: line up? Yeah, second half?
• 14:37
  Speaker 4: You've also that you're also saying that your bigs the
• 14:40
  Speaker 4: other base and could be horseboy, get a balance, you know.
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's another one. Yeah, I uh.
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: I always believe in people that I think that they
• 14:53
  Speaker 3: can do what what we need them to do. And
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: we've said that we're we're going to be the team
• 15:05
  Speaker 3: that we want to be. If we're getting contributions from
• 15:07
  Speaker 3: those guys, what does that mean, Well, they have to
• 15:10
  Speaker 3: be able to make a fifteen footer.
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: They've got to be able to keep the ball out
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: of the length.
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: So if we're playing five against four because we can't
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: get any offense out of them, and we need offense,
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: so it's tough to play that, you know, So I
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: hope that we can continue. I mean, I know they're
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: both young, and I know Jenna's a freshman. But if
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: we can find a way to get some consistency where
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: we feel comfortable throwing the ball in the lane and
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: we think you can get a basket, then that takes
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: a lot of pressure off of regards right now, there's
• 15:49
  Speaker 3: too much pressure. So I got to figure that one.
• 15:53
  Speaker 3: That's all me and the coaching staff.
• 15:56
  Speaker 6: So going back to zero, what was your message to
• 16:00
  Speaker 6: it was important you just kind of told us a
• 16:02
  Speaker 6: few minutes ago, or if you wait to kind of
• 16:04
  Speaker 6: discuss the kind of make gain.
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: Moment how to move toward.
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean when I when I see these things,
• 16:14
  Speaker 3: I I see a kid that you know, some people
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: run from the flame, you know, and other kids run
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: to it. She she wants to be in that situation.
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: She she she relishes that situation. Nobody's more uh disappointed
• 16:31
  Speaker 3: than she is right now in that moment. But I
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: would put her in that moment every single game for
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: the rest of the season and have confidence that you know,
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: she's going to come through. So, yeah, this is not
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: this is not something that that is going to sit
• 16:53
  Speaker 3: well with Sarah, but hopefully only for a day or two.
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: What's TV girl here?
• 17:02
  Speaker 6: Can you just talk about Juju and kind of how
• 17:05
  Speaker 6: she stacks up against you know, other elite players in
• 17:08
  Speaker 6: the country now, but also just kind of in the
• 17:10
  Speaker 6: all of your career where she stands and sit intern
• 17:13
  Speaker 6: of like top tap that you see.
• 17:16
  Speaker 3: Uh, you know, I don't, I don't.
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: I don't. Obviously I don't see her enough. You know.
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: Now we played them twice now, but every scouting port
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: that you put together or every film that you watch,
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: it's it's.
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: Very evident that one player can't guard her. You know,
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: you have to hope she helps you. You have to
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: hope she misses.
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: And when she gets a little bit of a rhythm
• 17:52
  Speaker 3: like she got in that first half, it's it's really
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: really difficult too, like any good player, and she's certainly,
• 18:01
  Speaker 3: you know, a tremendous, tremendous guard.
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: So yeah, there's qualities that she has that are just unique.
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: You know, there haven't been many, you know, at a
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: young age that but you know, you will probably have
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: to ask somebody that's younger than me.
• 18:25
  Speaker 3: I've probably seen too many more than a care to.
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: You know, she put a few minutes. But just what
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: did easy break through night go for? She progressed, me,
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: hope can be after Christmas. I don't know. I think
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: As is.
• 18:45
  Speaker 3: Obviously a high level elite player, and uh, I do
• 18:51
  Speaker 3: believe that when we get her one hundred percent healthy
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: and ready to go, that that certainly enhances our team tremendously.
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: Uh not having played and maybe one a couple of practices, Yeah, I'd.
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: Love to have her out there.
• 19:12
  Speaker 4: I just.
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: Mhm, I just didn't. I just choose not to today
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: for whatever reason.
• 19:21
  Speaker 5: Mm hm.