Latest / Coaches Corner / Geno Auriemma Nov 7 - Pre Dayton

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Geno Auriemma Nov 7 - Pre Dayton · Coaches Corner

• 0:01
  How long before you're coaching your grands Ah, they you know, they they're
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  more delusional than my players, but they have a right to be. They're
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  only thirteen and ten and eight, so they can be as delusional as they
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  want. And it's fun. It's fun listening to them. It's fun watching
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  how much passion and enjoy they have playing the game and they're nothing like watching
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  them play, it's hilarious. Are your players delusional enough to believe they're gonna
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  be number one in the country come Monday or so? You know, That's
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  what I'm saying. That's like the dumbest, the dumbest thing in the world
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  that you have a poll right now, you know, when nobody's played anybody
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  after maybe one game, after two games, it's you know, I didn't
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  watch the game, but I'm sure Colorado looked a lot better than the twentieth
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  to the best team in the country. So uh, I think it gives
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  an overinflated uh view of themselves to the top teams, and it undervalues the
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  bottom teams, and it gives them a whole lot of motivation. Mm mm
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  mmm. So, however, my players are I don't know, Maybe maybe
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  we should have a what's our nil? What's our preseason nil? That seems
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  to be Oh, everybody wants to talk about well, preseason number one in
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  nil, it's probably more important than preseason number one in basketball. What about
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  the practice over the last two three days? Uh? Happy with h Yeah?
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  I ain't. It's the the the worst, the worst thing ever is
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  getting ready for the first game of the year because you have so many unknowns.
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  So you have more unknowns than you have knowns. You're dying to see
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  what your team looks like, what their identity could be. How people how
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  some young players respond to the lights that they're gonna be under now, how
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  people respond to maybe their roles have changed a little bit since we have more
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  players available to us. So the first game is always going in with a
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  lot of unknowns, and then you come out of that game with a tremendous
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  amount of information that helps you going into You actually feel better going into game
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  two than you do going into game one, and then game three more than
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  game two. So this is the most unsure you're gonna be pretty much the
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  whole season. What do you think Page's greatest attribute is as a player?
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  She's bright, she and she slows the game down so much that she sees
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  things happen before they happen. And that's a trait that only the great,
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  great players have, because even if she had all those physical gifts that she
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  has to be able to do what she does, if she didn't have that
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  part, she wouldn't be nearly as as successful as she has been. So
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  that's what I would say, minute restriction. I don't know I'm gonna play
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  it by year, you know. I do know that each game is gonna
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  get ramped up. It's just how fast do we want to ramp it up?
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  You know. So practices have been good, you know, and it's
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  a fine line, you know when you think about it. I don't want
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  to wear her out in practice, but she needs a lot of reps because
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  she wants to get all the dust off. So she's put me in a
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  bad spot right now, and I'm tryna, you know, trying to be
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  fair to her and try to be an adult and think about the future instead
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  of just right now. So, uh, yeah, there will be but
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  I don't know what it is yet, you know, be a little more
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  than the the last game for sure. Well Caroline start again, yeah,
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  yeah, yeah, for right now? Yeah, unless something changes between now
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  and then. But yeah, yeah, Joe, how do you how do
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  you keep it in everything in perspective? Like, I know, I know
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  you're good at that with different the players, but like, oh, maybe
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  you're gonna be number one to start the season and you guys have everybody,
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  you know, all the the all the great players that you have, Like,
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  what's something that you tell them to kind of keep their heads focused,
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  like where it needs to be. Well, so far this season being number
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  one is very very fleeting, right, So all you have to do is
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  just kind of pay attention. And you know, you know, I should
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  tell them the story of Caesar. You know that when you think you're great,
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  there's a guy that's with you all the time whispering your ear. You
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  know you're not as good as you think you are. So calm down here.
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  We haven't proved to anybody that we're the number one team in the country.
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  So I think I think they know that. I think there have been
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  times, I think since they've been here to where you have been number one.
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  You know, I'm sure at some point, even though it may been
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  just for a little while, and they saw that it didn't last very long.
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  So I think they'll be mature enough to to realize what it is.
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  You know, as I said, nobody's proved anything yet. At this point,
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  everybody else is gonna be available injurizing Jana. Janna is just starting to
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  do workouts, individual workouts, so we're hoping that we can get her into
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  full fledged practice soon, so she won't no, no, everyone else except
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  Jana. I was saying, we were walking out for the national anthem yesterday
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  or the other day, and I thought, damn, we're small, man
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  compared her like a lot of teams that we've had here. You see,
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  we're small. And then I looked and I went, but if I put
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  a uniform on Jenna and Yana, man, we look like a really,
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  really good team. So yeah, yeah, be nice to have her back.
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  Jane, What are your expectations for Azy this year? She her own
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  worst enemy at times. I mean, we saw how good she can be
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  last year pre injury. Oh I said before, she's a reluctant superstar.
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  You know, she's a reluctant superstar. I think she has all the qualities
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  that that star players have. You know, She's she's good at every facet
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  of the game, and she wants to be a great teammate. She wants
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  to make sure that everything goes well. And you know, I want her
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  to be super aggressive and I want her to be a risk taker, and
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  I want her to just put it all out there and you know, try
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  to get forty every night. You know why not? So little by little
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  it's working. You know, she's been much much more aggressive at to this
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  point this year than all that last year. She was super aggressive because she
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  didn't she knew it in that page. And I just don't want her to
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  back off of that now just because Pages here. Can you talk about that
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  a little bit more of when you have right what there's all this talk of
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  Pages coming back, So you want it easy to stay aggressive about Alya Anita
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  and wanting them to still keep playing the way they hit this team playing last
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  year. Yeah, yeah, I mean the secret that the secret to having
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  a championship type team is you have to have a lot of players playing at
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  the top of their game just about every night. So that means Aliyah has
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  to have the kind of All American season that she had last season. It
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  doesn't matter that Pages. You know, she got some shots the other night
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  that she didn't get last year because of Page, So there's gonna be more
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  opportunities for her, and I want her to take advantage of those opportunities.
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  So for Nika, you know, Nika's big, big contributions to the team
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  can be at as much intangible as they are tangible. But now because we
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  have a lot more firepower on the floor, she just has to make sure
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  that we get a great shot every time down the floor and we have good
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  possessions every time down the floor. She finds the right people and just keeps
• 9:20
  getting better as a three point shooter because there's going to be more opportunities to
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  shoot it. You know, I think putting Page into the mix elevates whatever
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  everybody did last year, it makes them better this year. Ideally, would
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  you like Page to lead the team in scoring or would you rather have Easy
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  lead the team in school? I don't care. I don't care. It's
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  never mattered to me. You know. We we tend to go game the
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  game sometimes and let's see how the game goes. There's when we run our
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  stuff, there air shots available for everybody. It's are you comfortable? Are
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  you comfortable comfortable enough, confident enough that when the ball's in your hands.
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  You can make a play that you wanna make that get you a bucket,
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  and one night it might be you, another night might be you, another
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  night might be you. Uh. I don't think it. I don't think
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  it matters one way or another. You know, if Paige wanted to be
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  l lead the team this morning, she would. If she wanted to lead
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  the country and scoring, she would. But that's not that's not where she
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  is. You said a kick was an electric on Saturday. What do you
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  wanna see from her now that everything count in, the bright lights are going
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  on, there'sper tuper competition. Well, you would hope that players like that.
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  The harder it gets, the better they are, because if you're that
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  kind of player, the competition should bring out even more of your stuff.
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  So I want her to play like there's an unlimited amount of mistakes that she
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  can make, because when you're a freshman, if I try to coach every
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  little thing, you're not gonna do anything because you're gonna be afraid to make
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  a mistake. So whether it's her or Ashland or Ice or Q, just
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  do your thing, man, and then let me worry about it later.
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  Because the last thing we want is for you to think about should I do
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  this or should I do that? And that's the big thing with me with
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  my freshman you know, go out play, do your thing, do what
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  we've taught you, do what your gut instincts tell you, use your God
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  given talents. Okay, trusting yourself, believe in yourself. And we'll watch
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  film tomorrow and we'll see what the jury decides. Has Ashland got better at
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  not wanting not trying to make every single little thing perfect? Uh? Yeah,
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  a little bit. She goes through cycles. You know, she competes
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  a real high level. You know, she competes like she's she should be
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  on a championship team. That's that's her competitive level. And you know,
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  you saw the one rebound she got the other day where you know it was
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  pretty impressive. There's a lot in her tank, and you know it's an
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  every day It's a progressive thing. You know, for people that have been
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  like this for their entire lives. You don't just shake it right away.
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  This desire to not not be as good as you think you are, or
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  as letting anybody down, or being less of what you know people thought you
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  were, or you know that that that that's something that you either were born
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  with or you carry with you, and little by little, you know,
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  it'll get it, it'll get better. I don't know that her desire to
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  be perfect will ever go away, you know. Uh, but I'm gonna
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  certainly help her with that. I mean, look at me. I don't
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  care how things look. I don't care how anything is. I'm not looking
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  for it to be perfect. Have you seen to be at this week?
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  No? No, I'll hear Tamika before I see her, so I know
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  when she's I know when she's in the Uh No. I I'll check in
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  on her tomorrow. Probably I shoot around. I don't know. I don't
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  know what they're doing tonight. I don't know what the team's doing tonight.
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  Do you have like a goal to to make a story that stands out to
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  you? I don't know. I don't know to me, cause she's just
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  does she always think she'd be a broke No? No, not a no
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  no chance, no chance. I mean her people skills and her ability to
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  you know, probably impress recruits and motivate kids, and you know, try
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  to get the best out of people and make people believe in her. I
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  think that that's all there. So she has the makings of a of a
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  really really good coach. But m T. Tamika made you when Tamika played,
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  she made you crazy, crazy with her talent, what she could do,
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  crazy, the things that she did crazy at some of the places she
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  would be on the court, which if you gave her ten choices and only
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  one of them was wrong, that's the one she picked and then end up
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  with a steal going the other way. You know, we never heard her
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  worry about misshots because Tamika got every offensive rebound. It was great to watch
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  her and Swin, you know, beat each other up for for uh,
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  who's gonna rebound the ball? Yeah, she was. She was a character
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  man, NonStop, NonStop, NonStop. I mean, you gotta I don't
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  know how many you guys were around, and you gotta put yourself on my
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  bus, on my plane or my locker room and you're looking at combination of
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  d Tamika, Swind Maria Conlin. We had some thank god Asia was there.
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  S Yeah, yeah, thank god Soon and Asia were there. Bring
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  some sense of order to to the group. It was. It was pretty
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  wild. She said the high point of her career was when you guys lost,
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  because she thought that was like a launching the point for the program.
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  But was it a very Tubika The would say, uh yeah, that that
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  that freshman year was. Really I was filled with a lot of what it
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  and I think they knew just how unbelievably good we were before Sue got hurt
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  and then how it ended. So I could see why she would think that
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  that was the high point of her her career. I'm sure the low point
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  was twenty two thousand and one when we lost in the semifinals, you know,
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  because of some of the injury things that we had. So yeah,
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  I think Tamika experienced pretty much every emotion there was to go through here in
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  this program. Have you gotten used to seeing former players in cookie roles on
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  on the other side and like facing against them? See? Have you gotten
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  used to seeing former players as coaches and playing the man not not just my
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  players? A lot of every time I turned around, you know, the
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  the kid from Southern Kate, I'm like, did you really have eighteen when
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  we played? You said, I somehow I don't remember that. She said,
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  well, do you remember Teina blocking my shot like six times? And
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  that's why I went out there and started shooting threes? And so I told
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  her when I walked over, I said, look, either you're too young
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  or I'm too old to coach. I said, You're either too young to
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  coach, or I'm too old to coach. I said, this is this
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  is not your normal situation here, you know, but it's happening more and
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  more. You know, you look around the colleges. How many coaches are
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  coaching that were former players that played against us. You know. It's it's
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  an eye opener, it sure is. It is an eye opener. Tell
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  you what's the worse eye opener? Like, my grandson's over there shooting him
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  up. He's thirteen, you know, and uh, he's going he's going
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  to the East Catholic next year. So he'll be a freshman at East Catholic.
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  And we had a kid here on campus in October that's a freshman in
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  high school and it's probably one of the top twenty players in America. And
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  I'm thinking talking to a kid my grandson's age, So what's this world coming
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  to give me a lot long enough to coach a grandchild of somebody who coached
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  in the neighbors or oh sure, oh sure, yeah, sure, sure,
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  nothing, I'm sure to brush that on you sure, just a friendly
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  reminder. I mean, I'm coaching. I'm coaching. I'm coaching a kid
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  of you know, the girl we played against that Georgetown you know, and
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  Hazy's mom, Kate Kiten. You know. Yeah, I'm a n those
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  people in the eighties, I know of'em played basketball yet t you know,
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  they either all have boys or they went to different sports, you know,
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  like Megan's kids now are old enough to go you know, w her
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  daughter's old enough to go to college. She's a little cross player. So
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  just or they have or you know, the peo they you know, she
• 20:27
  has a son who plays football at end the COT. So the right SI
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  scenario hasn't come up yet, but when it does, oh Man, Like,
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  I don't mind coaching people's kids, but come on, people's grandkids.
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  Come on, whom I would need a build self contract to do that?
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  Man, oh Man,