Latest / Coaches Corner / Geno Auriemma - October 3

Transcript

Geno Auriemma - October 3 · Coaches Corner

• 0:01
  Because the forty that you still fel is that excitement not going in. Yeah,
• 0:06
  the first day, let me turn this off. The first day is
• 0:09
  always you know, there's always a level of excitement that goes around that.
• 0:14
  Uh. And we're actually starting way earlier than we've ever started. You know,
• 0:18
  we've kind of stayed with that October twelve, thirteen, fourteen fifteen,
• 0:24
  somewhere around that week, and I just felt like the kids were like really
• 0:29
  excited to let's get started. Let's get started. So this is the earliest
• 0:34
  than I know. I'm yeah, as excited as I was. I'm not
• 0:41
  nervous like I used to be thirty nine years ago, but I'm just as
• 0:46
  excited as I've ever been. Yeah, he paid. Her favorite part of
• 0:50
  the Europe trip was eating an American burger. How does that make you feel?
• 0:54
  It makes me feel like we wasted a lot of money. We should
• 1:00
  have just left her here and you know, cater Burgers for or something.
• 1:07
  I think she was being a little bit facetious with you guys if she said
• 1:14
  that, because the trip was great, and Page just likes to so it
• 1:19
  likes to be a little bit different than everybody else. What are you most
• 1:23
  excited about with this team. Like like most years, I would say,
• 1:34
  the excitement is too to actually see what it can be, what it can
• 1:38
  become. You know, it's just been really hard the last couple of years
• 1:46
  because you're starting out under you know a little bit of a dark cloud,
• 1:51
  you know, and so the excitement is maybe a little bit more tempered.
• 1:56
  But you know, even though there's a little bit of that now with you
• 1:59
  know, with Jenna being unavailable, you know, the one bright spot is
• 2:07
  we never had her, so we don't know exactly what it is that we're
• 2:10
  missing. So this particular group and hasn't been together. I'd look back,
• 2:20
  you know, Page didn't play at all last year. I think as you
• 2:22
  played like fifteen games or something like that out of the thirty seven or so
• 2:25
  that we played whatever it was, you know, and Carol was in now,
• 2:30
  so I'm anxious to see how the new guys blend in. And it's
• 2:36
  like that every year, though, you know, you have this vision in
• 2:38
  your mind or what you think it's gonna be like, but there's also an
• 2:42
  unknown and you're excited to see what that is. We're able to take away
• 2:45
  anything from the europe trip. Yeah, yeah, when we play fresh and
• 2:51
  fast and free. You know, we're really really good when we when we
• 3:00
  start pressing and we start picking up three quarter quard and playing, you know,
• 3:05
  with that kind of aggressing, we're really really good. And when when
• 3:10
  we don't play like that, we're not very good at all because all the
• 3:16
  all the things that have to get fixed. But you know, we have
• 3:21
  a long time to fix it. But I liked what I saw when we
• 3:23
  were at our best that looked really really good, and when we were at
• 3:28
  our worst, That's why I got invented in Redmine. Talk about Paige and
• 3:37
  and easy nationally, but you have a third player who could be an All
• 3:40
  American in Aaliyah. What are you expecting from her and how good can she
• 3:46
  be? Well, if anybody saw her last year, you know, November,
• 3:53
  December, January, she was and she was our own American, you
• 3:59
  know, and and I thought so it was Luke. And then Aliyah just
• 4:05
  had a really down month of February, and I think that affected, you
• 4:10
  know, how some people some people viewed her. But you know, we've
• 4:14
  been talking on with with her since the spring about the consistency that she she
• 4:19
  needs to maintain to be the same every day, every day, every game,
• 4:25
  every possession. And I think she is an old American player, you
• 4:29
  know, there's there's very few players like her, you know. I think
• 4:33
  if you ask anybody in college, anybody at the next level, they will
• 4:36
  tell you that. Now it's our job to make sure that we get that
• 4:42
  consistency from me. And I had a conversation with her and and Ice that
• 4:46
  until we get some sort of reinforcements from the other big guys, that's it.
• 4:51
  That's that's what we've got. So the pressure on them, and not
• 4:57
  bad pressure, but they're going to have to be really the good every night,
• 5:00
  you know, and sometimes that that scares you, and other times it
• 5:05
  motivates you to be even better than you normally would be. That's the whole
• 5:11
  thing he should hear. This past year of her life a rewarding experience on
• 5:15
  some fronts, and that going through getting through rehab as an acomplishment at all,
• 5:20
  and maybe she can come through having to sit out a more well donned
• 5:25
  person and player. Well. I know it helped her tremendously physically because she
• 5:31
  wouldn't have spent that wich's time had she been playing. So I think the
• 5:39
  physical part was a was a tremendous success. The maturing part about what goes
• 5:46
  on off the quirk, you know, and things that you have to do
• 5:48
  to take care of yourself, that was a tremendous success. So her growth
• 5:55
  as a person and her growth as a as a basketball player by wise mind
• 6:00
  wise. However, when you want to look at you never get better when
• 6:04
  you're when you're not playing. But the best way to get better when you're
• 6:08
  not playing is to actually really pay attention to what's going on and see the
• 6:13
  game the way a coach would see it, and to see it in a
• 6:15
  way that when you come back you're way better. It's like watching film for
• 6:20
  an entire season, except you're watching the live you know, and she's smart
• 6:26
  enough to be able to be able to understand that. Do you know when
• 6:29
  she steps on the court, can you said, you see how much she
• 6:32
  missed it in the beginning before we went to Europe, it was very tempered.
• 6:46
  So you say, well, how do we know if she's ready?
• 6:48
  If she won't put herself in situations where we need to find out if she's
• 6:51
  ready, because she was avoiding certain situations. And since we've gotten back,
• 6:58
  maybe because I'm not gonna play any so why you know, why should I.
• 7:01
  But now since we've been back, and I think she knows it's real,
• 7:04
  she's thrown herself into situations that are just normal and afterwards, you know,
• 7:14
  show a look at me and I'll say, hey, that wasn't bad
• 7:16
  or you know that was loud. We waited all year for this, and
• 7:23
  she goes, I don't think it's that bad for not playing for a whole
• 7:26
  year. So she has her expectations perfectly in line that this is going to
• 7:30
  take some time. That she's not gonna step out there and being Paige National
• 7:32
  Player of the Year of freshman year. But that's gonna take a little bit
• 7:35
  of time. Start about sitting around for so long as she can't wait,
• 7:39
  you out there and fire up the crowd, even though you and CD might
• 7:41
  not approve it. I mean, do you see that that energy and how
• 7:45
  you don't want to You know, when kids don't do what when kids don't
• 7:48
  do what they what they want to do because maybe they're not sure how that's
• 7:55
  gonna go over not they always blame me or CD or somebody. You know.
• 8:01
  She you know, she's out here shooting jump shots and then like turning
• 8:05
  around and walking away before the ball even gets to the rent, Like I'm
• 8:09
  going to do that in the game. Good except you missed it, you
• 8:13
  know. So I don't care what she does to celebrate. I don't care
• 8:16
  what she does to get the crowd fired up. I hope she does everything
• 8:20
  she's thinking and then more, God bless her. I mean, who's gonna
• 8:26
  tell her, hey, you better not do that. I've been waiting,
• 8:28
  like she said, a whole year to play basketball, and you know,
• 8:33
  as far as I'm concerned, she's gonna do whatever she wants. To find
• 8:35
  yourself looking for wood to knock on every time Aisy and Page get on the
• 8:39
  court together, And how do you mentally get yourself so that you can push
• 8:46
  them enough without worrying about I have spiritual beads, I was told by this
• 8:50
  woman in Hungary. She just points it and said, you know, good
• 8:56
  luck. So I think there's the only words. I think that was a
• 9:00
  con job, sales job. But I'm trying anything because so much has happened
• 9:07
  that. Yeah, you just hold your breath every day and at the end
• 9:13
  of every practice, at the end of every workout, and when you go
• 9:16
  home, you didn't get a phone call, you know. So, yeah,
• 9:22
  every time we go out the other day, you know, we had
• 9:26
  a workout and she came up lame and walked over to the side and sat
• 9:31
  down, and everybody like, and she just tied her shoe over again,
• 9:35
  you know, like it was just like, but everything that happens is going
• 9:37
  to be magnified to the integrity, you know, So we're gonna have to
• 9:41
  get past all that about like her gratitude for being out there and what in
• 9:46
  the On the flip side of that, she's so happy to be out there,
• 9:50
  and she become more of a menace to coach because whatever you say,
• 9:52
  she's just so excited. No, well we haven't we you know, today's
• 10:00
  the first day of practice. So they asked me in a week and I'll
• 10:03
  tell you. But she's not a you know, seventeen anymore. She's not
• 10:07
  eighteen anymore. You know it theoretically this is her fourth year, you kind
• 10:11
  of even though she hasn't played four years. There's got to be a maturity
• 10:15
  factor now that I can't I can't have the signissions that I had four years
• 10:20
  ago. And and you don't want to be that player that you were four
• 10:22
  years ago. But I also don't want you to lose all the things that
• 10:26
  made you who you are. You know, So she's I think the one
• 10:35
  difference maybe is gonna be she's not gonna be as reluctant I think to shoot
• 10:41
  the ball. She wasn't in the past. I think it was in the
• 10:45
  past. Just like everybody needs to be happy. I'm a big people pleaser,
• 10:48
  so everybody has to be happened. And I wouldn't be surprised if this
• 10:50
  year she goes well, I'll make everybody happy after I get happy, which
• 10:56
  is the way it's supposed to be in Is there anybody that's not a fool
• 10:58
  go to start practice? Uh? Is anybody? Yanna is? Is it
• 11:05
  out for a couple more weeks from all her stuff? Uh? Amar's out.
• 11:13
  She might do some some stuff on the court for Marai Yanna. Obviously,
• 11:20
  Janna's out, and Aubrey is gonna go. But I'm not sure she
• 11:31
  twisted her foot or something last week. But otherwise that everybody else's everybody else
• 11:39
  is pretty good to go spec any everybody for games and oh, I hope
• 11:45
  but anymore I don't know, but I hope. Yeah, I hope both
• 11:50
  of them are one hundred percent because you certainly could us could up both today
• 11:56
  realize you're a plus a go with didn't have to be dealing with She talks
• 12:01
  about it. She talks about her needing to poke up a little bit from
• 12:05
  the sorb contacts. You said her he'll lead the country and technicals and efforts
• 12:07
  to protect her. So that was a big initiative one for her. Where
• 12:11
  is she on that? She says she feels stronger, certainly stronger than she
• 12:15
  goes three years ago as a freshman. She's bigger. I asked her every
• 12:20
  day that I saw her, Did I see her like? Did you get
• 12:22
  bigger? Like she looks taller. Maybe you know she's more your stature has
• 12:28
  changed from all the work that she's put in. But yeah, this is
• 12:31
  the best she's ever looked in her life because it's the most work she's ever
• 12:37
  put in in her life. And that was the big That was the big
• 12:41
  concern after freshman year that as much as you love to play, as much
• 12:46
  as you love to spend time in the gym and all the things that you
• 12:48
  want to do, your body's not built for that. So you need to
• 12:52
  change your expectations or change your body and unfortunately the circumstances forced her to change
• 12:58
  her but I think she would have it anyway. And now, you know,
• 13:03
  it's gonna be interesting to see how much of a beating she's gonna take
• 13:09
  and how much of a beating she's gonna look to want to take. Initially,
• 13:13
  maybe it might be a little bit skittish, but I think in the
• 13:16
  end, and I don't want to hear any more about you know, I
• 13:22
  don't get any end ones because they don't call foul because they know I'm gonna
• 13:24
  score, and so they don't feel bad for me. Like all the guys
• 13:26
  that are gonna miss, she comes up with these ridiculous reasons why you know,
• 13:31
  things don't happen. But I like to see her get to the free
• 13:33
  throw line more often, and I like to see the officiating be you know,
• 13:39
  fair, no matter who we play, no matter where we play,
• 13:41
  no matter when we play where, if you hit somebody, that's a foul,
• 13:46
  and if we hit them, it's a foul, not Sometimes it is,
• 13:50
  sometimes it isn't. So we'll see. It's gonna be fun, it's
• 13:54
  gonna be exciting. If the freshmen shown you in the week up to this,
• 14:01
  you know, I would say of the three, k K's probably been
• 14:03
  the most consistent in her her approach and everything that she's brought to the court.
• 14:11
  Ash is very consistent, but much more cautious, so she will have
• 14:18
  to play herself out of that, you know, being cautious. You know,
• 14:22
  she's in that don't want to make a mistake mode where I don't think
• 14:26
  Kak worries about that stuff. She just tries to make plays and makes a
• 14:31
  lot of good ones and a few bad ones. And Que when Q gets
• 14:37
  it going, the kids think she's gonna make every shot she takes. And
• 14:43
  now we've got to get Que on board with some of the other things besides
• 14:48
  shooting the ball. You know. So they all have their strengths, and
• 14:50
  they all have things that they've got to work on, but all three of
• 14:54
  them are going to play an awful lot. So that's a that's a positive.
• 15:00
  You know, for those people to think I like to only play four
• 15:03
  players at a time, it'll be refreshing for them to see that. You
• 15:07
  know, I used to play eight or nine and ten back in the day,
• 15:11
  So I'd like to get back to that page back. How do you
• 15:15
  envision Nikast the season? How vision well, spouse, Nick, I'd be
• 15:20
  pretty excited. Just dribble the ball at the heath court, pass it and
• 15:24
  then get out of elections. All right. Give it to Easy, give
• 15:28
  it to Page, you know, give it to Ice, give it to
• 15:31
  Ali, give it to guys that are gonna be able to score. Put
• 15:33
  him in good position to score, and you've done your job, you know,
• 15:37
  and then pick up for you know, pick up full court defensively and
• 15:43
  be disruptive like you always are. So I would like to think that as
• 15:46
  many times as she you know, found shooters and found scores last year and
• 15:50
  all the assistance she was able to get, I think she's probably gonna have
• 15:54
  an opportunity to do more of that, except that Page is going to steal
• 15:58
  some of those because how many times she'll have the ball. But you know,
• 16:04
  Nick, because this is her fourth year, so she needs to be
• 16:08
  you know, twenty percent better than as you work there, she both Page
• 16:14
  and Daisy and talk about became mental part of the game. You can coach
• 16:17
  X and others and they have basketball like to you, but from a from
• 16:19
  a coaching stamps like how do you help the kids like Page? The starting
• 16:22
  stuff and the names eight and starting to stuffing. How do you help coach
• 16:26
  the mental part they game? Sometimes that's just the maturity that they have to
• 16:30
  have. There's not not much you can do for them other than put them
• 16:40
  out there and have confidence in them and keep talking to them about, you
• 16:47
  know, remembering who you are. Don't don't let what happened change who you
• 16:51
  are. And I know that's a sin done because I don't have to go
• 16:56
  through it. They've had to go through it, but I don't. I
• 17:00
  don't want them to think about it. I don't want their minds to be
• 17:03
  on anything other than I'm gonna play, and I'm gonna play the way I've
• 17:07
  always played and then let's let's just move on and don't worry about it.
• 17:11
  I think we've got time for one more. You'll you'll probably want to few
• 17:15
  or handful of teams that people will look at it the creator they could picture
• 17:18
  you did winning that. A lot of people will play the same about the
• 17:22
  taste. Obviously two thousands for all of two thousand and four team now another
• 17:27
  ten years crazy to say, oh I can should, maybe you pull should
• 17:30
  win it, but it's who do you think it unique? This of the
• 17:33
  fact that Yukon so many times, even the young thost teams. Let's put
• 17:37
  men's and women's teams together. That's so let's learning the running. Yeah,
• 17:41
  well, you can't write we're the basketball capital of the world on the court
• 17:45
  and then not not back it up. So you know, the guys proved
• 17:52
  last year that they're capable of winning a national championship. It's not like a
• 18:00
  bomb show. It's happening you time before, and you know Danny and his
• 18:03
  staff did an amazing job. So that means that it can happen again this
• 18:08
  year theoretically, and for us it's it could happen. I'm not gonna sit
• 18:19
  here and tell you, yeah, I'll be really disappointed if we don't go
• 18:25
  undefeated and win a national championship. I don't know that I have the confidence
• 18:30
  to be able to say that, But like I heard a long time ago,
• 18:36
  you can't win the national championship every single year, but you should aspire
• 18:42
  to have exactly what you just said that every year the season starts, when
• 18:47
  people start talking about who has a chance to win a national championship, your
• 18:49
  name has to come up right away. And I think the guy's next door
• 18:55
  to our guys and and and our team are in that conver sation this year,
• 19:00
  and that's all you can ask for. And then we'll cross our fingers
• 19:03
  and see where it goes. And I got the beans how much those put your