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Geno Auriemma - Postgame Marquette · Coaches Corner

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In your mind? What okay in yours? What is it just about the
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age that just supports everybody else? Did she came back from let me Up
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and she got supposedly different team? Well, yeah, that probably answers your
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question, right, Did I think any team you put her on would be
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a different team? Right? So the things that she does impact each and
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every player on our team in a positive way. Just her presence on the
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floor, and and she expects she expects so much from herself and she expects
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a lot from her teammates. She was very, very vocal today on the
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bench during timeouts. I I think she's she's doing about everything that a that
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a player can do to help their team win. And like words, yeah,
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just how did you kind of that area on the east? It wasn't
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easy for her today, you know, she couldn't get anything to drop.
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And then the foulsand in the first half, and there were times, you
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know, it looked like she was the only one that was attempting to rebound
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for us. So it was a it was a great effort by her,
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uh I. But the f on the defensive end of the second half especially,
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and you saw what happened when a Leah wasn't in the game. How
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uh, how they took advantage of us inside. So you know, for
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Lea to play the way she played, it's easy when the ball's going in
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and you know you're gonna get twenty five points and you know everything's going smoothly.
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But when you're struggling a little bit and the ball just won't go in
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and you just find other ways to win a game for you, you know,
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and she'd certainly did that, right. You though so many injury issues
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this season, past a few seasons. What's going through your mind? What
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do you see? H Page older d and it's hows how soon did you
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realize it wasn't anything any seriousness game? Yeah? I I think if if
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it was something really serious, I think you would have seen the probably a
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different reaction from Page. Uh. But I could tell, you know when
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I went out there, just by how she was. But it didn't make
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me feel any better. Let's put that way. I was still you know,
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and I was also prepared myself, like, so, she's not gonna
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play the rest of the game. She's not gonna play the rest of the
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game. But yeah, your mind goes to bad places when you see stuff
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like that happen, and uh, but it doesn't take her long to recover.
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MM. She just walked up to me. I'm standing there out of
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nowhere. She just walked up to me near the score stable and was checking
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herself in. She said, where the hell are you going? She said,
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I'm good to go. I said you're good to go. When I
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say you're good to go, sit down, she's s subbing herself in now.
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God bless'em. They just talked about wanting to take on the cow
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Ti to play scurious. What did you see in group outside of all the
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team She she wants to be really really good at everything, and she wants
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to be recognized as just an uh A complete, a complete player. And
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you know, one of the things I w we talked about a long time
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ago. She don't even remember it, but one of the things we talked
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about is, you know players that become somewhat legendary, you know, they
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they are. They have two things that they do. One whoever they assigned
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to guard her can't guard her, and whoever she guards can't score. So
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when you can put those two things together, then you become the kind of
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person that can help you win championships, win games, become you know,
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the kind of player that people have a tremendous amount of respect for. And
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she wants that because you look around the country, the average kid that scores
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a lot of points, they think it's somebody else's job to guard the other
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team's best player. So I'm really proud of her. She wants that challenge.
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Her and Nico both like that, you know, they want that challenge.
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And I'm fortunate to have kids like that. Uh, you your girls
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had eight rowers, some more gets sixteen and twenty four points off of those
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sixteen rowers. Just talk about the points that your girls had today a south
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road require run a or Earlier in the season, turnovers were a big,
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big problem for us, and the last month, I would say at least
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we've turned that, we've turned that into a positive. You know that we're
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forcing a lot of turnovers and we're doing a better job of taking care of
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the ball for the most part. But playing smaller and the you know,
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obviously not having the the the size to bring in a lot of big guys,
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we have to play small a lot, and we have to play quick,
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quickly, and there's challenges that we have defensively, So the more we
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can disrupt teams and not let them get into their def uh get into their
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offense. So we need those, you know, we try to win that
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turnover battle. How many points we score off turnovers versus how many of the
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other team scores and how many threes, I don't know how it was today
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on the three, eight, nine, ten, eleven, So we got
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scored them by nine. So the game, the game played out like I
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hoped they would. I knew it wasn't gonna play out the way it did
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before. They weren't gonna turn it over that much, and we weren't gonna
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be able to score that much off turnovers. But cause we're smaller, we
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can do more things defensively when we're not in found trouble. We'd all pressure
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it even more. But KK got the early fouls and then Leah got the
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fouls. But that third quarter, we really we really turned it on.
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And was speaking of that third or even last time you played in these two
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to play these they started out ten. Know, then you guys you know,
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came back and evolished that. This kind first half its pretty neck and
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that and then for important used to turn it up so how do you able
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to pro out of the marquet this time of how do we move you ale
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to shut it down that or uh I I S I would say that I
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W I would say that Marquette might be one of certainly in our league.
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They're the m I think they're the most disciplined team in the league in terms
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of they execute their stuff really, really really well, and they are very
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very very much they're they're they're good at the little things that have to be
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done, so they don't generally beat themselves. They don't make a lot of
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mistakes. So you have to try and it's not easy, but you have
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to try to get them to not be as precise with what they wanna do
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that if you can, you know, mix it up a little bit,
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you know, stir the pot up a little bit and get it where it's
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going a little bit faster. Sometimes doesn't always work, but and and it
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wa and it doesn't work for an entire game, but first stretch, you
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know, seven eight minutes, I think we we we did do that today.
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Outside of the ices of those they think there were a lot of the
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most consonants that were just excited about Kk's return. I think you could hear
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any of the crosses. Yeah, just add you know what she's added as
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a freshman. Uh And she said it's kind of helpful, was to hear
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a different coach's perspective when opposing teams, I guess are cheering for a players
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like that as much as they were. Yeah, well, there was a
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obviously there was a change in our in our lineup, you know, when
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we when we went to uh some by necessity, you know, And it
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didn't work in the beginning because we had every guard that we had on the
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floor all wanted the ball at the same time, and so that didn't look
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so hot. But once, once we got acclimated to it, KK became
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like the engine that was driving everything because of her quickness, her speed.
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And yet when you look, she still finds a way to score enough points
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to keep everybody, you know, honest so they can't play off of her.
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She gets in the lane just enough times she makes you know something happened
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defensively. You know, there are times when I thought the first five minutes,
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six minutes, seven minutes at the today's game, she played like a
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freshman who was home and was a little bit jittery, a little bit anxious,
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and I think once she settled in, I thought she she gave the
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home home fans a lot to cheer about. I don't know where we'd be
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that are right now. I've certainly taking a lot of pressure off of Nika.
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I know that Niko appreciates it. Yeah, coach, I kind of
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wanted to feed off that as well, you know. Yeah, uh and
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from a local standpoint, her and actually never really stepped in and provided a
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good smart for you guys a as young players. Yeah, you've coached a
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lot of young guards in your in your long career. What kind of separates
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those too? And what do they provide in this team? You you kind
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of piggyback howf KK does a little bit of everything? What do they kind
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of do to this team that make you guys uh? Or have gotten you
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guys on the stiftunete? What you what did? What did you see?
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Improvement wise? From each and every game and each and every practice that we
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have, they get much more comfortable with comfortable with making mistakes. So A,
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when you're a freshman and early on you you play afraid to make mistakes
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a lot of times you wanna do so well that you play afraid to make
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mistakes, and they're at a point now where they don't worry about the mistakes
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that they make. They just keep trying to make another good play, another
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good player, another good play, and they they're in a great situation because
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they know that even if they play poorly, they've got enough around them to
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to bail them out. So there isn't that kind of pressure on them.
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And they're just confident kids. You know, they're both really confident, and
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they each do what they're good at. That's all you can ask really,
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maybe one more as at half time, I mean, just do you feel
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like God helped your guys's moment? Maybe I was still going wow over Jordan
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King's jump shot, going damn, you know, because I thought we had
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a really well guarded that was a really tough shot, and so I was
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still like shaking my head looking at the bench, and then I looked over
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and I knew she was gonna shoot it. And you know, she practices
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those, you know, like all these kids do. You know, they
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all come out the end of shoot around or whatever, the end of practice
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and are thrown up there, and you know, she makes her share of
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them. So it's luck. But she thinks it's not luck, but I
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you know, but yeah, that was a great way to go into the
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locker room for sure, because I think if she hadn't made that, I
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think they would have gone in on Jordan's shot and would have been pretty pumped.
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I would be. I know that he doesn't expand it. The course
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of the season doesn't mean you were expected or were you kind of hopeful she
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to be back or at least year. I wasn't sure whether she would come
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back. I mean, obviously you always keep your fingers crossed, and you
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know, Carol, I mean, she's done so much, but she's had
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to deal with these things for such a long time that it wasn't worth it
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after a while to constantly be going to practice with your fingers crossed hoping that
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you could get through another practice just so you could play in a game.
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So I think she's doing She's doing the right thing for herself and hopefully her
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basketball career can continue at some point. Thanks everybody. The funeral and Pagebeckers
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will be available outside of the UK on Long Grown. Thank you very much,
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See you next time.