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Geno Auriemma Postgame - Notre Dame · Coaches Corner

• 0:01
  M TA to off star ourself. H you know it in all your lots
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  this year, an opposing guard really went off against you guys. I mean,
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  is there a a vulnerability to your defense right now? Just as a
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  cards you wanna drive the ball to the basket. Yeah, I thought that
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  we I thought we had it all figured out. But it almost broke down.
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  Uh an awful lot when you know, when Nico wasn't in the game,
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  it was uh it it hurt us both ends, you know, both
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  on the offensive end. We lost our flow. You know, we had
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  nothing for long, long stretches. And on the defensive end, and there
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  are young guys. There were a lot of lot of things that we have
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  been doing really really well the last twelve or thirteen games, and today you
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  know, we we we didn't do a great job with that. We missed
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  a lot of there's a lot of miscommunication between our big guys in our guards
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  today. Uh. And they got us just about every time we screwed it
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  up, you know. And I think you know, kind of played a
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  phenomenal game obviously, you know, she just was able to get to the
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  spot she wanted to get to. And but even that, I think the
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  the game for us came down to uh at the other end, we just
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  could not you know, we get up twelve and then all of a sudden,
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  we just stop, you know, for whatever reason, Like we didn't
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  continue building on that on those runs that we had, and you know,
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  you don't get many chances against a really good team, and we swandered some
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  of them. Do you have microphons? So please wait for that, Pat
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  God, do you know they they close both halves on huge, huge runs?
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  What what was the difference there? And are you concerned at all about
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  the poise of your team when it gets to crunch time in these kind of
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  games? Not necessarily, I mean, these are the only way that you
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  can the only way that you can prepare to be good in these games is
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  when is when you've been in these situations enough times and I think the you
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  know where KK and Ash are ice whoever where we are right now, We're
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  not there yet. We're not there yet where we can that we can stop
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  runs like that, especially, you know, just a lot of things,
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  a lot of things that happened today that I don't know if you saw it.
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  I think it was in the first half when page one down and she
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  smacked her face against the court, and I don't think she was the same
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  coming out of it. That's twice in a week and a half that she's
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  been hitting the face, and I thought she was out of it for most
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  of the game. So our young guys had an awful lot without Nika in
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  the game. KK and ash had to play way too many minutes in a
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  game like this. So now I'm not I'm not worried about that. I
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  think the more we're in this situation is the better they'll figure it out.
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  Aliah was so effective, especially in that first half. Was there was it
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  something they were doing and especially the fourth quarter that you guys didn't go back
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  to her as much or was it just sort of a change in the game.
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  No, we we We probably should have gone We probably should have gone
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  to it more her and her and Page had a really good two man game
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  going there at the start of the third quarter. But we need you know,
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  Ashton make a three tonight. Didn't make a three tonight. There were
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  just a lot of people in the lane after a while, and it's like
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  daring our big guys and daring our other guards to make some outside Johnson.
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  We didn't We didn't make any so we couldn't We couldn't get him out of
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  the lane. So after a while there was no room in there. But
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  yeah, we should have gone to that more often. Yeah, that was
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  that was bad decisions by me. We were searching all night for offensive identity.
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  You know, we didn't have one tonight. We were searching all night
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  for it, and so we just kept grasping a straw as it felt like.
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  Right, you mentioned poor communication. That's kind of been a theme on
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  defense this whole season. How do you feel like the team can work on
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  that and improve well? In these last thirteen games, it hasn't been an
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  issue. It would just be it was an issue tonight. But we have
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  worked really really hard on it, and these last thirteen games, you know,
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  against some really really good offensive teams, we've been spot on, and
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  today we weren't for whatever reason, you know, we just we're not on
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  the same page tonight. And again, you know, people have bad games.
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  People have you know, bad shooting nights, bad communication nights. You
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  know, Notre Dame looks like a national championship team tonight against us. They
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  got blown out the other night at home. That's basketball, you know,
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  the difference is obviously really stark with Nika then plus plus thirteen where they're in
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  the game, minus twenty six with they're out of the game. Did you
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  figure out something that you are if you're in that position again, that you
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  can do to because everybody's going to get in fall trouble. Yeah, yeah,
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  yeah, yeah. Uh. I think as as KK gets a little
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  more comfortable with our offense, it it would be a little bit easier to
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  to to play with aut Nika. But right now there's a lot of offensively
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  that we're not we're not real comfortable with when Nika is not in the game.
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  So it was actually a pretty good learning learning experience for for our younger
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  guys. But it's on us. You know, we have to coach KK
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  better as we move on, as we move forward, and you hate to
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  say, but we probably should have relied more on those on KK and Ash.
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  I think we tried really hard to get Page going and maybe we should
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  have, in hindsight, gotten more from Ash. So you know, these
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  things come up in games and you look at them and you go forward.
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  Hey, coach, obviously you had some championship teams in the house today and
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  behind the bench, not on the bench, unfortunately behind the bench. Can
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  you just talk a little bit about what that means for you personally to like
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  kind of look back over the last twenty years and see these players return to
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  the program. And it was pretty emotional when they were playing the video,
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  especially of to two thousand and three and four teams. Yeah, there was
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  a real emotional moment there when I was talking to D about it. And
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  some of these players I haven't seen ten twelve years, and obviously others you
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  know, you see more often. But it was it was an emotional weekend.
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  The connections that are that they have with each other, that they have
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  with with this program are pretty unique. And and and D said at one
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  point, you know, when you're when you're in it, when you're here,
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  you don't realize that sometimes until you come back and you you try to
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  put it in perspective, and it was. I asked her if her team
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  those two years played the other team on the other side, who would win
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  and she said, uh, the other team stacked. I said, yeah,
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  they have six all Americans. You guys have won, which made that
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  championship even more remarkable those two years. Do you know you mentioned that page
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  looked kind of out of it after maybe getting expected. But what were the
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  ways you kind of saw her struggle tonight? Was it maybe the way that
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  they were defending her, just her not getting to They were very physical with
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  her, which is to be expected, but a lot of those pull ups
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  that she normally makes easily, that a couple of laps that she normally makes.
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  But just I think I thought her movement without the ball was not as
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  good tonight as it has been, and especially in the first half. I
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  thought that second quarter that she really really struggled. And and those are the
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  nights when other people have to have to step up and make more shots.
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  But the offense bogged down too much for the first time in about a month
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  and any half, there was there was very very very little flow to what
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  we were doing, very little just a Clarify page got poked in the eye.
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  It's yeah, you mentioned just potential learning opportunity for some of the younger
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  players. Can you explain a little bit more on that, you know,
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  what can they take from this experience of a game you know, kind of
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  back and forth and doesn't go their way at the end. Well, on
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  the defensive end, the the communication breakdowns you know they they happen mostly when
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  you're younger. The game's moving real fast and things are happening real quick.
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  There was three threes that west Belt made on things that were just breakdowns by
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  us to leave her a wide open and and those are things that experienced players
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  wouldn't do. Do you learn? How do you become an experienced player?
• 11:01
  You just have to play more games, you know. And and KK and
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  ASH are gonna be really, really, really good. You struggle a little
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  bit tonight, gin know what to your left in the back. What impressed
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  you most about Hidalgo? He is obviously very talented and pretty poised to come
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  in and play really well in a setting like this, you building like this.
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  Yeah, I thought I thought she was able to to get I find
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  it hard to believe, given that that our defense has been so good,
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  But she was able to get to the basket way more times than than then
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  we could. When someone gets sit the basket that often, there's nothing,
• 12:01
  there's nothing we can do about it, because that's just a total breakdown.
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  I don't care how good a guard is, and she's terrific, but for
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  somebody to get to the basket that easily, that means there's a lot of
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  things going wrong defensively, and to her credit, she kept getting there and
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  she has a variety of ways to score, and she's obviously playing with a
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  tremendous amount of confidence. And it did take a lot, took a lot
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  of guts to come in here and do what she did. And she she's
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  she's damn good, right, Yeah, thanks guys,