Another Lynx Top 25: Renee Montgomery (with video)
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I've already posted this several months ago but this thread can use it also!
In 2009 at the Final Four Geno Auriemma was doing a press conference court side when Rebecca Lobo asked him if he had seen Jeff Jacobs article in the Hartford Courant from that morning and he said no so Rebecca read him the article below:
ST. LOUIS — After a 26-point performance against Stanford that surely will carve her name into UConn legend, Renee Montgomery ran off the court and into the arms of her coach. Geno Auriemma had more than a hug waiting Sunday. He had a message.
"He told me, 'I always wanted you to have the last practice and play the last game the way it was supposed to be played,' " Montgomery said on the eve of her final college game and her first national championship game. "Sitting here now, I know what he meant. Everything he says is starting to make sense to me.
"Four years and 150 games, Coach finally makes sense. I think he'd crack up at that."
Basketball is a team game, of course, and nothing can be greater than the collective pursuit of a sixth NCAA title, a third perfect season. Still, as the final hours of Montgomery's UConn career tick toward a matchup with Louisville and her friend Angel McCoughtry, it's impossible not to see an extraordinary bond forged between Auriemma and the senior from West Virginia.
He wants this national championship for Renee Montgomery. He wants it bad.
"I don't know that I've wanted anything more than I want this," he said.
There is a point where planning ends and basketball begins, of course, and it meets at a mutual understanding between a coach and his point guard. Ultimately, they must think as one, hear each other's words before they are spoken, speak volumes with one look.
"Any time you have an opportunity to win a national championship, you can follow that trail and it leads right to the point guard or to a guard who can control the game," Auriemma said. "You add to that the special ones who just transcend all the practices, drills, X's and O's, bus travel, air travel, film sessions.
"They're not about just, 'How are we going to guard the pick-and-roll.' That's so insignificant when you're talking about those players, and certainly Renee. I really admire her as a person. Even when she didn't talk to me for a couple of years when Tonya [Cardoza, now Temple's coach] was her coach, I still admired her."
Oh, they enjoy taking playful jabs at each other.
Auriemma talks about how Montgomery, early in her career, ran to his former assistant for TLC. Montgomery talks about how Auriemma yelled so much she couldn't understand him. Clearly, it took much more than getting Montgomery's weight from 115 to 140 pounds - full racks of ribs from Wings Over Storrs helped there - to fill out Auriemma's demands for his lead guard. Jen Rizzotti, Sue Bird, Diana Taurasi, they've all shouldered the burden, and it was Montgomery's turn.
"I can only imagine how hard it was for him to have a player like Diana and to have to rebuild his program all over again," Montgomery said. "When I was a freshman, he'd say things to me like, 'You need to know what everyone on the court is doing at all times.' I'm thinking this is not possible. He'd go, 'If anybody messes up, it's your fault.' When you're a freshman, it's like, man, this is hard. He's crazy.
"He would just yell so much. It's not that I tuned him out, but I wasn't receiving the message. He'd go, 'Go talk to your mom [Cardoza].' I think he was frustrated that he'd tell me something and it would take her to tell me for it to hit home."
Montgomery said Cardoza translated for her. He meant look for the backdoor. . . . If Ann Strother is on the left side, you want to go to her side. She had to learn what to do herself before she told her teammates what to do.
The turning point came in her sophomore year. She began to understand the game. She began to understand her coach. Instead of left out, she would become his right arm.
"It was an interesting process," she said. "When I would think something was almost perfect at practice, he'd go, 'It's not OK.' I'm like, what's your problem? He'd always say, 'I've been there. I know what it takes to win.' I believed him."
Belief is a powerful weapon. And that belief could make her a national champion and the No. 1 player in the WNBA draft.
"Now when we come into a timeout I already know the idea of what we're going to do," Montgomery said. "I'll call a play and he'll go, 'Yeah, yeah.' He'll call something, and I was already thinking it. To be on the same page with him, it makes me excited. I think he's a basketball genius."
Renee will catch herself in mid-sentence sometimes and remind you how much she loves to talk. And on this day, she was in prime form. She talked about sitting in Geno's office four days after last year's Final Four loss to Stanford, telling him how depressed she was. Geno's response? "Are you going to do something about it?"
So the team began offseason workouts early. Auriemma took the team to Camp Jewell in Colebrook. Cabins in the woods? Montgomery doesn't like the outdoors, but she was intent on making the most of the experience. The players talked about roles and leadership. They bonded even as they argued over the board game "Cranium."
Craniums were coming together. And now a team full of extraordinary talent stands at the cusp of greatness.
"Watch film with us. See the mistakes," Montgomery said. "We're not so great."
She watched the UConn men fall to Michigan State and her heart went out to A.J. Price and Jeff Adrien. After the Maryland women lost, she saw the tears. All this made her nervous knowing how the seniors must feel. Angst, never satisfied. Folks, she's even starting to fuss and sound like Auriemma.
"Every great team has somebody like Renee," Auriemma said. "But not all fairy tales end with the prince taking the princess home and living happily ever after. Sometimes it doesn't end right."
And that's when he said he never wanted anything more than he wants a national title for his point guard.
"I put my trust in him," she said. "I think that's why he wants me to win. He knows how much I put into wanting to be coachable, a good teammate and good person. . . . Contrary to what he believes, I've liked him ever since I got here.
"Except I love him now."
When Rebecca got to the last line Geno started crying and walked away from the crowd!
She said that was the first time in all the years she's known him she's seen him cry!
In 2009 at the Final Four Geno Auriemma was doing a press conference court side when Rebecca Lobo asked him if he had seen Jeff Jacobs article in the Hartford Courant from that morning and he said no so Rebecca read him the article below:
ST. LOUIS — After a 26-point performance against Stanford that surely will carve her name into UConn legend, Renee Montgomery ran off the court and into the arms of her coach. Geno Auriemma had more than a hug waiting Sunday. He had a message.
"He told me, 'I always wanted you to have the last practice and play the last game the way it was supposed to be played,' " Montgomery said on the eve of her final college game and her first national championship game. "Sitting here now, I know what he meant. Everything he says is starting to make sense to me.
"Four years and 150 games, Coach finally makes sense. I think he'd crack up at that."
Basketball is a team game, of course, and nothing can be greater than the collective pursuit of a sixth NCAA title, a third perfect season. Still, as the final hours of Montgomery's UConn career tick toward a matchup with Louisville and her friend Angel McCoughtry, it's impossible not to see an extraordinary bond forged between Auriemma and the senior from West Virginia.
He wants this national championship for Renee Montgomery. He wants it bad.
"I don't know that I've wanted anything more than I want this," he said.
There is a point where planning ends and basketball begins, of course, and it meets at a mutual understanding between a coach and his point guard. Ultimately, they must think as one, hear each other's words before they are spoken, speak volumes with one look.
"Any time you have an opportunity to win a national championship, you can follow that trail and it leads right to the point guard or to a guard who can control the game," Auriemma said. "You add to that the special ones who just transcend all the practices, drills, X's and O's, bus travel, air travel, film sessions.
"They're not about just, 'How are we going to guard the pick-and-roll.' That's so insignificant when you're talking about those players, and certainly Renee. I really admire her as a person. Even when she didn't talk to me for a couple of years when Tonya [Cardoza, now Temple's coach] was her coach, I still admired her."
Oh, they enjoy taking playful jabs at each other.
Auriemma talks about how Montgomery, early in her career, ran to his former assistant for TLC. Montgomery talks about how Auriemma yelled so much she couldn't understand him. Clearly, it took much more than getting Montgomery's weight from 115 to 140 pounds - full racks of ribs from Wings Over Storrs helped there - to fill out Auriemma's demands for his lead guard. Jen Rizzotti, Sue Bird, Diana Taurasi, they've all shouldered the burden, and it was Montgomery's turn.
"I can only imagine how hard it was for him to have a player like Diana and to have to rebuild his program all over again," Montgomery said. "When I was a freshman, he'd say things to me like, 'You need to know what everyone on the court is doing at all times.' I'm thinking this is not possible. He'd go, 'If anybody messes up, it's your fault.' When you're a freshman, it's like, man, this is hard. He's crazy.
"He would just yell so much. It's not that I tuned him out, but I wasn't receiving the message. He'd go, 'Go talk to your mom [Cardoza].' I think he was frustrated that he'd tell me something and it would take her to tell me for it to hit home."
Montgomery said Cardoza translated for her. He meant look for the backdoor. . . . If Ann Strother is on the left side, you want to go to her side. She had to learn what to do herself before she told her teammates what to do.
The turning point came in her sophomore year. She began to understand the game. She began to understand her coach. Instead of left out, she would become his right arm.
"It was an interesting process," she said. "When I would think something was almost perfect at practice, he'd go, 'It's not OK.' I'm like, what's your problem? He'd always say, 'I've been there. I know what it takes to win.' I believed him."
Belief is a powerful weapon. And that belief could make her a national champion and the No. 1 player in the WNBA draft.
"Now when we come into a timeout I already know the idea of what we're going to do," Montgomery said. "I'll call a play and he'll go, 'Yeah, yeah.' He'll call something, and I was already thinking it. To be on the same page with him, it makes me excited. I think he's a basketball genius."
Renee will catch herself in mid-sentence sometimes and remind you how much she loves to talk. And on this day, she was in prime form. She talked about sitting in Geno's office four days after last year's Final Four loss to Stanford, telling him how depressed she was. Geno's response? "Are you going to do something about it?"
So the team began offseason workouts early. Auriemma took the team to Camp Jewell in Colebrook. Cabins in the woods? Montgomery doesn't like the outdoors, but she was intent on making the most of the experience. The players talked about roles and leadership. They bonded even as they argued over the board game "Cranium."
Craniums were coming together. And now a team full of extraordinary talent stands at the cusp of greatness.
"Watch film with us. See the mistakes," Montgomery said. "We're not so great."
She watched the UConn men fall to Michigan State and her heart went out to A.J. Price and Jeff Adrien. After the Maryland women lost, she saw the tears. All this made her nervous knowing how the seniors must feel. Angst, never satisfied. Folks, she's even starting to fuss and sound like Auriemma.
"Every great team has somebody like Renee," Auriemma said. "But not all fairy tales end with the prince taking the princess home and living happily ever after. Sometimes it doesn't end right."
And that's when he said he never wanted anything more than he wants a national title for his point guard.
"I put my trust in him," she said. "I think that's why he wants me to win. He knows how much I put into wanting to be coachable, a good teammate and good person. . . . Contrary to what he believes, I've liked him ever since I got here.
"Except I love him now."
When Rebecca got to the last line Geno started crying and walked away from the crowd!
She said that was the first time in all the years she's known him she's seen him cry!