RockyMTblue2
Don't Look Up!
- Joined
- Aug 26, 2011
- Messages
- 22,308
- Reaction Score
- 98,697
When you come down to it, have you noticed Geno has appeared a bit haggard of late?
“This was the hardest year I’ve had the last four or five years, easy,” Auriemma said. “There hasn't been another one that's close. There was a lot of stuff we had to deal with, a lot. And there were times when our record was the furthest thing from my mind and our players' minds. There were weeks when it felt like we were losing, every day. Every day felt like a loss. Every practice was a loss. Every game was a loss. Every film session was a loss. Everything felt like we were losing, because everything was a struggle. And maybe you have to go through those times so you can appreciate what you do, come back and go, ‘Wow, in the middle of all that we went 29-0.’”
Six players you're trying to incorporate, so more than half of your team, almost, is completely oblivious to what you're saying,” he said. “The object is to win a national championship and you’ve got six people who have never played in the NCAA Tournament. So it's a struggle. Now, I know all the other coaches in America are going, ‘I'll take that struggle every year with the guys you have starting.' Yeah, I would too. I'm not sitting here saying I'm giving it back. I'm just saying, relative to some of our other seasons, this was difficult because there was very little margin of error for our starters. And you have all these other guys sitting there who, you know they're just not going to be able to help you in a big game.”
I remember back when Svetlana [Abrosimova] was playing for us [in 1997-01], she came in one day and goes, ‘Coach, why do you talk about national championships all the time?’” Auriemma said. “I go, ‘Because that's the goal here.’ [She said], 'Don't you think everybody already knows the goal here?' I thought, ‘She's right.’ So from that point on, we almost never talk about the end of the year. We just talk about what we have to do today, what we have to do tomorrow, what happened last night, what we have to get better at. … Nobody goes into [a season] thinking, ‘We're going to win them all.’ You're not going to win them all. And sometimes you do.”
UConn's Perfect Record Maybe The Result Of Perfect Approach
It would be terrific if we had 2-3 subs come on strong in the AAC Tourney. Right now the Steady Eddie of the bunch is Kyla.
“This was the hardest year I’ve had the last four or five years, easy,” Auriemma said. “There hasn't been another one that's close. There was a lot of stuff we had to deal with, a lot. And there were times when our record was the furthest thing from my mind and our players' minds. There were weeks when it felt like we were losing, every day. Every day felt like a loss. Every practice was a loss. Every game was a loss. Every film session was a loss. Everything felt like we were losing, because everything was a struggle. And maybe you have to go through those times so you can appreciate what you do, come back and go, ‘Wow, in the middle of all that we went 29-0.’”
Six players you're trying to incorporate, so more than half of your team, almost, is completely oblivious to what you're saying,” he said. “The object is to win a national championship and you’ve got six people who have never played in the NCAA Tournament. So it's a struggle. Now, I know all the other coaches in America are going, ‘I'll take that struggle every year with the guys you have starting.' Yeah, I would too. I'm not sitting here saying I'm giving it back. I'm just saying, relative to some of our other seasons, this was difficult because there was very little margin of error for our starters. And you have all these other guys sitting there who, you know they're just not going to be able to help you in a big game.”
I remember back when Svetlana [Abrosimova] was playing for us [in 1997-01], she came in one day and goes, ‘Coach, why do you talk about national championships all the time?’” Auriemma said. “I go, ‘Because that's the goal here.’ [She said], 'Don't you think everybody already knows the goal here?' I thought, ‘She's right.’ So from that point on, we almost never talk about the end of the year. We just talk about what we have to do today, what we have to do tomorrow, what happened last night, what we have to get better at. … Nobody goes into [a season] thinking, ‘We're going to win them all.’ You're not going to win them all. And sometimes you do.”
UConn's Perfect Record Maybe The Result Of Perfect Approach
It would be terrific if we had 2-3 subs come on strong in the AAC Tourney. Right now the Steady Eddie of the bunch is Kyla.
