Interesting follow up article on the season
Bueckers, the national player of the year as a freshman, played just 17 games as a...
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Just about every member of UConn’s travel party left Minneapolis sick. Some had sniffles, others flu-like symptoms or a stomach bug. Still others came away from the Final Four with COVID-19 — though no players or coaches.
“Unless it turns out perfectly, it’s always tinged with ‘What if?’” Auriemma said. “While you’re going through it, you know what a struggle it is. But you look back and go, ‘Yeah it was a struggle, but it wasn’t anything we couldn’t handle.’ So then you get to the final game and you go, ‘Shoot, all we’ve been through and we’re going to lose?’
It was like that movie with Chevy Chase when they go through all that stuff to get to Wally World — and it’s closed.”
“Not even close,” Auriemma said (about Paige being herself) . “And when you’re trying to come back, you’re trying to do it against the best competition you face all year. So that was a challenge.
And she’s got a challenge this summer. She’s got to get stronger.”
“Azzi overthinks things sometimes. And when she doesn’t, there are times at practice when that kid will go a week without hitting the rim [all swishes]. Then you say to yourself, when she passes up some open shots, ‘What could be going through her mind?’ How’d you like to be coached like this? ‘Hey, Azzi, every time the ball touches your hand, shoot it.’”
“I said this to Azzi once: I think some people can help you with your confidence but I don’t think confidence is something you order at a sandwich shop,” Auriemma said. “You can’t walk in and go, ‘Can I have a confidence sandwich?’ Confidence comes from putting the time in and doing it to a certain level every day, doing it against competition, and then going home and going ‘I got this.’ Confidence doesn’t come from someone else saying, ‘You got this.’ That’s a part of it, but it’s not the biggest part of it. Self-confidence is way more important than someone else having confidence in you.”