Louisville vs. No. 1 Connecticut
January 12, 2008 | Women's Basketball
Jan. 12, 2008
Recap | Final Stats | AP Action Photos 
Connecticut Head Coach Geno Auriemma
"You have to give them a lot of credit. When you have a player like Angel McCoughtry you're probably going to be in every game. There's not going to be a lot of games when you don't have a chance to win. You've just got a kid that's really hard to guard, she scored 30 and didn't even score in the last 10 minutes. I don't know what happened. Maybe she got tired. I think we did a little better job defensively in the second half, we switched a little better. I thought Louisville didn't back up -- lot of teams when you hit them with a lot of early runs they don't get back up. We would get up 18 or 19, but she would run some plays and get it back to 10, 11, or 12. Jeff and his guys were really good, they got them playing well, and that's when you want to be playing well - when you've got a crowd like that. And hopefully a lot of those people will come back and watch them play. We're not going to win every game beating people by 40 or 50 points, that's not realistic in our league. We also know we're not going to play great every night, that's not realistic either. We gave up 18 offensive rebounds in the first half and we only gave up six in the second half. That was one of the big differences in the game. I thought we got killed in the lane. Normally we really do a number on teams scoring points in the paint, we didn't today. Their numbers might look good, but U of L outplayed us for long stretches in the lane. Like I told the kids in the locker room, we're not a one person team; individuals don't win championships- we are built to win a national championship. Sometimes when certain players don't play well, others have to be able to step up and fill that void. I though Keita (Swanier) did that today and Charde (Houston) did that - they gave us some great minutes. I can't say enough about the shots Ketia Swanier hit today. She was unbelievable today."
(Did foul trouble hurt your rotation)
"In a game like this, where we're thinnest on our team is at the small forward spot. When Maya Moore gets in foul trouble, there are not too many players available who can defend somebody like that. We would have rotated more people on Angel (McCoughtry) if we'd had that. That's part of the landscape, you've got to be able to overcome injuries and today we did. Every game we play, we learn a little bit about how we have to prepare down the road. We missed seven layups in the first half, `like we should take your scholarship away' type of missed layups, we were up 11, if we hit those, and we're up 25. You learn a little bit every time. We learned today that when you go on the road in our league, it's tough as hell. We made it look easy sometimes, but it's not as easy as it looked."
(On how tough the BIG EAST can be on the road)
"Our players need to understand that too. We're at Louisville, at Rutgers, at Notre Dame, at Pittsburgh. There's not going to be an easy trip through this league. And when you're playing in the BIG EAST, when we have a league that gets 5 teams in the NCAA's, it's going to be like that. This Louisville team is a little feistier than last year's team. Last year we got them down 18 or 19, they gave up, this team fought back."
(On the record crowd at Freedom Hall)
"If you can't get jacked up when there's that type of crowd there to see you play, then you never will. I think they (Louisville) fed off of the crowd's energy, they fed off of Angel, they attacked the basket. They made two threes as a team, all their stuff was around the basket. You don't get that unless you're in that mindset that you want to attack us. If you play tentative against us, we're going to beat you by 50. We've done that to teams that are tentative. I'm not giving away any secrets, but if you want to beat us, you have to come right at us and throw some knockout punches yourself - because if you just want to come in and dance around, we'll knock you out."
Louisville Head Coach Jeff Walz
(On UConn scoring three three-pointers in a row)
"There is a reason they are number one in the country. They hit some big-time shots. I thought we did a really good job at defending them. They came down the floor and hit three straight threes. We got beat in transition on one of them. I was a little upset about that. We went out and tried to guard man to man for a little bit, they would throw it in the post and score. Then we would try to go in and double them and then they'd throw it out and hit threes. It's not going to surprise me if they win a national championship this year. He's (Geno Auriemma) got kids that play extremely hard for being as talented as they are. As hard as they play, they are very difficult to guard."
(Who's going to beat UConn?)
"That's a really good question. They can score as well as any team I've been around. I was fortunate the past five years to coach at a school where they scored a lot. I'll tell you one thing, I've never seen six or seven of them that can come in the game and score like this group can."
(On Maya Moore and Tina Charles being on the bench with four fouls)
"I'll be honest with you, I had no idea they were on the bench with four fouls. Does it really matter which one you are trying to guard? If it's Maya Moore or Brittany Hunter or Renee Montgomery, it doesn't really matter because they're so talented and so deep. I had no idea they were on the bench for that time. We were just trying to focus on trying to do what we do. I thought we battled. I thought our kids played extremely hard and I was very proud of them."
(How Louisville can walk away happy with the game)
"We cut the lead to fifteen with a minute twenty or a minute fifteen left and we got an opportunity to go for a layup. We had a freshman on the floor and this is the first time she's played in this environment. We just threw her in the game for the last three minutes of it. I think she was a little shell shocked. Instead of going in for a layup, we end up turning the basketball over. They came down and hit a three and then a layup in transition. It ends up being a 21- point game. Anyone who saw the game knows that it wasn't a 21-point game.
That shows you how good they are, when they can sit there and we make our run and cut it to ten and they come down the floor and hit three threes. What it shows about our team is that we aren't going to quit. We had an opportunity to pack up and fold tent about six times. Instead of doing it, we kept fighting. I was really proud of our efforts tonight."
(The importance of the crowd)
"If we can get one third of the first-time fans to come back, it would be outstanding. Unfortunately I think a lot of people out here in Louisville haven't come watch these young ladies play. They'll be amazed at how hard they play and how good they are. If we can get a third of the fans that came for the first time tonight to come back, then it's worth it. It's great. I think we can. I think they saw how hard these girls play and the effort they gave. If we can somehow get seven or eight thousand in this place on Tuesday night when we play Cincinnati, then that would be outstanding."
