HEAD COACH GENO AURIEMMA

Opening Comments
"There are no easy games to get to the Final Four. There is no easy way to get something that is hard. From my perspective, there are no easy games to play. I never believed all that talk about LSU not being able to compete against us. You don't get to this point without being a very complete team. That (LSU) is one of the better and more organized teams that we have played against and one of the harder teams to defend. It is amazing how hard you have to work to get to the Final Four. I am truly proud of these kids because they put forth a lot of time and a lot of effort. It's not easy going through the season being No. 1 with everybody coming after you. They handled it like champions."

On Shea Ralph
"When you are with these kids every day, you see what they go through, you see the heart aches that are inherent in this game and the sacrifices you have to make to be a good player. Nobody has made more sacrifices that Shea Ralph. When it works, you are really happy because you know how much it means to her. You can score all the points inthe world, but when you tell people that 'I went to the Final Four,' that says you are a winner."

On Svetlana Abrosimova
"There is not anything that she cannot do on the basketball court. When I saw her for the first time in practice, I thought that this kid is going to be the best play ever to come through this program to this point. But you don't know that yet, because you don't know what's in her head. You are just looking at her physically. Then you have to evaluate whether she has the mentality to become a better play each and every year. I watched (Tennessee's) Tamika Catchings play and I think she is a great player. I think that she is the only other player in the country that is on Svetlana's level."

JUNIOR FORWARD SVETLANA ABROSIMOVA

On the game
"It was a big game and everybody had to step up. On this team, we have a lot of good players, but today I was fortunate because I was making my shots. It was good shot selection. I have never played against a team that shot so well in the first half. It was frustrating for us because we played pretty good defense, but they were still making their shots."

JUNIOR FORWARD SHEA RALPH

On the game
"I think we came in and coach told us it was going to be a battle. He said it would be one of the hardest games to win and he came in with the full intention of that and we wanted to play well knowing that it could be a battle. We know that a lot of people expect us to win games, because we do it a lot, but we can't lose our composure when the games are close. I don't think there was a point where we thought, 'Oh my God.' When they did get the lead down to two points, we got together and said, 'Alright, we have to play better defense and start rebounding the ball.' I think there were some things that we were not getting done."

On LSU's effort
"They played tough throughout the game and we had to really buckle down in the second half to make sure we won the game. They shot the ball tremendously and played good defense. But in that last minute, it was starting to hit us that we were going to win and actually go to the Final Four."

On being part of UConn basketball
"We came across the nation because of the things UConn had done, because of the program and run of tradition that they have had. We came in as freshman thinking that we could just show up and we were going to go to the Final Four, too because that is just the way it was. We found out really fast that there is a lot of hard work involved and a lot you have to get done individually and as a team. I don't know if I can put it into words right now. It is an unbelievable feeling. We are going to make the best of it."