University of Connecticut Athletics
UConn-USF Postgame Quotes
1/13/2019 4:43:00 PM | Women's Basketball
UConn Coach Geno Auriemma
On taking out all five starters in the first quarter:
"It's a big deal, right? Sometimes it just doesn't look right, and it didn't look right. I was saying earlier, it's gotten to the point where coaching you just make suggestions now, you can't tell people what you want them to do. You just make a suggestion, if they want to do it, they do it, and if they don't, they don't. So, I suggested that they sit down. So we're even, one to one. We've got a very immature team. And then that shows up in the consistency at times. I think the fact that USF was down so many players, I think the collective mood of the team going out there probably was we don't really have to get up for this game, they're really depleted. Which is a sign of immaturity. It's as simple as that."
On Christyn Williams only taking two shots:
"I mean she doesn't work really, really hard at it, so that's got something to do with it. The sign of a really, really good player is someone who can have an impact on the game when they don't necessarily shoot it. They can do other things to help your team win, and players sometimes have to learn that. There wasn't going to be a lot of shots today anyway, and we were trying to speed up the game so that there would be. We knew exactly what South Florida was going to do because I would do the exact same thing if I was in Jose's situation. So they were just going to run the shot clock down, and we're trying to speed it up. And when you speed it up you get more things done, you get more people involved and we weren't able to do that in the beginning, for a lot of reasons, I guess."
On the defense and play today:
"Our program generally has been built around our defense. We're able to dictate defensively, more times than not, what we want the other team to do, and we can make them play the way we want them to play. And it's getting harder and harder to do that these days. Today it was very difficult to accomplish what we tried to accomplish. And again, it's days like today where you really miss Gabby [Williams] and Kia [Nurse] because they were the two people who could make it happen. And we didn't replace that, so we don't have the same ability to do that. And we got outworked, and we got outhustled, and all that stuff today. They killed us on the boards, they offense rebounded the ball to death. I just think we were lousy today, to be honest. A lot of credit to South Florida, they've got to deal with what they've got to deal with, but if they play hard and compete, and do what they did today they're going to win a bunch of games in our league. So hats off to them."
Senior Guard/Forward Katie Lou Samuelson
On Coach's message with benching:
"We didn't come out ready to play. Everything from head to toe should have been better."
On communication with the bench:
"I was just trying to make sure they knew what they were running. I think that's the first time that group together has been in that situation, so making sure that they were just prepared and knew what they were doing. I was trying to get across that they all have strengths that they could use."
On the starters being benched:
"I think we all know that we were doing something wrong and there was something that we needed to fix so we were trying to be supportive. The game wasn't over. We still had five other players who can very well play basketball and so we're there supporting and cheering as much as we can and we knew we would get another chance at some point during the game to fix what we started and that's what we did when we got back in there."
On Molly Bent:
"I think she played awesome. She really came in and stepped up big for us. If we can get her to continue to contribute like that it would be really helpful because she's been playing like that in practice the last few days and when you feel comfortable with her on the court, it's really good for us so that we can build that trust that she's gonna be able to do that for us."
On leadership and communication:
"It's definitely something that I've kind of learned how to do and part of it is just stepping outside yourself. I've focused less on myself, I think, this year during games than I have before and that's why I think I'm playing better overall and that's part of it. Especially when I'm out there with the other group, the people might not know what they're doing as well, I make it a point to say something to every single person."
Junior Guard Molly Bent
On her play:
"I try to work hard every day because that's something I can control. I don't have the talent that some of the other guys have and for me, the problem hasn't been my work ethic, it's been going too fast, too many turnovers, not having the confidence to shoot the ball when I'm open, and because of that I haven't gained the trust to get in there during the game. So today, to be able to knock in a couple shots, to make a couple hustle plays, it's a lot of fun getting that opportunity."
USF Head Coach Jose Fernandez
On the way USF started:
"We've come up here with much more talented teams who didn't rebound and defend as well as we did today. Five of those eight kids who played today were freshean so it was great to get a lot of my younger kids some time. Right now we just don't have enough guys that can put the ball in the basket so we struggled scoring. I think we did a good job on the glass unfortunately we missed a lot of shots and gave them much more opportunities. I think we made it difficult where they had one shot and we limited their second chance points. We started struggling with the pressure UConn put on."
On struggling with their injuries:
"I think before this season everyone had this game circled as one that would be competitive because of the history of both our programs and meeting them in the [conference] final the last four years and us being an NCAA tournament team, and being on national TV on ESPN as well. I couldn't be prouder of those kids who played really resilient we're going to continue to practice hard every day, and we're getting a lot of kids invaluable experience. We're a lot different without Laksa, Jordao and Ferreira, and then Rader was out today too. That's over 50 points we get a night, out. It's tough to ask kids who don't have a ton of experience in those types of battles to play significant minutes and make shots."
On if he told his players that it was an opportunity to get a lead when UConn took out their starters:
"We have a big influx of international players who watch a lot of basketball on TV, so they've seen that happen before. But when they came out of the locker room they had a different pace, different energy and they put the game away. I think early on we made some shots and they didn't and we got some stuff off that glass that they didn't. That's why he's won as many games as he's won and as many national championships and he's preparing these guys for the February run, the conference tournament and then for another run to get to Tampa."
