Here are some postgame comments from Team USA/UConn coach Geno Auriemma and former UConn All-Americans Maya Moore and Diana Taurasi following an 88-63 exhibition win over Great Britain today (courtesy of USA Basketball).
Geno Auriemma
On tonight’s game
A: “There’s a tremendous improvement that I’ve noticed that (Great Britain) … we knew they were going to be good after we saw the victory they had against a really good France team. So, I’m not surprised with some of the things that they were able to do. Our team’s only had three practices. When you don’t practice a lot, your defense doesn’t have a chance to get really good. That’s an area where I thought they took advantage of us a little bit. We’re blessed to have the kind of depth that allows us to bring in that second group like we did and it just changed the whole complexion of the game. Maya (Moore) and Lindsay (Whalen), Angel and people in that second group were unbelievably good and that was a major difference in the game, our depth that we’re lucky to have.’’
On the play of the second group:
A: “The good thing about them is they’re all young. They bring tremendous energy to the court. This is their first time through. They just play with a lot of joy and a lot of fun and a tremendous sense of urgency. They want to play. They want to prove that they belong on this team. Not that the other guys, the older guys don’t, but this group just has a lot of good qualities to them.
It was the same way at the (2010) World Championship in a lot of respect. It was the same players playing the same roles. Maya, Angel and Lindsay are three of the hardest working players in the league and defensively it showed tonight.’’
Q: What are your thoughts on other teams in your groups, specifically China?
A: “We had a chance to see China up in Seattle during the 3-day training camp we had. I was really impressed with the way they play. Their style of play is difficult for anybody to play against. They really don’t have a real dominant post player so they play lot of times with five players out on the perimeter and that makes it very difficult to defend them. Obviously they shoot the ball exceptionally well. I think they’re going to be a tough game for everybody over in London. They’ve certainly played a lot of games. I was talking to the coach and he told me that they will have played 30 games before they get to the Olympics. If we play in the gold medal game, that would be a total of 14 games that our team will have played all year long. I know they’ll be ready and they’ll be well prepared for sure.’’
Q: Where do you think Great Britain will fit in among the other teams in London?
A: “I think what happens from my experience when I was an assistant at the Olympics is that it’s all about which match-ups you get and what happens that one individual night. I just talked to our team about that. You don’t have to win a best-out-of-3 or best-out-of-5 series. It’s just one night. If you can play well that night, shoot the ball well that night … maybe if France or the Russian team will play Great Britain in a best-of-7 series, maybe they win that series but on a one night, they almost beat the Russian team and probably should have from what I saw. They beat the French team. I think they’ve proven to themselves that they can compete with the best teams in the world. Now it’s just a matter of coming out and making shots. It’s like playing golf. That one golf tournament that you make putts, you win. Basketball is very similar to that. You can do everything right and the shots don’t go in, you lose. You do everything right and the ball goes in when you shoot it, you win.’’
Q: When you got down by 11, what were you thinking and is your drive to win what makes the difference between the US and other teams?
A: “If this was soccer and you were down 2-0 to the United States, you might come back to win 4-2 because you expect to win because you expect to win, you expect to score four goals against the United States because maybe you think you’re that much better because your history, your tradition, the quality of players that you have. I think it’s the same in women’s basketball and men’s basketball in the United States. We have the kind of players and the kind of program and the kind of history behind us that it’s not an arrogance because I don’t want it to come off like that but it’s an expectation of we’re the United States and we’re expected to win and we expect to win. So if we get down 11, I think our players look at it like, ‘ok it’s just a matter of time before we kind of impose ourselves on the other team.’ A lot of that has to do with, as I mentioned, the depth that we have. If we only had six or seven players and we’re playing against only six or seven from Great Britain, maybe this would have been a very, very close game or maybe even a loss. But, because we can count on 10, 11, 12 players, maybe the quality of depth that Great Britain has isn’t the same. I think that gives our players a sense of confidence that if I don’t have it tonight, I know she will so we’re never in a sort of panic. I think that just goes to talent, history and reputation of our program.’’
Q: What have you thought about the city of Manchester?
A: “I grew up right outside of Philadelphia, about 20 minutes from Philadelphia. I grew up in a town very similar to this, not quite as big but it had the same characteristics as this town. Just driving around and looking around the downtown, the feel of the town … it feels like a working man’s town. It doesn’t give you the feel of the suburbs or a hoity-toity kind of town. It feels to me like the kind of town where you walk in a pub and you order a beer and everybody in there speaks the same language. That’s the kind of town I grew up in. I have been looking forward to coming over here. I’m a huge soccer fan and it’s incredible that you can have two soccer teams in this town, in a small city really. When you think about it, all over the world of that caliber. If one plays Saturday, you get 75,000 people at the game; if the other one plays Sunday, you get 75,000 probably at the game, however many that stadium holds. I enjoy going to towns like this. We’re going to go out to eat before we leave. Tonight won’t be as good but tomorrow night right after the men’s game, I’ve got a couple places picked out.’’
The pressure that’s on the team to win the Gold Medal:
A: “A lot of the pressure thing is constantly around us. We get asked this question everywhere we go. You’re the most prohibitive favorite in any sport, in any event in the Olympics. Where Maya played and I coach at the University of Connecticut, we deal with that every single day. Maya dealt with that all four years. One of the things I’ve tried to teach and Maya would tell you this is absolutely true, pressure is what other people put on you because of what their perception of you is or should be and how you are supposed to live up to their expectations of you. You know what else pressure is: pressure is on Great Britain to beat us tonight. That’s a lot of pressure on them because they know it’s going to be very difficult. Pressure is on some of the teams in our pool that know it’s very difficult to beat the US. Pressure is when you lose your job and you have to pay your mortgage. Pressure is a single mom raising children that wondering if she is going to be able to pay for their education. That’s true pressure. When you’re playing a game that you love and you’re having fun and you know you’re better, most of the time, than the person you’re playing against, if that’s pressure then there is something wrong with your life. So you either just need to understand it and go on because if we were to lose a game in the Olympics, I don’t think they are going to take away our passports. We’re still going to be allowed to go back to the US. I mean, nobody might talk to us but we’re still going to be allowed to go back. So, I don’t know that … hopefully our players don’t feel that kind of pressure and it’s my job is to diffuse it as much as possible and I try to do that. Hopefully it won’t be anything but fun. We’re not thinking about what if we lose. We’re only thinking about playing great. That’s all.’’
Maya Moore
On tonight’s game:
A: “We’ve been together since we broke for the WNBA and I thought Great Britain did a great job of coming out strong, being aggressive, hitting the shots they were supposed to hit, just playing aggressive. Once we responded to that and our aggressiveness started to impact the game more, I thought we did a great job of getting out in transition. Some of our half court offense started to work a little bit better after our defense picked up a little bit. I respect the way Great Britain fought. They scrapped really well the full game.’’
Q: How comfortable did you feel out there tonight?
A: “I think the whole key with me is my energy and aggressiveness on defense. Whenever, I can just get back to the basics and focus on not letting my player score, helping my teammates on the defensive end. Get a rebound, start the transition. Just get that killer instinct started on the defensive end, flows right into my offensive game. I think that’s what I tried to do today. My teammates did a great job of finding me running in transition. I love playing … Lindsay Whalen pushes the ball, Angel gets out, Tamika gets out. We just started running … Swin. Not a lot of thinking. Just playing the game and like I was saying, transition was really to us today.’’
The pressure that’s on the team to win the Gold Medal:
A: “That’s probably the biggest blessing that we have is that pressure. I think that’s when we’re at our best. I think it’s when any competitor is at their best is when stakes are high. You’ve got pressure to win, to compete, to play, to perform. And the legacy and the tradition that we have as USA Basketball is awesome. It makes you, at least for me, I come in more focused because I know there are a lot of players that have come before me that are looking at us to continue the winning legacy. I’m also playing with other veterans like Tamika and Sue and Diana who are looking to their teammates to continue to hold their end. I love it and I know if I get another opportunity to come back, I’m going to expect the same things from my teammates and from everyone who’s involved: from the trainers to our captains to the last player off the bench. We’re all coming in with the expectation that we’re representing something bigger than ourselves. We take that on the court with us and also off the court. Coach Auriemma has emphasized to us to represent not only for ourselves so that the world can see how much passion we play with, how much we respect the game and hopefully look at basketball and women’s basketball in a new light. Hopefully we gave you some moments out there where you were like ‘wow, I didn’t know she could do that’, ‘I didn’t know a center could take it coast to coast, do a Eurostep and make a fall away bank shot’, something like that. Or, how hard Tamika Catchings plays or how tough Lindsay Whalen is. Just kind of enjoy the game for what it is. I know that when I see my teammates, that’s what I think so hopefully you guys do too.’’
Diana Taurasi
Observations of the game:
A: “I think played well in stretches. Great Britain played really well. They showed they are going to make a good run in the Games. We have some things we need to work on and we’ll do that.’’
Q: Does depth continue to be a real strength of this team?
A: “That’s kind of always been a strength is the numbers. Being able to go 1 through 11, 1 through 12. Today kind of showed that.’’
Q: What do you take out of this game as the biggest improvement areas?
A: “I think we did a better job of sharing the ball on the offensive end. Defensively, we did a good job of causing some more turnovers. There are probably some things we still need to fix. Those will just come with playing together.’’
Q: What would you like to see the team doing better right now?
A: “Probably defensively communicating a little bit better. That’s just a very simple and basic thing we can do. Offensively, staying out of each other’s way a little bit more. Once again, that’s getting used to playing with each other again.’’
Q: Is chemistry hard to nail down after you haven’t played with each other in quite some time?
A: “Yeah, it is a little bit but we’ve always found a way to kind of mesh together . We’ll try to do that again.’’
Rich
