Doggydaddy's Den: DoggyDaddy's Dailies

GO HUSKIES!!!!!

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Geno spoke at the Middlesex Chamber of Commerce Breakfast and he always has some interesting things to say.

On the NCAA and non-power 5 conference teams:

"They do a very good job of trying to screw anybody who's not in those Power 5 conferences," Auriemma said. "... They're really good at it. And they're very successful at it because that's one way to make yourself look even better than you are, is make everybody else look like they suck — and they are very, very good at that."

Geno has a point. We saw it on the men's side (UCLA in over teams like Temple, No Colorado), and on the women's side matching up Princeton and Green Bay in a first round game. Why not match GB and Princeton against so-called Power 5 teams to see what they can do.

On critics and recruits who question UConn's conference:

"Anybody who asks me questions anymore about what conference you play in, who your league is going to be, who your opponents are, is that going to be a factor going into the NCAA Tournament, I understand, but at the end of the day it's not who you've played against," Auriemma said. "It's who they have to play against, and that's us.

" 'We stopped playing for conference championships 10 years ago. I say I have so many conference championship trophies, I don't know where they are, but I know where are our nine [national] championship trophies are. They're right in my office? You want to see them?' "

On the standard UConn has created:

"We love the fact we're expected to win every single game. We love the fact everybody's big game, when we go on the road or people come to our place with us, and all it takes is beating us and it gets you on national television. Stanford beat us in November ... .people stormed the court. They haven't won a damn game since, but that one game made their season. So we live with that and it's fine. I get paid handsomely to do that."
UConn doesn't get all the best players:

"And yeah we have the best players. We do. But we only have some of the best players. A bunch of other schools got the other best players. We didn't get all of them. We get a couple every year but it's that tradition, that commitment that if you come to play at our place there's a different level of expectation ... it's a different standard. It's not the same as anywhere else."

How UConn makes it look easy:

"One of the examples I use with my team, and they have no idea what I'm talking about, I tell them about when Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers were working together after another like seven-hour day of practice, Ginger Rogers aid to Fred Astaire, 'Why do we have to have to spend, seven, eight 10 hours practicing every day?' And he said, 'Because we have to work this hard to make it look that easy'. And I don't know that the average basketball player that comes out of high school or the average college player that's playing in college or the fans or the media or anybody else understand how much work goes into making it look at easy we make it look sometimes."

When Auriemma answered questions from the crowd, he mostly entertained questions about favorite players:

Auriemma made Moriah Jefferson work on her passing game, but she’s the best point guard in the nation per his estimation; Gabby Williams is going to be a major contributor in the tournament; Auriemma keeps Breanna Stewart humble by telling her the current squad could not square up against past championship teams, although he told the crowd he doesn’t know if that’s actually true.On the question of whether assistant coach Shea Ralph will ever take a head coaching job, Auriemma said it would happen whenever she wants:
“She was offered a few,” he said. “She gets offers every year, just like all my assistants.”
Auriemma said there are several top recruits that he doesn’t even look at because he thinks they play selfishly:

“That’s why we lead the nation in assists,” he said. “I’m looking for great teammates. Anyone who wants to just play 35 minutes doesn’t get a call.”

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