UConn women’s basketball coach Geno Auriemma is known for speaking his mind. Whether it’s an opinion or criticism, he’s always willing to share it.
When Auriemma was interviewed by The Courant for a podcast recently, he had plenty to say about a number of topics, but it was the question about the evolution of basketball that received the passionate type of response the coaching legend is known for. Auriemma was also candid about the way UConn women’s basketball is perceived.
This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
What changes have you seen in basketball over the years?
“We talk about this a lot. I go watch kids play and there’s a lot of talent out there. These kids can play. I remember watching 20 years ago and then watching today — it’s like night and day. It’s remarkable, the ability that these kids have. I’m watching kids in ninth and 10th grade that would’ve been really good college players back 20 years ago. The level of talent is so amazing relative to 20 years ago. But the level of disrespect for the game, for their coaches, for their teammates, is at an all-time high. The level of involvement by their parents, the circus show that the parents and the other people put on that are around these kids just really leaves a lot to be desired. Here you are out there watching some of the best kids out there ever and you’ve got to deal with the whole ridiculousness that goes along with it — the show and the kids trying to brand themselves and how many people are trying to get involved. Unfortunately that’s just symptomatic. It’s there on the men’s side to an even greater degree. It’s there on the women’s side, and it’s there in the WNBA. So the players, I think, have to remember that this is a game and they have to get better. They don’t have to do anything else other than get better. You don’t have to be a YouTube sensation, you don’t have to send 15,000 Twitter messages every day. You just have to get better as a basketball player and be a great teammate. You’ve got to want to go to school because you want to accomplish something. So the players have got to get better at being good basketball players. They already have the talent, but they’ve got to get better as basketball players …”
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Now that it’s been a few months, can you talk about the way last season ended?
“I’m so over all of that to be honest with you — the whole ‘what do people think?’ There’s a segment of the population that you’re never going to make understand just what this all entails and how this all evolves and how it comes to pass. The internet is the worst thing that’s ever been invented for people who have absolutely the least amount of information, but have the most to say about what they think they know. Sometimes some of the stuff that I read, I laugh because they’re so wrong. They’re so completely out of touch with what the real thing is that you almost start to think that it’s actually made up. It can’t be real, this idea that anytime we lose it’s a failure by the coaches or a failure by the players. In any other place in the world losing three games in four years in overtime would be something where people would shake their head and say, ‘You must be making that up. That must be part of a sports fantasy novel.’ And yet here it is in real life and 99.9 percent of the people in Connecticut understand and all over the country understand, and whatever criticism there comes is based on so little information that those people have. But it’s the world that we’ve created, and I’ve just always tried to shield my players from it and let them understand that what we do is way different than what anyone else does. The world that we’ve created is way different than anybody else’s. For our players it’s a chance to look back on either last season for the freshmen or their careers for our seniors and look back on what they’ve accomplished and just say, ‘I can’t believe I actually was part of this.’ So when you’re going forward and saying, ‘What do we take from last season?’ Well, if you’d said to me, ‘Listen, you’re only going to coach at Connecticut x number of years from here on out, and every single year you’re going to be in the semifinals of the national championship tournament and you will have been undefeated when you get there, and you’re going to have a chance to win the game at the end and you might lose, what do you think?’ Well, I think every coach in America would say sign me up. We’re good enough and fortunate enough to put ourselves in that situation year after year after year after year and we look back on last season as another one of those great years we’ve had at Connecticut. Unfortunately we came up short, and that’s that.”
