Speaker 1: All right, we welcome coach ori Emma to the stage
Speaker 1: and we will just go ahead and open it up
Speaker 1: for questions. Questions for coach.
Speaker 2: Usually when people say stage doesn't want to leave me
Speaker 2: to day.
Speaker 3: Gino Joe's own Channel three in Hartford. I think you've
Speaker 3: said that, Uh, the best way you prepare for these
Speaker 3: games is you do what you do best. Can oh,
Speaker 3: can you win this game? If Foklahoma does what it
Speaker 3: does best, well.
Speaker 1: That's why they keep score.
Speaker 2: You know they're gonna obviously not do what they do worst,
Speaker 2: and neither are we. So I think we've got to, uh,
Speaker 2: we got to play the way we normally play, and
Speaker 2: you know, we've got to make some adjustments obviously, like
Speaker 2: you always do it at this time of the year.
Speaker 2: But you know, their style of play is very, very
Speaker 2: similar to ours, and I think playing at a pace
Speaker 2: that they play at, I think causes problems for a
Speaker 2: lot of people, and playing at the pace that we
Speaker 2: play at causes problems for a lot of people.
Speaker 1: So it'll be an interesting it'll be an interesting matchup.
Speaker 4: Thanks Mike Anthony from Hurst to Connecticut, good morning. You know,
Speaker 4: as he's played really well of late, has shot really
Speaker 4: well and just wondering what you see in her play lately,
Speaker 4: what you hope to see in her play, and kind
Speaker 4: of the approach she takes to this stage now with
Speaker 4: her future plans being announced. I don't know if that
Speaker 4: puts her even more at ease in this situation.
Speaker 1: I hope so.
Speaker 2: Sometimes, you know, these things weigh on on players' minds,
Speaker 2: as they should. You know, it's a big it's a
Speaker 2: big decision, and you you know, you want to try
Speaker 2: to have as few distractions in your head as possible
Speaker 2: at this time of the year, you know, So having
Speaker 2: made that decision clears a few things up for her
Speaker 2: and allows her to hopefully allows her to just focus
Speaker 2: on playing and doing what she does best. You know,
Speaker 2: Paige has been in this situation a lot, asy as not,
Speaker 2: so I'm sure she's anxious to, you know, to play
Speaker 2: in this environment and in a game of this magnitude.
Speaker 2: And the only thing I worry about when kids are
Speaker 2: you know, and it's their.
Speaker 1: First real, real, real, uh.
Speaker 2: Exposure to this when they haven't played in a long time, Uh,
Speaker 2: is they try so hard, they put so much into it,
Speaker 2: you know, So if we can keep it kind of
Speaker 2: like the other games that we've played recently.
Speaker 1: I would think she's going to.
Speaker 5: Play great, right, lur Riley from the Hartford Current, can
Speaker 5: you just talk about the post matchup and kind of
Speaker 5: the challenges that it presents for you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're.
Speaker 2: There, their post their post situation is different. There aren't
Speaker 2: very many teams in the country that they both happened
Speaker 2: to well, two of them have both happened to be here,
Speaker 2: you know them and U C l A. You know
Speaker 2: where They've got a dominant post play that can single
Speaker 2: handedly win you a game. And it certainly takes a
Speaker 2: lot of pressure off your shooters knowing that, you know,
Speaker 2: if you're not making a lot of shots on the preimter,
Speaker 2: you always got somewhere to go to get a bucket. Yeah,
Speaker 2: certainly the effect that she's had on their team has
Speaker 2: been tremendous and on ours on our side, not so much.
Speaker 2: You know, it's it's more significant for us when we
Speaker 2: go to our small lineup and people have to match
Speaker 2: up with Sarah playing in the middle, so we pose
Speaker 2: a different sort of problem. But I want want to
Speaker 2: have to play three or four games guarding you know,
Speaker 2: reagum beers, and I'm not sure anybody wants to have
Speaker 2: to play against Sarah four games and so it would
Speaker 2: be interesting.
Speaker 6: Hi Gino, Alexa philip O ESPN. I was just curious
Speaker 6: what your reaction to seeing Juju's injury was the other day.
Speaker 6: I know you guys were still at the arena when
Speaker 6: it happened. And then also just given being around the
Speaker 6: sports seeing also what your program has experienced over the
Speaker 6: last few years, what do you feel like is the
Speaker 6: best path forward in the women's basketball community to get
Speaker 6: a better handle, hopefully on some of these horrible injuries
Speaker 6: that they're experiencing.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we were made aware of it right after our game.
Speaker 2: I think it was right right after our game. You know,
Speaker 2: somebody came in our locker room and wanted to show
Speaker 2: it to me. And I still haven't seen it, and
Speaker 2: I've seen enough of those in my career. I didn't
Speaker 2: want to see another one. Uh, you know, I talked
Speaker 2: to Lindsay that night, and.
Speaker 1: There's really nothing you can do about it.
Speaker 2: I mean everything's been tried, People try and and there's
Speaker 2: probably more emphasis than ever before put on prevention, you know,
Speaker 2: the science behind it and how much time and effort
Speaker 2: is spent trying to prevent these kinds of things happening, and.
Speaker 1: I don't know what the I don't know what the
Speaker 1: answer is.
Speaker 2: You know, somebody somebody texted me after this happened and said,
Speaker 2: maybe they should do some prevented surgery, you know, like
Speaker 2: this's just cut up every kid, you know, And so
Speaker 2: that's a pretty extreme solution, you know. It's just one
Speaker 2: of those unfortunate things that happens. And I feel terrible
Speaker 2: for for Juju personally, knowing.
Speaker 1: The players that I've had that have had to go
Speaker 1: through that.
Speaker 2: How much it means to them what they're missing, you know,
Speaker 2: for the whole year that they're out, and for Lindsay,
Speaker 2: for her teammates. And I think the the the U,
Speaker 2: the effect that it has on the tournament, I think
Speaker 2: is huge from competitive standpoint, star power, you know.
Speaker 1: And I think.
Speaker 2: The the USC kids will probably rise to the occasion
Speaker 2: and play amazing like they did the other night.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: But I don't know what the solution is. I don't
Speaker 2: I think when kids come to college, a lot of
Speaker 2: them are already overused, and I don't know how much
Speaker 2: that has to do with it.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: I was talking to Mark Few yesterday and I think
Speaker 2: he's talking about the same things people think that, you know, if.
Speaker 1: You work as hard as Kobe did, you'll be like Kobe.
Speaker 2: And I don't know that you can work twice as
Speaker 2: hard as Kobe and you won't be like Kobe. So
Speaker 2: I think sometimes kids overdo it at a young age
Speaker 2: and it catches up to him among other things. You
Speaker 2: know that you can't you know, biological things. You probably
Speaker 2: can't do anything about.
Speaker 7: Bryan Curchie only times, you know. Just piggybacking off of
Speaker 7: that question, what did you say to Lindsay that night afterwards?
Speaker 7: I know she had mentioned that you had sent a
Speaker 7: message here. And as a coach, having gone through this
Speaker 7: before where you lose a critical player for a long time,
Speaker 7: what's the biggest challenge in kind of rallying your team
Speaker 7: going forward knowing that you might have a different identity.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it does change your identity because when you come
Speaker 2: to rely so much on one player, not not because
Speaker 2: you set out to be that way, It just happens
Speaker 2: that way. Great players like that just dominate the whole
Speaker 2: environment on your team. But what ends up happening is
Speaker 2: one of two things. And I don't know they're personnel
Speaker 2: well enough you know, off the court. But the danger
Speaker 2: sometimes is one or two people on the team start
Speaker 2: to want to be like Juju, I'll do all the
Speaker 2: things usually did, and then that takes them out of
Speaker 2: their character and they play worse. And so the only
Speaker 2: thing that's helped us in those situations is, you know,
Speaker 2: you hope you have a you know, a.
Speaker 1: Couple other really good players, which they.
Speaker 2: Do certainly, and that you ask each player to do
Speaker 2: like that much more, be a little bit more attentive,
Speaker 2: you know. But anytime, you know, you try to make
Speaker 2: up for it, it usually backfires. And the other thing
Speaker 2: is if you were mourning, and that happened to us
Speaker 2: one year we lost.
Speaker 1: Shay Ralph.
Speaker 2: We were undefeated, were number one in the country, we
Speaker 2: were by far the best team in America. And the
Speaker 2: very first game in the NCAA tournament, she tour acl
Speaker 2: on a breakaway layup, same thing. Nobody near he or nothing,
Speaker 2: and the kids start, you know, they wrote her name
Speaker 2: on their shoes and it was like someone had passed away,
Speaker 2: you know, a family member, and it was the worst
Speaker 2: thing that ever happened, and we lost a game we
Speaker 2: probably shouldn't have lost against a really good team so
Speaker 2: I think if you if you just look at it
Speaker 2: for what it is and let's move on and everybody
Speaker 2: just do a little bit more. But I think sometimes
Speaker 2: it's just natural that people want to fill that void
Speaker 2: and again. And I hope we're playing them, so I
Speaker 2: hope that they're able to overcome it. I actually hope
Speaker 2: we're playing them or Kansas State. I just hope we're playing.
Speaker 8: Hey, g know, Annie Peterson from the Associated Press. This
Speaker 8: is a little bit off topic, but today Doug Bruno
Speaker 8: announced that he was stepping down after more than three decades.
Speaker 8: Hit to Paul and I wanted to get your thoughts
Speaker 8: on his legacy.
Speaker 2: I was just talking to him in the hallway over there.
Speaker 2: It's funny you ask. There haven't been a lot of
Speaker 2: people in the history of women's basketball that have given
Speaker 2: as much to the game as he has. He's dedicated
Speaker 2: his life pretty much to women's basketball, and all of
Speaker 2: it in Chicago, where he grew up. So he's an institution.
Speaker 2: I don't think there's a kid in the Midwest. You
Speaker 2: name all the states, I don't care, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois,
Speaker 2: I don't care. They know someone or they themselves have
Speaker 2: been to Doug Bruno's basketball camp over the years, and
Speaker 2: in his words, you know he doesn't want to not
Speaker 2: to step away, but he knows he has to, and
Speaker 2: that's somewhat of relief, I think, knowing that circumstances have
Speaker 2: forced me into this situation. So it's sad for me
Speaker 2: personally because he's a great friend and we've been through
Speaker 2: a lot together, and sad for women's basketball that a
Speaker 2: lifelong supporter of the game isn't going to be coaching,
Speaker 2: but he'll still be a supporter of the game. And
Speaker 2: happy for Patty, his wife and his kids and grandkids
Speaker 2: because they'll get to see more of him.
Speaker 1: We have time for two more questions.
Speaker 9: Hey, Gina, Sheantal Jennings with the athletic this isn't the
Speaker 9: first year you guys have had the transfer portal open
Speaker 9: during the tournament. Obviously the timing has changed a little bit.
Speaker 9: I'm curious as a staff how you sort of deal
Speaker 9: with being pulled in multiple directions that are both vital
Speaker 9: for the growth of your program, and then sort of
Speaker 9: more broadly, if you had a magic wand like, is
Speaker 9: there a better time for this? Is it a football
Speaker 9: response where they have two windows that sort of allows changes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's just a lot of things going on right now.
Speaker 2: That take away I think some of the some of
Speaker 2: the focus of the players, some of the focus of
Speaker 2: the coaches. Obviously, the portal has become a big cloud that.
Speaker 1: Hangs over everything.
Speaker 2: Like, for instance, do you think the NBA will ever
Speaker 2: have open free agency during the NBA playoffs? I doubt that, right,
Speaker 2: It's got to be some time after all this is over.
Speaker 1: It's got to.
Speaker 2: Be when the schools have finished playing. There's got to
Speaker 2: be some sort of some sort of way to track
Speaker 2: and monitor and penalize tampering like there is in the NBA.
Speaker 2: There's got to be a guideline of what you can
Speaker 2: do in free agency, which is basically what it is,
Speaker 2: the two windows. Yeah, I'm in favor for anything that
Speaker 2: doesn't interfere with what you're trying to do as a
Speaker 2: coach with your team. You know, even though I think
Speaker 2: players on every team that's playing in the tournament have
Speaker 2: already decided I'm either staying or I'm leaving, But it's
Speaker 2: never been harder to you know, at least in the pros.
Speaker 2: You know who's under contract, then who's a free agent?
Speaker 2: It's very difficult to live in an environment where every
Speaker 2: single kid on every team throughout the country, on all
Speaker 2: three hundred and fifty some Division one teams, is a
Speaker 2: free agent. So I hope everybody that came up with
Speaker 2: this plan is really happy.
Speaker 10: You know, magavenon ect Insider I talked about it before
Speaker 10: you describes as third year out here for the regional
Speaker 10: on the West Coast. But going ahead to next week,
Speaker 10: on the two winners out of this regional, we'll have
Speaker 10: a cross country trip to Tampa. Just what is your
Speaker 10: thoughts on that quick turnaround on top of the cross
Speaker 10: country trip.
Speaker 2: Well, first of all, there's always going to be somebody
Speaker 2: that has to travel. Who's ever in the West region
Speaker 2: when the tournament, when the finals are on the West
Speaker 2: East Coast, and vice versa, So somebody's always going to
Speaker 2: have to travel, but it would only be oneing correct
Speaker 2: one team. Secondly, in a normal world run by normal people,
Speaker 2: there would only be four teams here, which means there
Speaker 2: will be no games today. The games would be tomorrow,
Speaker 2: which means we wouldn't have to get up at six
Speaker 2: am to have an eight o'clock practice here this morning
Speaker 2: for an hour, which means we wouldn't have to get
Speaker 2: up at five am to have a seven point thirty
Speaker 2: shoot around for half an hour, take us longer to
Speaker 2: get through security than to actually be on the court. Okay,
Speaker 2: God bless whoever wins Monday night. Okay, and they've got
Speaker 2: to fly cross country which is all day Tuesday. Then
Speaker 2: they have two days Wednesday and Thursday to play the
Speaker 2: biggest game of their life. The guys who they finished Sunday.
Speaker 2: Then they have Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and they
Speaker 2: play Saturday. But there's a lot of people on the
Speaker 2: Whens basketball committee that think they're smarter than that. So
Speaker 2: whoever came up with this super regional stuff, and I
Speaker 2: know who they are?
Speaker 1: Ruin the game they did.
Speaker 2: They ruined the game. Half the country has no chance
Speaker 2: to get to a game in person. But you're making
Speaker 2: billions off of TV watually you're not. That would be
Speaker 2: the men's tournament. So yeah, there's a lot of issues
Speaker 2: that they need to fix. And again, we could get
Speaker 2: our ass beat tomorrow and that won't change my feelings.
Speaker 1: Are any other happy thoughts will end on that beat note.
Speaker 1: Thank you coach, Thank you