NCAA WOMEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP: REGIONAL 3 SEMIFINAL - OHIO STATE VS UCONN

March 25, 2023

Geno Auriemma

Dorka Juhasz

Lou Lopez Senechal

Climate Pledge Arena

UConn Huskies

Sweet 16 Postgame Media Conference

Ohio State - 73, UConn - 61

THE MODERATOR: We'll start with an opening statement from coach and then take questions for the student-athletes.

GENO AURIEMMA: Thank you. First, it really was a great atmosphere to play in. You love to play in these kind of atmospheres with this kind of crowd and play in a great building like this.

Unfortunately for us after we got off to a great start and I thought things were -- we were in pretty good shape, I think Ohio State just outplayed us and took us out of a bunch of stuff that we want to do. Again, it's unfortunate that we chose tonight to play the way we did, but I think Ohio State had so much to do with that. I thought Kevin's team was really, really good and really well prepared. They knew exactly what they wanted to do and what to take away from us. We lost our balance and we lost our equilibrium a little bit and I don't think we ever got it back.

THE MODERATOR: Open it up to questions.

Q. You mentioned a great start in the first quarter and then there was a noticeable shift by that second quarter. What do you feel like -- what was the breakdown, in a certain area, or was it a couple of places that you thought the difference between the first and second quarter there for you, coach, and then as players?

THE MODERATOR: Let's try to go to student-athletes first. We'll have more time for Coach after.

LOU LOPEZ SÉNÉCHAL: Yeah, I think that we went on a good run the first quarter and I think that when they started pressing, we kind of got out of control. We were not really ourselves. I think it was just hard for us to come back to that.

DORKA JUHASZ: Yeah, I mean, I think we got to obviously give a lot of credit to our press. They were all over the floor. I think we were just -- nobody wanted the ball. Nobody really, you know, was trying to get open and press that break. But not even just the press, but I felt like they were tougher than us, they out-rebounded us, they got the loose balls. They were just tougher with the ball and that's on us.

We got up a good lead in the first quarter, but I think we just got too comfortable in that and obviously after that, we got uncomfortable and -- just there wasn't one person on the court that was there to just step up and just say, Hey, get the team together in the huddle, and we couldn't really break that. But throughout the whole game, they -- we got to give credit to them because they did an amazing job of pressing us and making us uncomfortable and they played with a lot of confidence, as they should in a Sweet 16 game. We just didn't answer with our game plan. I think we didn't execute. We were just -- I don't know, it's hard to really explain it.

Q. You guys have been through so much this season and although this was not the way you envisioned it to end, what will you take from this experience with this group and anything you were able to, you know, take from the ups and downs and the tight togetherness?

LOU LOPEZ SÉNÉCHAL: I mean, I could say so much about this team. I really could say a lot about this team and what we've done this year. No matter what happened tonight, I wouldn't want to be anywhere else. I wouldn't have done it with anyone else. I'm very grateful that Coach and everyone gave me this opportunity to be here this year and compete at this level. It's never something that I would have thought one day in my life.

It's a great shock right now and, like Dorka said, it's a lot of credit to Ohio State because they played their A game. But I'm going to leave here with many more positive memories than negative, that's for sure. I think I'm just going to have to, you know, move on at some point. But I've had one of my best years of my life here and that's a credit to everyone in the UConn staff, all the teammates, Dorka, who's been in the same situation as me. It's really a blessing for me to have had that fifth year and I'm just very grateful for this opportunity.

Q. The first half was just a mess. You turned the ball over 18 times. But then you come out and they scored right away in the second half. A lot of times when teams play you, they kind of relax or they start to think, oh, my gosh, what if we beat 'em, and then you can catch 'em off guard. They seemed to just have a foot on the gas the entire time. Is that what it felt like on the floor?

DORKA JUHASZ: Yeah, I mean, definitely. I think if you obviously followed Ohio State throughout the whole season, there were a lot of times they were obviously down by a lot and then came out in the third quarter and just completely changed the game. It's expected. I mean, it's a Sweet 16 game and it's win or go home. We knew they're not going to give up and they're not just going to put their hands up and see that we're UConn and just kind of shy away from that.

So obviously at the halftime, we just had to come to the conclusion that we got to be better. Obviously, in the press just trying to find -- trying to fight, you know, being down 10. Again, they have amazing players. They're a very well-coached team as well. So it's just a lot of times I felt like, even though they were pressuring us, we kind of just shot each other in the foot and shot ourselves in the foot with the turnovers, the bad decisions, the rushed shots that we made. We really didn't play like ourselves or like our best selves.

But at the end of the day, it was a Sweet 16 game, so we knew they're going to come out and they were fighting for their lives, and it's kind of like all teams do that. And we were just not able to respond, unfortunately.

Q. What happened when your knee buckled? Were you afraid that you weren't going to be able to come back? And just what did you channel to play so well once you came back in the game?

LOU LOPEZ SÉNÉCHAL: Yeah, I didn't really know exactly what was happening. I think that -- it was hurting, but I realized that it's, like Dorka said, win or go home, and that it was, you know, one of -- maybe going to be one of my last games in my college career, so I just tried to push through. There's not moments like that that it can happen again, even if we would have won, you know. It's only one game at a time. I think that I realized that I could potentially just have 20 more minutes in my college career, and so I just tried to push through and come back and not really think about it, and it became more of a mental part, you know, to just get over it and try to do the best I can.

Q. Sue Bird was in the audience in the crowd tonight. Did you know that she was here? When did you find out? And then how did it feel to play in front of sue? And then the second part of that is: What's something positive that you're going to take away from your season as you walk away tonight?

DORKA JUHASZ: Yeah, I mean, you know, it was just awesome to play, obviously, in this facility, and having Sue Bird in the gym is just a lot of extra inspiration and motivation for us. We're sorry that she had to see this, obviously, us losing. But obviously she's a role model to all of us. So even just to be around her and just watch her play the past 20 years, obviously, us growing up and just talking to her, it's an inspiration. I think we all can learn a lot from her.

But as for from this experience, just, as Lou said, I mean, the friendships, all the good memories, all the ups and downs. There was always somebody to pick us up. Getting through what we went through obviously these past two years, it's definitely going to be a lot of positive feelings, a lot of memories. Obviously, it's very upsetting how we ended our college career and this season because, you know, this is not what we obviously prepared for. I think we don't really have a lot of negative thoughts that we're going to take away from this because we have given so much from -- we got so much from this program, from Coach, all the coaches, our teammates. So we're definitely very grateful. But it's just sad, obviously, that it ended like this. But we're still going to be in contact with them, our teammates, wherever we end up.

THE MODERATOR: All right. Ladies, thank you. We'll take questions for coach.

Q. Cotie McMahon had a really good game. What about her was such a difficult matchup?

GENO AURIEMMA: A lot of times in these games the players that get all the attention throughout the season, the key players on your team that everybody focuses on, and then invariably it's somebody else that steps up and ends up being the difference-maker in the game, right? I thought her ability to get to the free-throw line and convert, the pressure that she puts on the defense with the way she attacks the basket. When you're trying to guard two really good three-point shooters like they have, the lane tends to get a little more wide open and she took advantage of it. Other than the -- other than their defense and our breakdowns, I thought she was the biggest factor in the game.

Q. This ends a 14-year Final Four streak and a 16-year Elite 8 streak. Obviously, phenomenal accomplishments. Can you reflect on that achievement, but also react to what it feels like to have it end?

GENO AURIEMMA: One of the problems with streaks -- we had a 30-year don't-lose-two-games-in-a-row streak broken this year. We lost at home a couple times -- or when, you would think, how could that happen? But the problem with streaks is the longer they go, you're closer to it ending than you are to the beginning of it. And it's just a matter of time. It's not like when will it happen. It's just a matter of time. I mean, it's not if it's going to happen. It's just a matter of time when it's going to happen. And it was going to happen sooner rather than later.

It's not -- you know, it's an impossibility to do what we have done already. What's the next highest streak, 9 or something like that, regionals in a row? There's a big difference between 9 and 29, right? And you take that in stride and you say, yeah, it was great while it lasted and it's a credit to all the players that we had and all the times that you have to perform really, really well at this level.

I think that the other thing that it -- that you take from it is how incredibly difficult it is to win in March in the NCAA tournament and because we made it look so routine and so easy, we gave the impression that it's very easy to do. It's a reminder that, no, it's not. It's very difficult to do. So you appreciate what we had, what we did, and, you know, you have to start another one next year.

Q. The first half I think you were up 19-7. They scored 17 straight. You had eight turnovers to start the second quarter. I'm sure you worked on breaking their press yesterday in practice and that's not what you were looking to do, to break it, I'm guessing?

GENO AURIEMMA: Well, we had eight in the second half, right? So it just took 'em 20 minutes to remember what we worked on, I guess. I don't know. I think sometimes when these things happen, the bigness of the moment, you know, it's not like you're getting pressed in a game in January on the road against somebody. You're under pressure now in a regional and you either handle it and we win the game going away or you don't handle it and you lose. So that pressure affects a lot of people -- I mean, it affects people different ways.

I thought we just -- there was film that I watched at halftime and the amount of things that we did that were mind-boggling were just really, really, really -- even when I saw it, I couldn't believe it. I think that the emotions and as one mistake led to another, you could almost see them. They're like -- you know, they're like in a car wash and they don't know how to get out of it.

It wasn't just one person either. We talked about that all week leading up to it. Against their pressure, we're either going to get layups and wide open threes, which we did, or if we turn it over, then we're going to get beat, and we did a little bit of both. Actually, did a little bit of one and a lot of the other.

Q. To the point about Sue being in the crowd, I was thinking about when she played for you, correct me if I'm wrong, but you used to have a thing where you would tell her that every turnover was her fault, because she was the point guard, it was her job to run the offense, and even if she was on the other side of the floor, the ball got thrown away, she was the one who messed up. Did it feel like that tonight, that it was one player's fault or was it just -- Dorka said like no one wanted the ball.

GENO AURIEMMA: Yeah, it was easy for me to say that to Sue because she's Sue. But the other reason is we have four Olympians on that team. So whoever Sue passed the ball to caught it and knew what to do with it and nobody pressed us. So we didn't have a problem.

This particular team, it has been the issue all season long with the amount of turnovers that we have, which is way more than we've ever had, a lot of unsure ball handlers, a lot of unsure decision-makers. My fault for not making it a little bit easier on them. So, no, it wasn't one person. No, it wasn't one person. There's no way that one person ever contributes to you losing a game.

Q. Did you feel like -- were you surprised by how long it took the team to kind of get things together and respond? Did you feel like there wasn't even ever really a response, because given how resilient the team has been, there's always that hope of, oh, maybe they will do X, Y, Z and cut back into it. Were you kind of surprised by that or was it just too much at one time?

GENO AURIEMMA: As I said at the beginning, I think the moment -- and you run over to the bench after a timeout, after what happens, and you're sitting there and then you could see the look on their faces. No matter what we tried to do as coaches -- and that's the problem that we've had all year, that when we're playing well -- you know, people watch us play all season long. When we're playing well, we just keep building on and building on and building on and building on. And then when things kind of go sideways for us, they kind of keep going sideways for awhile.

There's some personality types on our team that have a hard time listening and paying attention, and so when the moment gets like this, it's -- so it wasn't like, I don't know what to do, because I do know what to do, but I'm in a state of -- I'm paralyzed. That's basically what it looked like.

Q. You guys have been playing really well of late and they seemed very confident, but like you were just talking about the moment, but you couldn't have anticipated that, you know, today of all days it would fall apart like that.

GENO AURIEMMA: Yeah. No, and that's why the NCAA tournament's the NCAA tournament, and that's why you see the scores that you see and you see the results that you see is that the NCAA tournament does incredible things to people. It elevates their game to a higher level than they have played at all year long sometimes, and it completely paralyzes some players because the moment is too big. And the moment hits you again when you're not playing well. So if you're a great player and you're used to scoring and things are going well, or you miss, but you know we have another game tomorrow, you go on a little bit of a shooting slump for the game, you know you only need a couple more buckets to get out of it, and if not, you know, just chalk it up to a bad game and we'll go on to the next one.

But when you realize, I'm not scoring or I'm not making a good decision and with each missed -- we've been a really, really good free throw shooting team all year long. And then you got tonight and you got guys that can't make a free throw. It's not because they forgot how to make free throws. It's just, when I miss the season's going -- if I miss this free throw, we're going to lose. That's kind of the way it looked in my mind. And we never play like that. We never play like that. But for whatever reason tonight was our lucky night, I guess.

(Smiling.)

THE MODERATOR: All right. Thank you.