NCAA WOMEN'S FINAL FOUR

April 1, 2000

Svetlana Abrosimova

Geno Auriemma

Sue Bird

Swin Cash

Shea Ralph

Kelly Schumacher

COACH GENO AURIEMMA: It's a beautiful day in Philadelphia. It's great to be here. It was a long night last night, but everybody feels pretty good today. We're getting ready for work out today. You know, we're looking forward to tomorrow. The two best teams in the country are playing and it's the last game of the year and I think every kid, every coach's dream is to make sure you're playing in the last game of the year. You don't ever want to be at home watching somebody else play. That's the hardest thing when you're playing, and you can't play. So we're playing the last day against the last team that's left besides ourselves, and you can't get any better than that.

COACH GENO AURIEMMA: You know, the game has been looking for events that kind of define the game, I think in '95, that was one of the events that kind of put a stamp on the game, and now here we are, you know, five years later that's another one. I think it's just another one of those events that come along at the right place, the right time, the right teams; that, you know, you're going to look back and you say that was an event that you look back and move the game forward. I think after tomorrow night the game will be changed, because of where it is and who is playing and the kind of game that it's going to be.

SHEA RALPH: I don't know, you know, it's hard to say because we're on the inside looking out. We know how far women's basketball has come and we've met a lot of the people who have built it this way, and the reason that it is the way it is now for us is because of them and I think for us, that's been special. I know for myself, I've met people that my whole life, I've only heard about. It's almost been surreal. But, you know, we understand why we're here, and we understand that at this point, this is the biggest, you know, for us, but we also know we've worked hard to be here and we deserve it. So I think going into tomorrow night's game we're just going to try to stay within ourselves and understand what we need to get done, and have a good time.

COACH GENO AURIEMMA: Yeah, you been down there recently? Pat's is old beat up and dilapidated; Geno's is bigger -- you know I noticed that when I was over there. Not that it means anything, don't get me wrong. (Laughter) You know, it's just things that come up. It's just one of those things. I'd rather talk about Sue Bird, though. Hard to put into words, really what the kid does. But, you know, she plays a position that gets a lot of attention. It's like playing quarterback in football; she has the ball in her hands a lot. And she has got a pretty good group like these guys up here that she's running with, but she makes it all work, and hard to find a pointguard that has her mindset, her decision-making ability, and you have to guard her. She sees the game the way coaches see the game. For a young player, she's surprised me a lot of times for how -- so composed she is.

SVETLANA ABROSIMOVA: Well, it's a long story. (Smiling). Well, basketball is not that popular in Russia. And even when I talk to my parents, it's hard to explain what it's all about here. It's a cultural thing here, so it's really hard to compare. But I started to playing basketball when I was 7, so that's pretty much what I did all my life.

COACH GENO AURIEMMA: Like what do you mean?

COACH GENO AURIEMMA: No, it's not popular at all. I remember my high school championship game, it was like 150 people and we thought it was the greatest crowd ever, so when I got here I was really surprised, because we have the greatest fans in the country, we have 10,000 people at each game so for me it was a different story.

COACH GENO AURIEMMA: Well, UCONN was the one school who recruited me; so I got lucky. I didn't have -- you know, I didn't visit them before I got here, so, you know.

COACH GENO AURIEMMA: Yeah, she's played really well in the tournament. She started out the season great and had a little bit of a lull like most kids do in their freshman year. But if you saw her play in high school, she always plays well in big games. She started off a little tentatively yesterday. I think when you're a Young kid, this kind of a game gets into your head a little bit. But I thought she played great in the second half. Yeah, I'm sure Tennessee is going to guard Sue Bird full court and I'm sure what they are going to do what they always do, hold her and grab her and push her around and do all the stuff they always do, but we're ready for it.

KELLY SCHUMACHER: She's a great player. She's real competitive, and that helps us out in a lot of situations. You always want competitive people around you. And, you know, she's very unselfish. I think she passes me the ball more than anybody else on the team (laughs). But she's just a great all-around player. She's very athletic and for her height, there's not very many other people in the country that can stop her.

SHEA RALPH: I think that she brings a different style of play to our team. And she's very, very tough and she's very brave, and she does a lot of things that, you know, sometimes Coach doesn't like, but depending on whether the ball goes in or not, that makes up your mind. And she makes tough, tough shots for us. Her and Sue Bird make big shots when we need big shots to be made. So I think to have Svetlana on our team, I'd much rather be playing with her, than against her, and she's taught me a lot about the game of basketball and she's taught me a lot about life.

SUE BIRD: Yeah, I think we're going to expect them to play the same kind of defense they did the first two times we played them. We know they are a really aggressive team just by watching it. I think we're going to handle it the same way we've approached every other game, approach it the same and work on our game plan.

SUE BIRD: In high school? Wow, that was a long time ago. Actually -- it was my junior year. She was -- I mean, she was obviously the go-to player on her high school team. I think she has different roles as far as high school and college goes. I remember her, she must have had like 40 against us. I remember her scoring a lot of points against her. I think she scored her 3,000th point against us, lucky us. She plays an -- she's an intricate part of that team. I expect her to knock down the open shots when she has it open, just like she did yesterday. So I think we're going to try to eliminate that as much as possible.

COACH GENO AURIEMMA: How far has our relationship come? Well, our relationship was the best when she was in Russia and I talked to her on the phone. (Laughter). Everybody is making too much of a big deal out of this. This is no different than the relationship I've had with every one of my really good players. I don't like any of them, because they are never as good as I think they can be; so we're always arguing about how to did things better how to things differently how to improve on certain things. Then after they graduate, I tell everybody, that was the best player I ever coached, but while they are playing for me, it's always the same. There's always something that you can pick out that you have to get on them about. And how far has Svet come? She's not there yet. She knows it. But she never will be, either. Nobody ever is. But from where she started when she was a freshman to where she is now I think she's learn a lot about the game, learned what she can do, what she can't do. She's improved in so many areas as a player, but I think she will be the first to tell you she's not anywhere near where she's going to be four or five years, down the road. Whoever coaches her after Connecticut is going to be really, really fortunate.

SHEA RALPH: I do remember watching the game, but it's kind of depressing, because I realize when I look back on stuff like that, I'm having a tougher time remembering because I'm getting older. But that was a long time ago for me. But I do remember a little bit of it, and especially remembering the celebration and watching that, reading about it in the newspaper, and I remember -- I do remember watching Rebecca Lobo and Jennifer Rizzotti and admiring how she played. But as far as how that influenced my decision, I think, you know, obviously seeing that Connecticut was successful and that they had a powerhouse program and, you know, going there, you'd have an ability to do great things, that definitely steers you in the right direction. But when I talked to Coach and the coaching staff and I met the place, I think that was more of what helped me make the decision to come to Connecticut. You know, basketball is one thing but coming up here and meeting wonderful people, you know, just being this far away from home and still having what you call a family is important, too. So having all that in one is just -- you can't really put it into words. It's very special.

COACH GENO AURIEMMA: Well, most tournaments, most NCAA Tournaments are dominated by guard play, I think. They have the ball in their hands all the time. They control the tempo of the game. They get the ball to the right people at the right time. They make the right decisions. Without really, really good guard play, it's hard to move on in the tournament. You know, I think that the teams that go far are the teams that have the best guards and it doesn't have to be like a pure pointguard or anything like that, but we happen to have a real good one, and we have two real good ones. Tennessee has got good guard play. I thought the pointguard from LSU was the fastest girl we've ever had to guard, I think, Ferdinand. I think at this point, you know, it's hard to, you know, you look at the four teams that got here, all of them have excellent pointguards.

SHEA RALPH: Yeah, I think, you know, we've seen each other twice. We've played against each other twice this year, and, you know, Coach was saying, you know we have a million tapes of them and they have a million tapes of us. You can scout all you want, but I think when it comes down to the game tomorrow night, I think it's going to be more about execution, but probably more about who wants it the most and who is willing to work the hardest to get it and who is the best prepared. So it's definitely going to come down to execution, but I think there are intangibles that will help out along the way.

COACH GENO AURIEMMA: I think there's some truth to that; that it's something that just happens. I don't think you can prepare for it. You know, that '79 game was more about Magic Johnson and Larry Bird, and Indiana was kind of an unknown. It's a little different. You know, this is kind of like, you know, Houston and UCLA at the Astrodome, but for the National Championship. You know it still took a long time after that game for it to get to where it is today, the college game. So what's going to happen after tomorrow, I don't know. If tomorrow is a lousy game, maybe nothing. But my guess is if tomorrow is a great game there will be some effects. How much? Maybe we don't know for a couple years. But definitely there will be some kids watching tomorrow night, there will be people watching that maybe had not turned on a game before just because they are going to get caught up in all the hype and they might see something tomorrow that might spur them to do something down the road. That we won't know until later.

COACH GENO AURIEMMA: Kara Lawson benches a lot more than Sue Bird. I know that. I read in the paper what the numbers were; so I hope it doesn't come down to that. But Kara Lawson, she's not a freshman now, I don't think. I think we should check her birth certificate. She doesn't play like a freshman. She's got tremendous poise. She's got a lot of guts for a freshman, too. She's not afraid. She's competitive, she's tough. You know, that's one reason why I think she's been so successful as a freshman and one reason why that team has been able to overcome, you know, the loss of a really good pointguard last year. She's exactly what they needed, I think. But she's like Sue. She's not really a pointguard, you know. Sue's the same way. They are not really pointguards. Like Helen Darling is a pointguard. Sue and Kara Lawson are not really pointguards. They are just guards. They just play the game the way old-fashioned guards used to play. They pass, they shoot, they do all kinds of things. It's not what your noveau pointguard does, just comes down and runs the offense.

COACH GENO AURIEMMA: You know, I've said this before, it's one of those things that happened quickly. Wasn't orchestrated by anyone. It just evolved because of the great games that we've had with them. Again, you know, every time we've played them, we've played them ten times. I think in eight, maybe nine of those ten times, one of the teams was No. 1. In a lot of those games, it was huge NCAA Tournament implications. Now we're playing them twice, the second time for the National Championship. This is the fourth time we've played them in the Final Four -- third time, I believe. Third time we have played them in the Final Four. So a lot has happened in a short period of time. You know, the country is always looking for that kind of stuff. Mohammed Ali and Joe Frazier, Cowboys and the 49ers, Yankees and Dodgers. You're always looking for that. It makes, you know, it makes for great stories, keeps everybody entertained. Makes coaches famous, write books, go on TV, do all kinds of stuff.

SUE BIRD: Actually I do. I think I started playing against her -- I must have been in sixth grade and she was in 5th. She had pigtails; still had the braids going but had pigtails and we called her that. We kept in touch through mail, things like that. But I saw her every summer, played against her every summer until she started playing in her own age group. She also played soccer. I know she was always competitive in that sport. I saw her in one tournament which was pretty random. It was fun to see her. I know her a long time and I've seen her to where she's gotten to now. Our fathers are friends, talk, communicate once in awhile. I don't know, I think it will be interesting to play against her for the third time this year.

COACH GENO AURIEMMA: Well, you don't know that going in. I had a lot of reservations when I was first approached by about it a few years ago, because I didn't think it was -- I didn't think it was in our best interests at the time. I was thinking primarily about Connecticut at the time. You know, I thought why do we need to do this. We're doing it once, we don't need another TV game. We do TV enough. Why put ourselves in that situation when that limits then another team that you can schedule that's a Top-10 team and you can have more variety in your schedule. And they kept hounding me and hounding me and the TV people and everybody else, and then I started thinking about the big picture a little bit more, about there's not enough of these games during the regular season. There are not enough games that, you know, you can showcase the best of what women's basketball has to offer. And I asked Pat about it and I said what do you think, and I think she probably needed some time to think about it, too, and we both came to the same conclusion; that as much as it might hurt us personally, you know if one of us goes 0-2, you could be 38-1 lose to Tennessee ten twice, 38-2, you're dead. So as much as we knew the potential pitfalls I think the benefits far outweigh any negatives and I'm glad we did it and I'm glad we're going to do it again next year. And where it goes beyond that, I don't know. Beyond. But I'm glad we did it. But there surely wasn't like, wouldn't it be great if we play three times each year because after a while, that will get old, too, the rest of the country will go "we hate both you guys." Now half the country likes us, the other half likes Tennessee. Three more years of this and, you know, that won't be anybody at the games.

SVETLANA ABROSIMOVA: Well, I remember my freshman year Coach talked to me about it, next game we were supposed to play against Tennessee and he asked me do you even know about them and I was like, no, I've never heard about them. So it was hard for me to appreciate all of the stuff that was going on around that gait. But I watched the '95 tape. Like right now I know what is going on; that it is a great tradition. And it just -- it's hard to tell, because, you know, like I haven't -- well, I grew up in Russia so I don't really know exactly like about Tennessee, how Tennessee how they became a great team. I didn't know a lot about UCONN, how they became a great team. But when I actually play here I know we have to beat Tennessee and I know like because I met Rebecca, Jennifer, and I just respect those players, and I want to do as best as I can to beat Tennessee.

SWIN CASH: They came down to my final two, and it was a really hard decision. But, you know, for both programs, they both were great programs had great players, their coaches were both great. But coming to Connecticut, I came in with a great freshman class. I just felt really comfortable there. I felt like you know this would benefit me down the road, the long run and just like talking to Coach, I knew that he would develop me into the type of player that I wanted to be.

SWIN CASH: I view this rivalry as a class act, because I mean, off the court, I know a lot of the girls just from recruiting, playing against them and so does Sue. But just to be off the court, you can have a conversation, but you know once you lace up the shoestrings and you're on the court it's just strictly business. And I know that just being off the court and showing that type of relationship where you're able to sit down and talk to them and laugh and joke like that, that shows a lot of character for both programs.

SUE BIRD: I agree.

SHEA RALPH: I hope so. I think, you know -- I think that women's soccer tournament, the team, that whole World Cup thing was just wonderful for women in general and women in sports. And I think that they really got the ball rolling, especially for soccer, because soccer really isn't, I don't know, hasn't really been that popular of a sport in America and I think that it's just grown tremendously, especially for women. And I know that being a young girl when we were younger, most of the time you looked up to, you know, men, especially you know, basketball, you didn't really have a lot of women role models. I mean if you had psycho parents like I did, then you would go to tournaments and stuff where women played and you would find somebody to look up to. But I think in general younger girls have a harder time finding role models, but I think now that women's sports are growing and we have teams like the women's national team that do tremendous things for sports and, you know, have confidence in themselves and do wonderful appearances and stuff like that, I think that's just really made the difference for us.

SVETLANA ABROSIMOVA: She's really tough. She's really competitive. She moves with the ball all the time. She's a great player. She has a pretty good outside shot. She can, you know, get inside the lane. She can do a whole bunch of stuff, and just a matter of concentration. You know, I'm sure if I'm going to play defense against her, my team is going to help me, too.

SUE BIRD: It started out -- I'm trying to think of when I first had seen her play. Actually, when I was being recruited by Vanderbilt, funny enough, the assistant coach was Julie Planke (ph) and she was originally at Stanford. And a lot of the times when we were talking on the phone she would tell me how much I reminded her of Jennifer and things like that, and that's when I really started taking note of things she did. I watched her play when she was on the Olympic team. And then when I came to Connecticut, I kept hearing comparisons, not really -- kind of the dark ponytail, things like that. But I just like the way she played and she definitely accomplished a lot at Stanford. She won a couple of National Championships and things like that, and I just admire her for it.

COACH GENO AURIEMMA: Sometimes. Not as much as you would think, believe it or not. You know they didn't recruit Sue, for instance. We didn't recruit Kara Lawson. We didn't recruit Tamika. We tried to -- they didn't recruit Asjha from what I understand, either. Obviously, we tried to recruit Kristen Clement, but a lot of the kids that went to school there. The only one that ever visited our campus was Semeka Randall. So it's not really that heavy and intense of a recruiting battle. And I think of the ones that we have on our team, Swin and Paige are the only two that actually visited Tennessee and chose to come to Connecticut. I think kids usually pick sides pretty early in that situation. You're either on this side and that side, and very rarely is there any crossover.

COACH GENO AURIEMMA: Yeah, I kind of look at her as a freshman. I view her as this being her first -- her first year, really playing college basketball. So I would have to say that based on that, she's probably been the most productive of all the pointguards we've ever had as a freshman. But she also has the best supporting cast of any freshman pointguard ever to come to Connecticut. She's different, too, than Rita Williams and different than Jennifer Rizzotti. Those two had their own unique styles, and Sue does it a different way, but it's effective. She's different, but it's effective.

COACH GENO AURIEMMA: I think people would watch the game, maybe that have one set of impressions, one bias towards the game and, say, here is what I think women's basketball is like and maybe by tuning into the game tomorrow night they will see something that will spur a different thought. Like, "Wow, I didn't know this is what it was like." Maybe people will stop comparing it to the men's game and be able to see it on it's own, for its own value. Those people that love the game already do that but I think we can attract a whole bunch of new fans tomorrow night if it's a great game, well played, that have a misconceived the idea of what women's basketball is. And every time we get a chance to do that I think we're helping the game grow.

COACH GENO AURIEMMA: Well, there's two sides to that question. The last three games we've scored a lot of points; so I think when we try to keep the score down, then it works both ways. You know, we're going to score 70, 75; they are going to score less. When we're trying to put up 100, they are going to score more. And also the teams that you're playing at this time of the year are a lot better than the teams you were playing two weeks ago or three weeks ago, better offensively. That's how they got to this point. So it's not something that I'm overly concerned with, but at the same time, we've played placed so much emphasis on our offense for this tournament because I didn't want to come in defensive. I didn't want to come in with a bunker mentality, surround the wagons, circle the wagons, let's not let anybody squat on us and try to win the game 50-48. I came in with the mentality we're trying to put up 100 every night; let's roll the dice and here we go. If we lose one 100-98 tomorrow, though, I'm going to be really upset.

COACH GENO AURIEMMA: I love her intensity, and obviously, I wanted to recruit her. And the energy that she brings to the floor, the passion that she plays with, is what you want every kid to play like. I could probably do without the World Cup dive that she took yesterday when she acted like she got fouled, but that probably also means that she's gotten smarter, too, knows how to draw fouls. But very few kids in the country -- I think they have got two kids that play the game of basketball as hard as I would wand kids to play and that's Semeka Randall and Tamika Catchings. If you were telling me I'm going to coach players the rest of my career that would play that hard, I tell you, I'd be happy coaching for a long, long time.

COACH GENO AURIEMMA: I don't envision me getting an invitation to speak to anybody about anything, other than, you know speaking to my team about what my team is going to do. As far as Pat, and I'll just use her, I wouldn't say women in general, but as far as Pat getting the respect of a men's team, I don't think that would be difficult at all. I follow the stock market a little bit, and I remember Hewlett-Packard has a woman CEO, Italian woman, I think, too, and their stock went up about a zillion dollars I think recently. I think women are going to be respected for the job they do. And if they are not any good, they are not going to be respected; and if they are really good they are going to be respected. And she is really good. And I would think she would earn the respect of anyone she coached, male female, doesn't matter. She's just a great coach. Wouldn't be difficult. Now, there's a lot of guys that you coach that don't respect anybody; so she would have the same problems any guy has coaching.

COACH GENO AURIEMMA: Well, she's the smartest. She's really bright. In school, she's -- it comes easy to her, it's effortless. She sees things, she picks things up quickly. She's got a great mind. You know, she's just very bright. You know, one of those kids that is just very intuitive, can see things and figures things out quickly. Me, I like dumb players. I like guys that don't think. They just catch it, and go where's the basket. And Asjha is too smart for her own good, and when she stops thinking during the game she plays great. When she starts to think too much, because her mind takes over, then she gets kind of tentative. But she is who she is, and every game that she's played in the last two years, she sees herself, you know, getting more instinctive and less cerebral. This is the kind of game where if you think too much, you can't play. If you don't think at all, you can't play. You've got to be somewhere in that in-between zone and more and more, she's getting into that.

COACH GENO AURIEMMA: I had a friend of mine -- he was an AU coach and he happened to have come here from Russia to go the University of South Carolina. And he coached AU and knew a lot of the kids from over there. He had sent me to go see a couple other kids, and I didn't think that they would be what we were looking for, and then he told me about Svet and one thing led to another. I called her up, talked to her, sent her some stuff; she read it. We talked some more, and, you know, she came to Connecticut. What has she learned? I don't know, Svet knows a lot already. She's smart, and she's a hard-working kid. She has a passion for the game. She loves basketball. She thinks the game. I think what she has learned is how to play with other good players, which is going to help her down the road. All her life, she's been the go-to player. Everything is done for her, everything is run for her, every play is run for her. Svet is kind of spoiled. She was the chosen one. She went in and somebody picked her out and said we're going to develop you into a great player. And now she's learning how to play with other really great players, and that's really hard because you go from doing everything to thinking I'm not important I won't do anything. We need you to be in middle; we need you to get 25 like Monday. And sometimes we need you to get 12 but only 14 rebounds. She's starting to figure out "what I have to do" and "I don't have to be every thing, every possession." And hopefully that's what we've taught her.

COACH GENO AURIEMMA: It does make it interesting, doesn't it. If one of us was 2-0 or 0-2, it probably wouldn't have as much significance. The fact that we played -- she hit it right on the mark. Both teams come in knowing they can win. Both teams come in knowing they can lose. You know, you can't plan for these things. They just happen. It's just one of these things. Two great teams playing in the championship game. When the committee sat down and picked the bracket, they probably went, "Boy, if we could get a Connecticut Tennessee final, that would probably be great," and they got one. So everybody is happy.

COACH GENO AURIEMMA: Yeah, you know, we had a very small margin of error in those years. In'95 when we played them, we beat Tennessee three straight: Our place, Minneapolis and their place. And I don't think that's been done, ever. And that's what created the rivalry. But we were working with a very small margin of error if anybody got hurt, something happened, we were dead. So when we got to Charlotte, you know, Kara Wolters fouled out and we just didn't have enough we haven't have anybody left; so when we got to overtime, we just ran out of gas. And that was one of the best games I've ever been involved in. I mean, just as -- as good a game as I've ever been a part of. And to be honest with you, I wasn't that disappointed that day, because we won the National Championship. The year before, I saw Chamique Holdsclaw, Latina Davis, all those kids, so when I was standing there, I was answering the question, and I said you know what, it wasn't our turn. It was time for somebody else to feel what it feels like. And I wasn't that disappointed to be honest with you. I was more disappointed in other games that I thought we had squandered our opportunity. I don't think we squandered our opportunity that year.

COACH GENO AURIEMMA: I don't think it's new to the women's game. I think it's new to basketball. You know, I think it's new to the way people play today; shoot first and ask questions later. That's everybody's mentality. It's hard to find kids that think "team first". And I'm lucky. I've been fortunate to coach pointguards who are more team-oriented. I mean, Jennifer Rizzotti averaged 11 points a game and was national Player of the Year her senior year. So I use that as an example all the time. That's rare. That's rare, because I think people get their satisfaction, their emotional feedback from their parents or whatever on how many points you score. I'm lucky; I get kids who get their kicks out of how many games we win.

End of FastScripts….