Kay Yow Quotes
3/21/2001 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
"My loss to him (Geno Auriemma) in 1991 (82-71 in NCAA East Regional) was my worst loss. To win in 1998 (60-52 in NCAA East Regional) did help get past that loss a little. In 1991, we had beaten Tennessee during the regular season by (13) points and Tennessee won the national championship that year. I had a team that could have definitely won the national championship. It (1998) was my best win because it was the first time that I had taken a team to the Final Four. So, that win ranks right up there with our first ACC Championship that we had won in 1980 and some of our arch rivals. Any time that it is one of your first, it always stands out a little more."
"We started the season believing that they (Terah James and Kaayla Chones) would join us around January 1st. It was after our George Washington game that we learned that they probably weren't going to join us. Then we started a second phase of our season and a dive about that time. I think that we regrouped later. We knew that if we were going to go to the NCAA, we were going to have to pick it up. The second half of the season, we went 7-1. We also had to go without Ivy Gardner for four games. She was a person that had to have surgery during that time. There has been a lot to overcome this season and I attribute that to the hard work that this team has done every day. When you lose your staring point guard and your staring center, two people that started every game for us the year before and then not have them at the beginning of this season, is really tough. We've tried a lot people and l lot of combinations until we found one that has worked for us recently."
"I look at UConn and I think that they are playing great. If I didn't know that they had two players out, I wouldn't be able to tell. Their other players are really playing strong for them. There is a lot of talent out on the floor and Geno does a great job out there coaching. He has a lot of other players there that are talented as well that are there, waiting for their opportunity. He has prepared them as well as he has prepared the ones that are already starting. Their turn came earlier than expected."
"I recruited Swin (Cash). I was interested in her when she was in high school and watched her play. My great loss, believe me and Connecticut's great gain. I liked her tremendously as a player. She's a great athlete and I liked how she goes about playing the game. There are so many things that she can do and she works so hard. Our 4 players will probably match up with her."
"Asia Jones I recruited as well, and Shea Ralph, of course from North Carolina. Their head was turned to a program that had been to the Final Four a number of times and had already won a national championship. That can be hard to go against at times. Connecticut has a lot things going for them that appeal to those players. I'd sure to have some of them."
"Tynesha (Lewis) has been willing to do whatever she needed to do to help us to be the best team we can be. She shoots more, she rebounds more, she has more assists. She is the one that can take on another team's top player. Moving to point guard is evidence of that because it gave us an opportunity to be the best team we could be, along with Ivy Gardner's move to the 2-guard."
"In all honesty, I think that we are a little better defensive team than we were then ('98), but I don't think that we are as strong offensively. Connecticut is a stronger team than they were in 1998. In 1998, the assistant coaches weren't here (in '91), the players weren't here. I never even brought is up in '98. They didn't know about that. They couldn't identify with something that they hadn't actually experienced. There are a few people on this team, however, that have. Shea Ralph was there, but she was out for that game because of her medical redshirt. However, when we won it made us all feel better."
"My approach with the game is for our players to just go our and play the game. We are a very young team. Hopefully, we won't go out and play the name. I feel that teams lose games or lose by very wide margins somtimes because they are playing a name. In competition, you have to believe in yourself. If you are a great player yourself, you want to compete with the best. If you don't have that attitude about it, I don't know how great a player you could become. I just hope we go out and compete and we will see what happens from there."
"I think that the main thing about matching up with Connecticut is that there just aren't any weak players. We play a lot of teams that we feel like, well, we can give help here and here. You have to play strengts and weaknesses. With UConn, there is nobody that I've said to my players that we can give help to. They have a lot of strength and everybody is a threat. We had to just play straight up, head-tohead. There is no other way to play it when we play man."
"A lot of people say that. A lot of people say that we are going to need to slow the game down. I don't see us slowing it down like a lot of people had in mind. We've just got to play our game. I have a young team and they can only take in so much. We've been pounding them with things all year. I want us to be sound fundamentally with what we do. We have a system and I feel as thought we have to stay pretty much within that system."
"They've got a lot of people that can handle the ball and a lot of people that can attack off the dribble. They've got people that come off of screens with quick releases and can shoot the 3. It's unbelievable how they battle on the boards. I wish I could say that I see a weakness in UConn, but I just don't see it. We've seen all the tape we can see and they look good in all of them."