February 26, 2025 • 30 mins
Coach on Diana Taurasi's retirement, what's next and this matter of UConn-Creighton Tomorrow Night in Hartford
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
When did I find out? Probably when I was in Phoenix,
you know, watching her play, and then I got a
sense that that that would be that would be the
end of her career. But officially today's Thursday, yesterday, I
would say, over the weekend probably, and it was Yeah,
(00:33):
it wasn't even from from her.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
So, yeah, what do you think life after basketball is
going to be like for her?
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Just like she's one person who would play forever if
she could. Yeah, So what do you think it's gonna
be like for he?
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Trust?
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Yeah? I often wonder because there's a lot of players
in her say, a lot of players, But the players
in her situation tend to go one of two ways. Right.
They either completely walk away from it, like I've done enough,
I've had it, I'm out, and since I can't play
at the level that I've always played at, I'm not
(01:15):
going to touch a basketball ever again. Right. And then
there's others that hang on because it's their life, it's
the only thing they know, it's the only interest they have,
it's you know, it's their identity. I don't think and
I haven't talked. I haven't spoken to her about it yet,
but I don't I don't think her her future revolves
(01:38):
around her playing the game at even pick up games
or you know, playing in a you know, in a
fun atmosphere, unless it's where her kids And I don't
think there's a coaching aspect to it that she would enjoy.
(02:01):
But I do think there's some basketball off the court
related things that she's probably going to find herself getting
involved in whatever that whatever that is. You know, I
said to her one day, I said, you know, you
should be the Olympic coach. It's in LA. She goes,
(02:27):
I've never coached before. I said, well, that's a shocker
to everybody. Yet every coach you've ever played for thought
you were trying to coach the team. So you've already coached,
and it's LA and you're from LA, and it would
be the most amazing thing. We were laughing about it,
and her think her response was someone, but like, do
(02:47):
we have to go to World Championships and go to
practice and go all those tours? Can I stay in
LA and wait for the team to get there. But
I'm sure there's something involving USA basketball, the w n
b A, the NBA, you know, something that's gonna involve
her having some decision making opportunities on how the game
(03:12):
is going to go. A talent evaluator, Yeah, no, she's
a horrible talent evaluator because she thinks the most. She
thinks the best of everybody. And one time in Las
Vegas during a training camp, I had her and Sue
each pick a team that we're gonna play against, play
(03:34):
against each other, and they could draft, and they had
a draft, and when the two teams were playing, all
she did was bitch about who was coaching the team.
Since she was the general manager, she picked the team,
somebody else was coaching it. Her team was getting beat
and all she did was bitch about the coaching, not
the fact that she picked a bad team. Okay, so
(03:55):
town evaluator, I think I think being on TV and
talking about what the game should look like, or owning
a team and deciding this is how the game is
supposed to look like a pat Riley kind of thing,
you know, because she's just that smart, and she's that respected,
(04:17):
and you know, that committed to, you know, to winning.
Speaker 3 (04:23):
She's been the face of every team she's ever played on.
She handles it's such an easy going way.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
How I must you admire.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
How she's taking a lot of people like to kind
of hold back and maybe not enjoy the process as
much as you seem to enjoy every step.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
I remember to your point, there was never a time
high school, college Olympics, UH, any European team she was
on any the Olympic team. From the very first time
(05:01):
that she's ever stepped on the court with UH, with
a team. The minute she walks in the gym, it
kind of takes on her personality and she's okay with it,
and she embraces it and lives up to it all
the time. There's a there's a quality that you have
(05:24):
to have to be like that, and I I guess
you're born with it. You know, some people try to
acquire it. I I just think you're born with that.
You know, you're born with that personality that she has,
and you're born with that talent and then she perfected it.
Speaker 4 (05:37):
How would she be in this date and age playing
as a student, do you think I mean if we
talked about the crazy times back in three or four,
but if she was playing now, with social media and.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
All that stuff, she wouldn't have been here after her
freshman year.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
UH.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
She would have put herself out to the highest bidder.
And I uh, as I said this before, she'd be
on four different teams in four years. She would have
maximum that whole thing. The whole nil thing would have
been a huge game for her to play. And the
whole social media thing may not be honest with you.
(06:13):
I'm kidding when I say all this. She's one of
the most private people you'll ever meet until she's in
front of a crowd, and then she's not. But you
don't see her on social media, not like some of
these other people that are all over it. That's not
who she is. You know, she kind of she kind
of stays in the background until she has to be
(06:35):
in front of everybody, and then she's the best there
ever was at that. You know, you will walk in
here right now and only knows maybe one or two
people in this room three, but she will walk around
and give you a big hug and a kiss and say, hey,
how you doing, how you been? And then afterwards I
will go you know that person, you go no, But
(06:57):
she makes everybody feel, you know, like you're part of
her world. You know, there's.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
A lot of great players, and there's a real short
list of the greatest.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
Players Tiger Brady Jordan.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
What is that that one thing that separates those people
from the great ones to become the greatest?
Speaker 1 (07:20):
Du uh uh uh Their drive? You know, if you
take in consideration, they were all born with the talent,
you know, that guy given ability, but not all those
people have the drive, the commitment, the competitiveness, the will
(07:42):
to win always. So those people you just mentioned, they
were the most talented, but they were also the most driven,
and they were the smartest. You know, people think that,
you know, you can accomplish those things because physically you're
more gifted than anyone else than everyone else. Those people
(08:03):
you mentioned, they're brighter than everyone else, They know the
game better than anyone else, and you put those combinations together,
it's pretty hard to beat. Were all those things evident
the first time before her? Yeah, well obviously you couldn't
get deeper back in those days, you know, you you
(08:25):
couldn't have any contact. But there was something about her
that was uh. I think in high school there was
a a a torny man. I don't know, they plan
us to play three games in three days or something.
She either tied the game or won the game on
the last shot, like in every one of those games,
and so you you already knew there's there's a moment
(08:45):
that the game has to be decided, and she owns
that moment. And then when she got here, we had
a lot of really really good players who were many
they they they won a national championship, if I'm not mistaken,
(09:08):
they won a national championship in two thousand right, And
she walked in the gym and the first day of practice,
second day of practice, third day of practice, they they
knew right away this is the best player in the
gym every day. Now, she had a lot of Sarah
Strong on her. She didn't want to show that every
minute of every day, every possession because she was very
(09:30):
deferential to her to those guys cause she appreciated they
won a national championship. I've not won anything, but they
all knew, and we all knew that there's something different
about this kid than everybody else.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
It's in two thousand two against Oklahoma, when you have
the best senior classes ever here, you dropped the play.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
For her, absolutely, absolutely absolutely, and they knew it. They
knew that's where the ball was going. The other team
knew that's where the ball was going. The the things that
she could do on the court. Guy gave her the
(10:10):
size to be able to do. We were playing we
were playing i want to say, Arizona State one year,
and we we knew they they were the most physical
team we have played up to that point, and we
played her. So Paige is not the first guard on
our team that would played power forward. So we put
her in. We put her in the lane the whole game.
She must have shot twenty free throws to twenty five
(10:31):
free throws. I forget what it was. It was a
ridiculous number. But you could put her anywhere on the
floor and and she would be the best player at
that position in the country.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
We've asked you through the years, who the best player
ever was here because you've had so many great ones,
and you'd be hesitant to answer, but then you might
tell us privately. But you know what, if we have
one game to win and one possession to win it,
I'm gonna give it to Diana. I mean, is that
kind of tell you that she may be the most
competitive or yeah?
Speaker 1 (11:05):
Yeah, you know, sometimes people want to talk about who's
the who's the best ever? You know, how do you
quantify who's the best ever. So I just think that
when you talk about who's until somebody comes along and
does more, who's the greatest winner ever in college women's
(11:26):
basketball history, then that's who you've got to go with,
because no one else even comes close. So if you
had to win a game, I mean, if there were
if some of those other guys you were talking about
on my team were on the team, it'd be great.
I'd just close my eyes and point to any of them.
But still, yeah, there's something that there's something that she
(11:50):
had court mate, right, Yeah, you know, the two of them,
the two of them individually were We're the kind of
players you want with the ball in their hands at
the last moment. But you know, again, if they both
(12:18):
got triple team, then they passed it to Maya, we'd
still win, you know what I mean. If Fordam guarded them,
she passed it to still, we'd still win. So that
to be in that situation, yeah, not not very many
people get to experience that.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
Is leading the two thousand and three and two thousand
and fore cast of characters you had to national championships,
the maybe the greatest.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
Individual I think. So I don't think anyone's ever been
in that situation ever before or since that I can remember,
given the inexperience of that team and the youth of
that team. Yeah, it was just and and it wasn't
(13:07):
like it just happened in the Final four or anything
like that. We as coaches, we saw it the second
week of training camp that year, because we had just
lost such a great cast of players that the expectation,
even on our staff was, Man, this is gonna be hard.
And after two weeks of practice, we looked at each
(13:29):
other and we went, man, this is gonna be just
like last year. And no one would be and I said,
and we said, no one's gonna believe this. You could
just see it, you could, because now the real Herd
was gonna come out, you know, before it was you know,
I'm playing along with these guys out of respect. She
(13:50):
is gonna be the real met coming out. And she
did it while getting beat up the whole Yeah yeah, yeah,
Page stopped whining. She's not the first great player here
to get beat up every possession. You know, she should
watch films of how how, how how much more physical
the game was back then, and how difficult it was
and how difficult people made it for d to get
(14:13):
done when she got done. But the difference, and you know,
because the game is not nearly as physical today, when
it does get physical, everybody loses their mind. Back then,
because the game was way more physical, the embraced the physicality.
You know, we have a clip of which a rebound
that she got down to Tennessee. I don't know if
(14:33):
you guys have seen it. A rebound that she got
and she's tangled up, you know, somebody's got her arm
behind her and she's tangled up. And yes, she gets
the ball with her left hand and she's fighting the
kid off with her right hand, and there's this big
smile on her face like this is the greatest thing
that's ever happened. Like the fight, the struggle is. She
didn't complain about it. She embraced it. How are you better?
Speaker 2 (14:57):
How are you better?
Speaker 3 (14:59):
Really? For having Diana?
Speaker 1 (15:00):
And I just coach Diana. I just think there's few
people that uh that come around that can can affect everyone,
whether it's positive or negative. Don't get me wrong, but
there's never anyone that's ever including me and anybody in
(15:23):
my family, my mom, you know, they had a great
relationship cause there's no one that's ever met her that
you would come away and go, eh, you know, there
was like a real wow. You know. So for me
personally when she was here, it went by way too fast,
you know. And the the to me, the best thing
(15:46):
that ever happened to me in my in my coaching
career was that I got an opportunity to do it
again for those eight years you know, between two thousand
and eight and two thousand sixteen. I mean, who gets
a chance to do that? So not only did I
have the opportunity for those four years in college, but
then I got eight more. So yeah, twelve of those
(16:11):
years were just and not even I'm not even talking
about just on the court stuff. The stuff that no
one will ever know that was going on off the
court was just beyond Yeah, those are the stories that
won't appear in anybody's book.
Speaker 3 (16:29):
Sarah, how do you think she's handled this? There's a
lot of her or she got here, it seems like,
you know, she's more than next seeded, all the expectations.
Speaker 4 (16:38):
How do you think she's grown.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
As a player? I mean, you watch her. I mean,
if you watch her, can you tell so whatever you
know about her? That's how much I know she She's
the same every minute of every day. There's almost never
a time when you're going to see a different version
(17:00):
of Sarah in terms of how she appears, how she
carries herself, how she reacts to things. And I think
that's probably why she's able to handle and have the
kind of success that she's having, because she doesn't suffer
the highs and lows that young kids do. So the
expectations that other people may have had for her, I
(17:22):
don't know, but internally, the expectations that we we had
when we were recruiting her, she's right about where I
thought she'd be. Someone asked her about the game. One
of the games, she talked about her ms Sean's instead of.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
Her rebounds and her blocks.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
And he.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
They the the thing that that does separate a lot
of those players is they they they want to be perfect,
they want to be great, They want to be they
want to be successful with everything they do. So when
they are and you bring it up, they just shrug
(18:00):
it off like this is what I do, this is
who I am. But what stays with them is the
silly mistake sort of you know, I don't know if
you saw her reaction when she threw that pass against
Tennessee the page that went out of bounds. I mean
she took that really, really really hard, like I cost
this the game, even though she was the best player
on our team in that game. In her mind, if
(18:21):
I complete that pass, you know, we have a chance
to win the game. That's what stays with her, and
that's why she just keeps getting better and better and better,
and that's why she'll be great because she does take
those things to heart. She doesn't just blow them off
like you know some other people might'row with a chance
to title, how important is that in terms of yours's
(18:43):
just goal ultimately winning the National Championship. I don't know
that one has anything to do with the other, to
be honest with you, There's been there's been a couple
of years when we lost in the in the Big East,
in the Big East Tournament and went on to win
the National Championship. And I remember telling people that back
in those days, winning the Big East was harder than
winning the National Championship because we had nine teams that
(19:05):
went into the NC tournament. It's more about, you know,
pride in in in the fact that that you you
said that as a goal, like our goal is to
win the regular season, And if you win tomorrow and
then you win Sunday, you win the regular season. So
you accomplish a goal. Does that make you better equipped
(19:30):
to win the national championship? No, it doesn't. Does it
hurt your chances? No it All it does is means
you're you're not going to be the Big East champion
by yourself. You know, you're gonna have to share it
with somebody if you win on Sunday. So we have
(19:50):
a really tough game tomorrow night because they're a really
good team that's that's hard to match up with. And
they have a really hard game tomornw because we're a
really good team that's hard to match up with. And
that's why you know, games like tomorrow are are important
(20:12):
because you are gonna have to work harder than you
had to work the last couple of games, and you
are gonna have to be better. Yeah, it's gonna be
hard tomorrow, It's supposed to be.
Speaker 4 (20:31):
How often, during the season, particularly as you come how distress,
start to really consider a body of work and think
about what the team might be capable of market.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
I don't know, I don't know. I think there's a
there's a point in time during the season where you
see things and you think to yourself, we don't have
a chance to win, and the whole thing because we
have too many we have too many blemishes, there's too
(21:05):
many things wrong with our team. We don't have enough
answers for things that are happening to us. And then
as the season goes on, maybe you start to fix those,
those start to go away. But yeah, there's too many
(21:28):
variables for me right now for me to sit here
and go, you know, yeah, I think we should be
we should be the we should be the favorite to
win a national championship based on what I've seen. You know,
somebody said this to me just yesterday. Hey, you know,
I was watching the South Carolina game, and right after
the game, I saw it on the ticker that you
(21:50):
guys were now the favorite to win a national championship,
and like, you can bet on games on TV. So
obviously this person didn't know a whole lot about what
was going on, and they go, how's that possible that
that could happen in one day? I said, yeah, how's
that possible that they could happen in one day? Because
sometimes you have performances that if you're not careful, will
(22:12):
overshadow some of the other performances that you had. But
those didn't go away just because you have one fantastic game.
Those are still there, you know, and those are always
in the back of my mind, you know. So now
we believe me. We got a long way to go
before we can talk about national championships with this team.
(22:37):
Let's let's hope we're talking about it the night before
that game. Yeah, they gave her, they gave her some
some guidelines, you know, a couple of minutes a quarter
here and there, you know, just to see how she
responds to it. So the biggest thing, too, is going
(22:58):
to be finding time. You know, you come in after
twenty eight games or twenty seven games, you know, and
then you got allready back and they come in. Ice
is going to be back maybe this weekend, so at
a time when teams are shrinking their rotation, we're adding players,
you know. So it's not how much time is she
allowed to have, it's finding time for all these guys
(23:19):
that are coming back, that are looking for for time.
That's gonna be the big dilemma.
Speaker 3 (23:24):
I think there was a stretch early this season when
Easy was out that you had Cage and a bunch
of players who were.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
Still learning what Yukon basketball was.
Speaker 3 (23:32):
Now you have Carol, Now you have it easy now. Yeah, Aubrey,
How does that change things in practice that you just
have players that they kind of know the drills and
knows them here.
Speaker 4 (23:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
I practices, practices have been have been have been really
really good. The month we're really really good. The whole
month of UH pretty much January and most of February,
practices have been UH have been consistently good, and and
(24:13):
I think that's carried over into the games that we played.
We don't practice as much now as as before, so
maybe that's why they're good. But the the things that
come up in practice are hard, They're hard to do,
(24:39):
they're hard to fix sometimes. And the the the biggest
challenge for us right now is there are some combinations
that look fantastic out there that if I could, I
would play that combination forty minutes every night. And you
saw that last year. You get five guys out there
(24:59):
that can really together and you play them forty minutes
every night, Pretty damn good, right right. It takes you
all the way to almost to the championship game, and
there's other combinations that don't look as great. And then
there's some combinations that if you have them out there
more than three minutes, you're gonna lose the game. So
all these things are what happens in practice, and these
(25:20):
are the things that stay, you know, with our coaching staff.
How do we now start to learn what are the
combinations that work best? And at the same time, how
do you give people minutes that they need? So that's
right now, that's what we're that's what we're trying to do.
Speaker 3 (25:38):
You know, the NCAA is trying to figure out revenue
sharing and this week of Cannegan legislator legislative branches looks
like they've agreed.
Speaker 4 (25:47):
Upon a plan.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
Have you been following that at all? And if you have,
if you had any input, or do you see how
it help you going forward? Well, it's a fact of
life now that revenue sharing is here. And if you
wait for the NCAA to tell you what the revenue
sharing plan is, uh, you're gonna be left behind. And
(26:09):
the fact that each state can make their own the
their own their own laws about how we're gonna deal
with it, that that just throws another wrench into the
into the mix. Right, So for Connecticut to step out
and say, regardless of what the NCAA says, obviously we're
gonna stay compliant, but this is what we're gonna do.
(26:33):
This is how we're gonna do it. And to me,
you have to have a revenue sharing plan. The the biggest,
the biggest obstacle to any plan is how are you
gonna fund it? Well, it's called revenue sharing. Well, revenue
(26:54):
sharing at one school. Revenue at one school isn't the
same as revenue at another school. So I think we
have a really good situation here because you know, our
program is a high revenue producing program. So between what
(27:17):
the state has gonna is gonna be allowing us to
do and what Eartheletic Department wants to do, we're gonna
be competitive with any school in the country when it
comes to revenue sharing.
Speaker 3 (27:28):
Now, there's a lot of last kind of coming up
her page right now, but I want to ask about
it first. Do you remember the first time you ever heard.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
Of page backers? If I remember seeing her in a game,
I th I think maybe it was in Indianapolis or someplace.
She just kept running on the court and playing and
then running off the court because she was l she
was out of breath all the time, cause she weighed
about sixty pounds, and and I said, what's the what's
(27:56):
all the what's all the fuss over this kid? Like
she's on the court was like watching a hockey game.
She would do her minute and a half and then
she get off and it just kept happening the entire game.
I remember saying to Marissa, I said, Marissa, I don't
get this. And obviously, you know, when you saw her healthy,
when you saw her one hundred percent a week later,
(28:16):
whenever it was, you could see that there was a
there was a different way that she played, that she
saw the game, you know. And then I distinctly remember
going to her high school to watch a game at
her high school, and the hysteria up there had started
(28:39):
already with how she created all these highlights because of
you know, just the way she the way she saw
the floor, the way she saw everything that was happening,
and her willingness to pass. And so I tried to
get through as many games as I could, just because
(28:59):
I enjoyed watching, you know, I wasn't evaluating her anymore.
I was just enjoying watching her play. But yeah, that
seems like forever ago. It's a lot that's happened between
then and now.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
From the outside, your relationship with her looks like it's
a great, sarcastic, give and take relationship.
Speaker 1 (29:18):
How did you describe it? Yeah, my relationship with with Paige,
it's it's one of those where love and hate. I
(29:41):
guess they call it right. I love it when I
hate her and she loves when she hates me, because
then that means we're we're both on the right track.
There's something I want her to do when she's arguing
with me about it, there's something that she wants and
I'm not letting her do it. So our relationship on
the court is where I'm constantly bitching about something that
(30:02):
I want her to do. She's wanting to do things
that she wants to do, and so we're always going
back and forth. And it works because she wants to
stretch the boundaries as far as she possibly can, and
I want to make sure that she's growing as a
player and she's learning and she's preparing for what's coming next.
(30:23):
Where that's not going to be possible, you know, all
the time. But off the court, yeah, none of that,
you know, none of that matters because you know, she's
not a freshman anymore. She's she's not a little kid anymore.
You know, I can coach her like an adult, which
she is, you know. So yeah, I mean our relationship
(30:45):
is is great. I'm glad we have two of them.
I'm glad we have the on the court one and
I'm glad we have the off the court one. All Right, guys,
When did I find out? Probably when I was in Phoenix,
you know, watching her play, and then I got a
sense that that that would be that would be the
end of her career. But officially today's Thursday, yesterday, I
would say, over the weekend probably, and it was Yeah,
(00:33):
it wasn't even from from her.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
So, yeah, what do you think life after basketball is
going to be like for her?
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Just like she's one person who would play forever if
she could. Yeah, So what do you think it's gonna
be like for he?
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Trust?
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Yeah? I often wonder because there's a lot of players
in her say, a lot of players, But the players
in her situation tend to go one of two ways. Right.
They either completely walk away from it, like I've done enough,
I've had it, I'm out, and since I can't play
at the level that I've always played at, I'm not
(01:15):
going to touch a basketball ever again. Right. And then
there's others that hang on because it's their life, it's
the only thing they know, it's the only interest they have,
it's you know, it's their identity. I don't think and
I haven't talked. I haven't spoken to her about it yet,
but I don't I don't think her her future revolves
(01:38):
around her playing the game at even pick up games
or you know, playing in a you know, in a
fun atmosphere, unless it's where her kids And I don't
think there's a coaching aspect to it that she would enjoy.
(02:01):
But I do think there's some basketball off the court
related things that she's probably going to find herself getting
involved in whatever that whatever that is. You know, I
said to her one day, I said, you know, you
should be the Olympic coach. It's in LA. She goes,
(02:27):
I've never coached before. I said, well, that's a shocker
to everybody. Yet every coach you've ever played for thought
you were trying to coach the team. So you've already coached,
and it's LA and you're from LA, and it would
be the most amazing thing. We were laughing about it,
and her think her response was someone, but like, do
(02:47):
we have to go to World Championships and go to
practice and go all those tours? Can I stay in
LA and wait for the team to get there. But
I'm sure there's something involving USA basketball, the w n
b A, the NBA, you know, something that's gonna involve
her having some decision making opportunities on how the game
(03:12):
is going to go. A talent evaluator, Yeah, no, she's
a horrible talent evaluator because she thinks the most. She
thinks the best of everybody. And one time in Las
Vegas during a training camp, I had her and Sue
each pick a team that we're gonna play against, play
(03:34):
against each other, and they could draft, and they had
a draft, and when the two teams were playing, all
she did was bitch about who was coaching the team.
Since she was the general manager, she picked the team,
somebody else was coaching it. Her team was getting beat
and all she did was bitch about the coaching, not
the fact that she picked a bad team. Okay, so
(03:55):
town evaluator, I think I think being on TV and
talking about what the game should look like, or owning
a team and deciding this is how the game is
supposed to look like a pat Riley kind of thing,
you know, because she's just that smart, and she's that respected,
(04:17):
and you know, that committed to, you know, to winning.
Speaker 3 (04:23):
She's been the face of every team she's ever played on.
She handles it's such an easy going way.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
How I must you admire.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
How she's taking a lot of people like to kind
of hold back and maybe not enjoy the process as
much as you seem to enjoy every step.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
I remember to your point, there was never a time
high school, college Olympics, UH, any European team she was
on any the Olympic team. From the very first time
(05:01):
that she's ever stepped on the court with UH, with
a team. The minute she walks in the gym, it
kind of takes on her personality and she's okay with it,
and she embraces it and lives up to it all
the time. There's a there's a quality that you have
(05:24):
to have to be like that, and I I guess
you're born with it. You know, some people try to
acquire it. I I just think you're born with that.
You know, you're born with that personality that she has,
and you're born with that talent and then she perfected it.
Speaker 4 (05:37):
How would she be in this date and age playing
as a student, do you think I mean if we
talked about the crazy times back in three or four,
but if she was playing now, with social media and.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
All that stuff, she wouldn't have been here after her
freshman year.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
UH.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
She would have put herself out to the highest bidder.
And I uh, as I said this before, she'd be
on four different teams in four years. She would have
maximum that whole thing. The whole nil thing would have
been a huge game for her to play. And the
whole social media thing may not be honest with you.
(06:13):
I'm kidding when I say all this. She's one of
the most private people you'll ever meet until she's in
front of a crowd, and then she's not. But you
don't see her on social media, not like some of
these other people that are all over it. That's not
who she is. You know, she kind of she kind
of stays in the background until she has to be
(06:35):
in front of everybody, and then she's the best there
ever was at that. You know, you will walk in
here right now and only knows maybe one or two
people in this room three, but she will walk around
and give you a big hug and a kiss and say, hey,
how you doing, how you been? And then afterwards I
will go you know that person, you go no, But
(06:57):
she makes everybody feel, you know, like you're part of
her world. You know, there's.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
A lot of great players, and there's a real short
list of the greatest.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
Players Tiger Brady Jordan.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
What is that that one thing that separates those people
from the great ones to become the greatest?
Speaker 1 (07:20):
Du uh uh uh Their drive? You know, if you
take in consideration, they were all born with the talent,
you know, that guy given ability, but not all those
people have the drive, the commitment, the competitiveness, the will
(07:42):
to win always. So those people you just mentioned, they
were the most talented, but they were also the most driven,
and they were the smartest. You know, people think that,
you know, you can accomplish those things because physically you're
more gifted than anyone else than everyone else. Those people
(08:03):
you mentioned, they're brighter than everyone else, They know the
game better than anyone else, and you put those combinations together,
it's pretty hard to beat. Were all those things evident
the first time before her? Yeah, well obviously you couldn't
get deeper back in those days, you know, you you
(08:25):
couldn't have any contact. But there was something about her
that was uh. I think in high school there was
a a a torny man. I don't know, they plan
us to play three games in three days or something.
She either tied the game or won the game on
the last shot, like in every one of those games,
and so you you already knew there's there's a moment
(08:45):
that the game has to be decided, and she owns
that moment. And then when she got here, we had
a lot of really really good players who were many
they they they won a national championship, if I'm not mistaken,
(09:08):
they won a national championship in two thousand right, And
she walked in the gym and the first day of practice,
second day of practice, third day of practice, they they
knew right away this is the best player in the
gym every day. Now, she had a lot of Sarah
Strong on her. She didn't want to show that every
minute of every day, every possession because she was very
(09:30):
deferential to her to those guys cause she appreciated they
won a national championship. I've not won anything, but they
all knew, and we all knew that there's something different
about this kid than everybody else.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
It's in two thousand two against Oklahoma, when you have
the best senior classes ever here, you dropped the play.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
For her, absolutely, absolutely absolutely, and they knew it. They
knew that's where the ball was going. The other team
knew that's where the ball was going. The the things that
she could do on the court. Guy gave her the
(10:10):
size to be able to do. We were playing we
were playing i want to say, Arizona State one year,
and we we knew they they were the most physical
team we have played up to that point, and we
played her. So Paige is not the first guard on
our team that would played power forward. So we put
her in. We put her in the lane the whole game.
She must have shot twenty free throws to twenty five
(10:31):
free throws. I forget what it was. It was a
ridiculous number. But you could put her anywhere on the
floor and and she would be the best player at
that position in the country.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
We've asked you through the years, who the best player
ever was here because you've had so many great ones,
and you'd be hesitant to answer, but then you might
tell us privately. But you know what, if we have
one game to win and one possession to win it,
I'm gonna give it to Diana. I mean, is that
kind of tell you that she may be the most
competitive or yeah?
Speaker 1 (11:05):
Yeah, you know, sometimes people want to talk about who's
the who's the best ever? You know, how do you
quantify who's the best ever. So I just think that
when you talk about who's until somebody comes along and
does more, who's the greatest winner ever in college women's
(11:26):
basketball history, then that's who you've got to go with,
because no one else even comes close. So if you
had to win a game, I mean, if there were
if some of those other guys you were talking about
on my team were on the team, it'd be great.
I'd just close my eyes and point to any of them.
But still, yeah, there's something that there's something that she
(11:50):
had court mate, right, Yeah, you know, the two of them,
the two of them individually were We're the kind of
players you want with the ball in their hands at
the last moment. But you know, again, if they both
(12:18):
got triple team, then they passed it to Maya, we'd
still win, you know what I mean. If Fordam guarded them,
she passed it to still, we'd still win. So that
to be in that situation, yeah, not not very many
people get to experience that.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
Is leading the two thousand and three and two thousand
and fore cast of characters you had to national championships,
the maybe the greatest.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
Individual I think. So I don't think anyone's ever been
in that situation ever before or since that I can remember,
given the inexperience of that team and the youth of
that team. Yeah, it was just and and it wasn't
(13:07):
like it just happened in the Final four or anything
like that. We as coaches, we saw it the second
week of training camp that year, because we had just
lost such a great cast of players that the expectation,
even on our staff was, Man, this is gonna be hard.
And after two weeks of practice, we looked at each
(13:29):
other and we went, man, this is gonna be just
like last year. And no one would be and I said,
and we said, no one's gonna believe this. You could
just see it, you could, because now the real Herd
was gonna come out, you know, before it was you know,
I'm playing along with these guys out of respect. She
(13:50):
is gonna be the real met coming out. And she
did it while getting beat up the whole Yeah yeah, yeah,
Page stopped whining. She's not the first great player here
to get beat up every possession. You know, she should
watch films of how how, how how much more physical
the game was back then, and how difficult it was
and how difficult people made it for d to get
(14:13):
done when she got done. But the difference, and you know,
because the game is not nearly as physical today, when
it does get physical, everybody loses their mind. Back then,
because the game was way more physical, the embraced the physicality.
You know, we have a clip of which a rebound
that she got down to Tennessee. I don't know if
(14:33):
you guys have seen it. A rebound that she got
and she's tangled up, you know, somebody's got her arm
behind her and she's tangled up. And yes, she gets
the ball with her left hand and she's fighting the
kid off with her right hand, and there's this big
smile on her face like this is the greatest thing
that's ever happened. Like the fight, the struggle is. She
didn't complain about it. She embraced it. How are you better?
Speaker 2 (14:57):
How are you better?
Speaker 3 (14:59):
Really? For having Diana?
Speaker 1 (15:00):
And I just coach Diana. I just think there's few
people that uh that come around that can can affect everyone,
whether it's positive or negative. Don't get me wrong, but
there's never anyone that's ever including me and anybody in
(15:23):
my family, my mom, you know, they had a great
relationship cause there's no one that's ever met her that
you would come away and go, eh, you know, there
was like a real wow. You know. So for me
personally when she was here, it went by way too fast,
you know. And the the to me, the best thing
(15:46):
that ever happened to me in my in my coaching
career was that I got an opportunity to do it
again for those eight years you know, between two thousand
and eight and two thousand sixteen. I mean, who gets
a chance to do that? So not only did I
have the opportunity for those four years in college, but
then I got eight more. So yeah, twelve of those
(16:11):
years were just and not even I'm not even talking
about just on the court stuff. The stuff that no
one will ever know that was going on off the
court was just beyond Yeah, those are the stories that
won't appear in anybody's book.
Speaker 3 (16:29):
Sarah, how do you think she's handled this? There's a
lot of her or she got here, it seems like,
you know, she's more than next seeded, all the expectations.
Speaker 4 (16:38):
How do you think she's grown.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
As a player? I mean, you watch her. I mean,
if you watch her, can you tell so whatever you
know about her? That's how much I know she She's
the same every minute of every day. There's almost never
a time when you're going to see a different version
(17:00):
of Sarah in terms of how she appears, how she
carries herself, how she reacts to things. And I think
that's probably why she's able to handle and have the
kind of success that she's having, because she doesn't suffer
the highs and lows that young kids do. So the
expectations that other people may have had for her, I
(17:22):
don't know, but internally, the expectations that we we had
when we were recruiting her, she's right about where I
thought she'd be. Someone asked her about the game. One
of the games, she talked about her ms Sean's instead of.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
Her rebounds and her blocks.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
And he.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
They the the thing that that does separate a lot
of those players is they they they want to be perfect,
they want to be great, They want to be they
want to be successful with everything they do. So when
they are and you bring it up, they just shrug
(18:00):
it off like this is what I do, this is
who I am. But what stays with them is the
silly mistake sort of you know, I don't know if
you saw her reaction when she threw that pass against
Tennessee the page that went out of bounds. I mean
she took that really, really really hard, like I cost
this the game, even though she was the best player
on our team in that game. In her mind, if
(18:21):
I complete that pass, you know, we have a chance
to win the game. That's what stays with her, and
that's why she just keeps getting better and better and better,
and that's why she'll be great because she does take
those things to heart. She doesn't just blow them off
like you know some other people might'row with a chance
to title, how important is that in terms of yours's
(18:43):
just goal ultimately winning the National Championship. I don't know
that one has anything to do with the other, to
be honest with you, There's been there's been a couple
of years when we lost in the in the Big East,
in the Big East Tournament and went on to win
the National Championship. And I remember telling people that back
in those days, winning the Big East was harder than
winning the National Championship because we had nine teams that
(19:05):
went into the NC tournament. It's more about, you know,
pride in in in the fact that that you you
said that as a goal, like our goal is to
win the regular season, And if you win tomorrow and
then you win Sunday, you win the regular season. So
you accomplish a goal. Does that make you better equipped
(19:30):
to win the national championship? No, it doesn't. Does it
hurt your chances? No it All it does is means
you're you're not going to be the Big East champion
by yourself. You know, you're gonna have to share it
with somebody if you win on Sunday. So we have
(19:50):
a really tough game tomorrow night because they're a really
good team that's that's hard to match up with. And
they have a really hard game tomornw because we're a
really good team that's hard to match up with. And
that's why you know, games like tomorrow are are important
(20:12):
because you are gonna have to work harder than you
had to work the last couple of games, and you
are gonna have to be better. Yeah, it's gonna be
hard tomorrow, It's supposed to be.
Speaker 4 (20:31):
How often, during the season, particularly as you come how distress,
start to really consider a body of work and think
about what the team might be capable of market.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
I don't know, I don't know. I think there's a
there's a point in time during the season where you
see things and you think to yourself, we don't have
a chance to win, and the whole thing because we
have too many we have too many blemishes, there's too
(21:05):
many things wrong with our team. We don't have enough
answers for things that are happening to us. And then
as the season goes on, maybe you start to fix those,
those start to go away. But yeah, there's too many
(21:28):
variables for me right now for me to sit here
and go, you know, yeah, I think we should be
we should be the we should be the favorite to
win a national championship based on what I've seen. You know,
somebody said this to me just yesterday. Hey, you know,
I was watching the South Carolina game, and right after
the game, I saw it on the ticker that you
(21:50):
guys were now the favorite to win a national championship,
and like, you can bet on games on TV. So
obviously this person didn't know a whole lot about what
was going on, and they go, how's that possible that
that could happen in one day? I said, yeah, how's
that possible that they could happen in one day? Because
sometimes you have performances that if you're not careful, will
(22:12):
overshadow some of the other performances that you had. But
those didn't go away just because you have one fantastic game.
Those are still there, you know, and those are always
in the back of my mind, you know. So now
we believe me. We got a long way to go
before we can talk about national championships with this team.
(22:37):
Let's let's hope we're talking about it the night before
that game. Yeah, they gave her, they gave her some
some guidelines, you know, a couple of minutes a quarter
here and there, you know, just to see how she
responds to it. So the biggest thing, too, is going
(22:58):
to be finding time. You know, you come in after
twenty eight games or twenty seven games, you know, and
then you got allready back and they come in. Ice
is going to be back maybe this weekend, so at
a time when teams are shrinking their rotation, we're adding players,
you know. So it's not how much time is she
allowed to have, it's finding time for all these guys
(23:19):
that are coming back, that are looking for for time.
That's gonna be the big dilemma.
Speaker 3 (23:24):
I think there was a stretch early this season when
Easy was out that you had Cage and a bunch
of players who were.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
Still learning what Yukon basketball was.
Speaker 3 (23:32):
Now you have Carol, Now you have it easy now. Yeah, Aubrey,
How does that change things in practice that you just
have players that they kind of know the drills and
knows them here.
Speaker 4 (23:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
I practices, practices have been have been have been really
really good. The month we're really really good. The whole
month of UH pretty much January and most of February,
practices have been UH have been consistently good, and and
(24:13):
I think that's carried over into the games that we played.
We don't practice as much now as as before, so
maybe that's why they're good. But the the things that
come up in practice are hard, They're hard to do,
(24:39):
they're hard to fix sometimes. And the the the biggest
challenge for us right now is there are some combinations
that look fantastic out there that if I could, I
would play that combination forty minutes every night. And you
saw that last year. You get five guys out there
(24:59):
that can really together and you play them forty minutes
every night, Pretty damn good, right right. It takes you
all the way to almost to the championship game, and
there's other combinations that don't look as great. And then
there's some combinations that if you have them out there
more than three minutes, you're gonna lose the game. So
all these things are what happens in practice, and these
(25:20):
are the things that stay, you know, with our coaching staff.
How do we now start to learn what are the
combinations that work best? And at the same time, how
do you give people minutes that they need? So that's
right now, that's what we're that's what we're trying to do.
Speaker 3 (25:38):
You know, the NCAA is trying to figure out revenue
sharing and this week of Cannegan legislator legislative branches looks
like they've agreed.
Speaker 4 (25:47):
Upon a plan.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
Have you been following that at all? And if you have,
if you had any input, or do you see how
it help you going forward? Well, it's a fact of
life now that revenue sharing is here. And if you
wait for the NCAA to tell you what the revenue
sharing plan is, uh, you're gonna be left behind. And
(26:09):
the fact that each state can make their own the
their own their own laws about how we're gonna deal
with it, that that just throws another wrench into the
into the mix. Right, So for Connecticut to step out
and say, regardless of what the NCAA says, obviously we're
gonna stay compliant, but this is what we're gonna do.
(26:33):
This is how we're gonna do it. And to me,
you have to have a revenue sharing plan. The the biggest,
the biggest obstacle to any plan is how are you
gonna fund it? Well, it's called revenue sharing. Well, revenue
(26:54):
sharing at one school. Revenue at one school isn't the
same as revenue at another school. So I think we
have a really good situation here because you know, our
program is a high revenue producing program. So between what
(27:17):
the state has gonna is gonna be allowing us to
do and what Eartheletic Department wants to do, we're gonna
be competitive with any school in the country when it
comes to revenue sharing.
Speaker 3 (27:28):
Now, there's a lot of last kind of coming up
her page right now, but I want to ask about
it first. Do you remember the first time you ever heard.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
Of page backers? If I remember seeing her in a game,
I th I think maybe it was in Indianapolis or someplace.
She just kept running on the court and playing and
then running off the court because she was l she
was out of breath all the time, cause she weighed
about sixty pounds, and and I said, what's the what's
(27:56):
all the what's all the fuss over this kid? Like
she's on the court was like watching a hockey game.
She would do her minute and a half and then
she get off and it just kept happening the entire game.
I remember saying to Marissa, I said, Marissa, I don't
get this. And obviously, you know, when you saw her healthy,
when you saw her one hundred percent a week later,
(28:16):
whenever it was, you could see that there was a
there was a different way that she played, that she
saw the game, you know. And then I distinctly remember
going to her high school to watch a game at
her high school, and the hysteria up there had started
(28:39):
already with how she created all these highlights because of
you know, just the way she the way she saw
the floor, the way she saw everything that was happening,
and her willingness to pass. And so I tried to
get through as many games as I could, just because
(28:59):
I enjoyed watching, you know, I wasn't evaluating her anymore.
I was just enjoying watching her play. But yeah, that
seems like forever ago. It's a lot that's happened between
then and now.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
From the outside, your relationship with her looks like it's
a great, sarcastic, give and take relationship.
Speaker 1 (29:18):
How did you describe it? Yeah, my relationship with with Paige,
it's it's one of those where love and hate. I
(29:41):
guess they call it right. I love it when I
hate her and she loves when she hates me, because
then that means we're we're both on the right track.
There's something I want her to do when she's arguing
with me about it, there's something that she wants and
I'm not letting her do it. So our relationship on
the court is where I'm constantly bitching about something that
(30:02):
I want her to do. She's wanting to do things
that she wants to do, and so we're always going
back and forth. And it works because she wants to
stretch the boundaries as far as she possibly can, and
I want to make sure that she's growing as a
player and she's learning and she's preparing for what's coming next.
(30:23):
Where that's not going to be possible, you know, all
the time. But off the court, yeah, none of that,
you know, none of that matters because you know, she's
not a freshman anymore. She's she's not a little kid anymore.
You know, I can coach her like an adult, which
she is, you know. So yeah, I mean our relationship
(30:45):
is is great. I'm glad we have two of them.
I'm glad we have the on the court one and
I'm glad we have the off the court one. All Right, guys,
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