Practice Makes Perfect - Geno Auriemma and UCONN Basketball

Notes from a behind the scenes look at a UConn women's basketball practice.

1 - Culture

2 - Good players

3 - Holding them accountable every second of every practice

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIIInfIPnQA

0:10 - What we are trying to do is put you guys in situations where you get to see for yourself without being told.  There will be times we won’t have the opportunity to just stop the game and go okay, timeout and let’s talk this over.

There are going to be times where you guys are going to have to figure it out on your own.  Certain individuals are going to have to step up and make big time plays.  Not when we are up 25, not in the first 5 minutes; I’m talking about when you’re in deep shit and everybody is so tired that you can’t see straight.  That’s when somebody has to make big plays.

1:05 – Nothing in a game can match the challenges that the players face during a typical Huskies practice.
- Sue Bird

1:43 – I think our goal every year is to help our players develop and get better and to have each player add something to their game to get them to play at the highest level that they are capable of and to play harder than everybody else, every day of practice, and that translates to doing it in the game.

2:32 – I think you are trying to work on their mental toughness and pushing through.  Learning while you’re tired and learning that you can pay attention, you can execute and make the right pass because if you can’t make the right pass now then you’re definitely not going to make the play in April (March).

2:52 – You don’t ever see a player come in here and leave the same player; they are always better.  NO matter if they were the best player or the walk-on, they always leave a better player.  That is preparation basketball-wise and that is preparation for life.

3:22 – The things that we do in our practice aren’t different than what everybody else does.  We do the same drills as everybody else; it’s how we do them and who we are doing them with.

3:55 – ‘How much of your success is based off what you do in practice?’ 

– The majority of their success is based on the culture that they have that has been created and instilled over the course of 29 years; that is part 1.  Part 2 is we happened to have a lot of really good players year in and year out.  Part 3 is how personally accountable we hold each and every player on our team, every minute of every day during those 2 hours that we are out there – in every single thing that we do.

You take the culture that they have to live up to, the fact that we have LOTS of really good players, and the fact that every minute of every day they can’t be anything less that great, then that accounts for winning all of the games that we’ve won.