Everything UConn coach Geno Auriemma said after Notre Dame win

Saturday night could have been quite a celebration for UConn women’s basketball. Players from multiple past championship teams were in Gampel Pavilion for a reunion prior to the Huskies hosting Notre Dame in a primetime matchup.

The Fighting Irish spoiled the party.

Notre Dame beat UConn, 82-67. Here’s everything UConn head coach Geno Auriemma said about Notre Dame and the loss in general in his postgame press conference.

On UConn’s defense vs. Notre Dame freshman point guard Hannah Hidalgo

“I thought we had it all figured out but it almost broke down an awful lot. When Nika [Muhl] wasn’t in the game, it hurt us on both ends. On the offensive end, we lost our flow. We had nothing for long, long stretches. On the defensive end, our young guys, a lot of things we had been doing really, really well the last 12 or 13 games, today we didn’t do a great job of that.

“There was a lot of miscommunication between our big guys and our guards today. They got us just about every time we screwed it up. And Hannah played a phenomenal game, obviously, you know? She just was able to get to spots she wanted to get to. But even that, the game for us came down to at the other end, we’d get 12 then we’d just stop for whatever reason. We didn’t continue building on those runs that we had. You don’t get many chances against a really good team, and we squandered some of them.”

On if he’s concerned with Uconn faltering in crunch time

“Not necessarily. The only way you can prepare to be good in these games is when you’ve been in these situations enough times. I think we’re KK [Arnold] and Ashlynn [Shade] are, whoever, where we are right now, we’re not there yet. We’re not there yet where we can stop runs like that. Just a lot of things. A lot of things that happened today.

“I don’t know if you saw, I think it was in the first half when Paige [Bueckers] went down, she smacked her face against the court and I don’t think she was the same coming out of it. That’s twice in a week and a half that she’s been hit in the face. I thought she was out of it for the rest of the game.

“Without Nika in the game, KK and Ash had to play way too many minutes in a game like this. So I’m not worried about that. The more we’re in situations like this the better they’ll figure it out.”

On not going back to Aaliyah Edwards in the fourth quarter

“We probably should’ve gone to it more. Her and Paige had a really good two-man game going at the start of the third quarter. Ash didn’t make a three tonight. There were just a lot of people in the lane after a while, daring our big guys and daring our guards to make some outside shots and we didn’t make any. We couldn’t get them out of the lane, so after a while there was no room in there.

“We should’ve gone to that more often, yeah. That was a bad decision for me. We were searching all night for an offensive identity. We didn’t have one tonight. We were searching all night for it. We just kept grasping at straws it felt like.”

On UConn’s poor communication on defense

“Well in these last 13 games it hasn’t been an issue. It was an issue tonight. But we have worked really, really hard on it. These last 13 games against some really good offensive teams, we’ve been spot on. Tonight we weren’t for whatever reason. We were just not on the same page tonight.

“Again, people have bad games. Bad shooting nights. Bad communication nights. Notre Dame looked like a national championship team tonight against us. They got blown out the other night at home. That’s basketball, huh?”

On managing foul trouble with a short bench

“As KK gets more comfortable in our offense, it would be a little easier to play without KK. But right now, there is a lot offensively that we’re not real comfortable with when Nika is not in the game. It was actually a pretty good learning experience for our younger guys. But it’s on us. We have to coach KK better as we move forward. You hate to say but we probably should have relied more on KK and Ash. We tried really hard to get Paige going and maybe we should have, in hindsight, gotten more from Ash. These things come up in games. You look at them and you go forward.”

On players from past championship teams returning for the Notre Dame game

“It was pretty emotional when they were playing the video, especially the 2003 and 2004 teams. There was a real emotional moment there when I was talking to [Diana Taurasi] about it. Some of these players I haven’t seen in 10, 12 years. Obviously others you see more often. But it was an emotional weekend. The connections that they have with each other, that they have with this program are pretty unique.

“Taurasi said at one point, when you’re in it and you’re here you don’t realize it sometimes until you come back and try to put it in perspective. I asked her team, those three years, if they played the team on the other side who would win. She said the other team is stacked. I said yeah, they had six All-Americans. You guys had one. Which made that championship even more remarkable those two years.”

On Paige Bueckers struggling

“[Notre Dame] was very physical with her, which was to be expected. But a lot of those pullups that she normally makes easily, a couple layups she normally makes, I thought her movement without the ball was not as good tonight as it has been, especially in the first half. I thought that second quarter, she really, really struggled.

“Those are the nights other people have to step up and make more shots. The offense bogged down too much. For the first time in about a month and a half there was very, very, very little flow to what we were doing. Very little.”

On what young players can take from a game like this

“On the defensive end, the communication breakdowns. They happen mostly when you’re younger. The game is moving real fast and the things are happening real quick. There were three threes that [Maddy] Westbeld made that were just breakdowns by us to leave her that open. And those are things that experienced players wouldn’t do. How do you become and experienced player? You just have to play more games. KK and Ash are going to be really, really, really good. They struggled a little bit tonight.”

On what impressed him the most about Hidalgo

“I thought she was able to get — I find it hard to believe given our defense has been so good — but she was able to get to the basket way more times than we could— when someone gets to the basket that often, there’s nothing we can do about it because that’s just a total breakdown. I don’t care how good a guard is, and she’s terrific, but for someone to get to the basket that easily that means there’s a lot of things going wrong defensively. To her credit, she kept getting there. She has a variety of ways to score. She’s obviously playing with a tremendous amount of confidence. It took a lot of guts to come in here and do what she did. She’s damn good, right? Yeah.”