Coaches' Comments from Women's Media Day

We were going through our recorder clearing it out and we felt the need to relisten to some of the comments made by Big East coaches at women's basketball media day in New York last week.
It goes like this -- every coach gets a few minutes to address the media and the coaches and players before things get started. So you'd expect a lot of coachspeak in this timeframe.

Not in the Big East. This wasn't going to be the typical yawn-fest when the first coach up, Pittsburgh's Agnus Berenato, opens her statement by saying "I've always said bigger is better. Look at me." Berenato was referencing the conference's slogan this year, about the 16-team league, and about her size, although Berenato is nowhere close to big.
Anyway, she continued, in talking about coming to New York: "Lord and Taylor and Bebe, I need Lane Bryant. The conference slogan, how about it for the big girls out there? (Applause) Give it up. Marcedes (Walker) just told me this morning, 'Hey, Coach B, Lerner's got some extra long pants.' I said 'Let me see.'"
You won't get that at many other media days.

Some other tidbits of hilarity:
*USF coach Jose Fernandez discussing his diminutive height: "One of my favorite stores is Baby Gap."
*Villanova coach Harry Perretta (the conference comedian and the stalwart of the coaching ranks in the Big East, having been the coach at Nova since 1978) explaining his new process, with some sarcasm: "I told the alumni, you know, I watch all these coaches throughout the country like where they find these programs where they aren't winning and they go there and they rebuild the programs, you know what I'm saying. The only real difference is I really don't want to move so I said, well, how can I create this atmosphere where people actually think I know what I'm doing again? So, what I figured to do is just destroy the program and then just announce my rebuilding program at the alumni function last week so right now, I'm announcing my rebuilding program in Philadelphia. I remember one time when I heard, I was listening to the radio when St. John's had changed men's coaches like 5, 7 years ago. The coach that had left, left because he couldn't coach the talented players on the team. The next year, on the radio, I'm hearing the announcer on the radio telling me the new coach who is taking over and how he has no talent. So, it's amazing. Right now I'm trying to coach a team and rebuild it and we don't have much talent because I'm just taking over. So that's going to be my philosophy this year."
*Perretta on junior transfer Laura Kurz, the sister of Notre Dame men's forward Rob Kurz: "Laura really doesn't have a name. She's just the girl from Duke."
*Perretta on eating in New York: "I'm glad to be in New York and what's it called, Laura, I had 'Jumbalella,' I forgot what it's called. It was something new to me today." It was actually Jumbalaya.
*DePaul coach Doug Bruno, relaying a conversation he had with Geno Auriemma at last year's Big East Tournament: "Against Rutgers I ran into Geno Auriemma down in the hall in the Hartford Arena and he decided to give me the scouting report and he said 'Look, Rutgers is a very good defensive team but if you can score 65 points tonight, you're going to beat em.' Rutgers did their signature defensive job on us. We had scored 85 (actually 87) on them in December and now it's March and we got beat, 63-55. After the game, I'm going down the hall toward the bus in Hartford's arena and there's Geno and he's like 'Hey (explicative), I told you 65, not 55.' So we took ourselves home and thanks Mike (Tranghese) and Donna (Demarco) and Barb (Jacobs) for all that you do because I was able to be in Chicago at a local joint and see the Big East championship game on television. I'm sitting there watching it and I'm watching a Rutgers team that had been beaten by Connecticut by 25 a couple weeks earlier beat UConn and hold UConn to 45 points. So you know I got on the phone and left Geno a message and said 'Hey (explicative), I said 55, not 45."
*Rutgers coach C. Vivian Stringer on Tennessee, which beat the Scarlet Knights in that title game last year: "Geno, I do know you were cheering for us, thank you so much. I hope you can give us some cheers because we've got the Lady Vols again. We've got to take them down. Somebody's got to take them down. We will do our best, as you can imagine."

Four Big East teams play Tennessee -- DePaul, Notre Dame, Rutgers and West Virginia. The rivalry between Tennessee and Connecticut has not been renewed.
-By Michael Rothstein of The Journal Gazette