UConn coach Geno Auriemma and South Carolina coach Dawn Staley had a heated exchange on the sideline after the Gamecocks beat the undefeated Huskies 62-48 in Friday night’s semi-final of the NCAA women’s tournament.
South Carolina ended UConn’s winning streak at 54 games and secured a return trip to the national championship game.
As the two went to shake hands with 0.1 seconds left, Auriemma appeared to go to shake Staley’s hand and began yelling in her direction. Staley responded with words of her own. Assistant coaches went to calm the two sides, and UConn inbounded the ball to end the game.
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Staley went to shake hands with UConn staffers while Auriemma headed for the tunnel without shaking the hands of any South Carolina players or coaches. Players from both teams shook hands before the UConn players sprinted up the tunnel.
“I’m of integrity. So if I did something wrong to Geno, I had no idea what I did,” Staley told ESPN’s Holly Rowe in the postgame interview. “I guess he thought I didn’t shake his hand at the beginning of the game. I went down there pregame, shook everybody on his staff’s hand. I don’t know what he came with after the game, but hey, sometimes things get heated. We move on.”
Neither coach gave much insight into the exchange in their postgame news conferences.
“You can ask Geno the question,” Staley said. “He’s the one that initiated the conversation. I don’t want what happened there to dampen what we were able to accomplish today.”
“It was nothing,” Auriemma said. “I said what I had to say. It was nothing. Nothing.”
At the beginning of the fourth quarter, Auriemma gave a heated mid-game interview to Rowe, airing his frustration about officiating.
“There were six fouls called that [third] quarter, all of them against us. And they’ve been beating the shit out of our guys down there the entire game. And I’m not making excuses for us, we haven’t been able to make a shot, but this is ridiculous. Their coach rants and raves on the sideline and calls the referee some names you don’t want to hear, and now we get six to zero and I got a kid with a ripped jersey and [the referees] go ‘I didn’t see it.’ C’mon, man. This is for the national championship.”
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UConn star Sarah Strong said in the news conference that her jersey had ripped by accident.
Auriemma also appeared displeased about seemingly waiting to shake Staley’s hand before the game. While the coaches had been pictured shaking hands pregame, Auriemma said he had to wait for Staley at midcourt.
“Unless you’re on that sideline, you have no idea what’s happening on this sideline,” he said. “For 41 years I’ve been coaching and, I don’t know, 25 Final Fours. The protocol is before the game you meet at halfcourt. Anybody see that before? Two coaches meet at halfcourt and they shake hands, correct? Ever see it? They announce it on the loudspeaker. I waited there for like three minutes. So it is what it is.
“I said what I said. And, obviously, she didn’t like it. I just told the truth.”
Staley, a three-time champion, and Auriemma, a 12-time champion, are two of the most respected coaches in women’s basketball. After UConn defeated South Carolina in last year’s championship game, they met for a hug at halfcourt.
UConn’s frustration boiled over after a brutal offensive night for the team’s All-America combo of Strong and Azzi Fudd. Strong, the national player of the year, finished with just 12 points on 4-of-16 shooting. Fudd scored eight on 3-of-15 shooting, including 2 of 9 from long range.
The problem for Strong and Fudd was they couldn’t hit shots even when they had a little space to operate. The 6ft 2in Strong was bothered by South Carolina’s interior size, with several of her inside shots rattling in and out.
Bodies were flying under the basket for most of the night for both teams. UConn were whistled for 17 fouls, while South Carolina were called for eight.
UConn (38-1) entered the Final Four undefeated for the ninth time in school history and for the third straight time left without a title. The Huskies also lost in the 2017 and 2018 national semi0finals. It was the fewest points UConn had scored since putting up 49 points in a national championship game loss to the Gamecocks in 2022.
Ta’Niya Latson scored 16 and Agot Makeer added 14 points for South Carolina (34-3).
“Coach was pretty mad going into the half,” Latson said of Staley. “She was yelling ‘Meet the moment! Meet the moment!’ We couldn’t be scared to play on this stage, especially against UConn. I mean, they were undefeated.”
The teams came into the game as the second- and third-leading scoring teams in the nation, both averaging more than 87 points per game. This was a defensive battle.
Leading 46-44 a few minutes into the third quarter, South Carolina scored five straight points, capped by Makeer’s three-pointer to extend the advantage to seven.
Strong hit a three-pointer to get the Huskies back within 51-47 with 4:39 left. The Huskies didn’t score again until Strong hit a free throw with 30.8 seconds left, after South Carolina had scored 11 straight points.
Trailing 26-24 at the half, South Carolina opened the third quarter with a 12-2 run to take the lead. The Gamecocks extended the advantage to 40-30 – the biggest deficit the Huskies had faced this season.
“I thought it was a performance that makes you super proud,” Staley said. “When they’re able to execute, you can see it as a coach. Sometimes the players don’t see it. What they did was just they filled in all the gaps that were created out there. Just super proud of ’em.”
The Gamecocks will seek their fourth national title against the winner of Friday night’s other semi-final between UCLA and Texas.
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