PHOENIX — Geno Auriemma made a beeline down the sideline as the final seconds ticked away in the national semifinal Friday, ending UConn’s previously undefeated season in a 62-48 loss. As he approached South Carolina coach Dawn Staley for a postgame handshake, he angrily let loose a string of words while demonstratively pointing his index finger at the floor.
Staley seemed shocked for a moment before the two started to bark at one another before being separated. As Auriemma finished shaking hands with a few South Carolina assistants, Staley doubled back to continue the fracas, shouting and stepping toward the Huskies coach before her staff members blocked her path and circled her at the scorer’s table. She continued to yell toward the UConn bench before walking away toward her own.
“I will beat Geno’s ass,” Staley could be heard saying twice.
Postgame, Auriemma said the two coaches don’t have a relationship, and he simply described them as rivals.
“Nah, not really,” Auriemma said. “We don’t have a lot in common.”
The emotions seemed to boil throughout the women’s Final Four semifinal for Auriemma. During an interview going into the fourth quarter with ESPN’s Holly Rowe, he lamented the lack of fouls against South Carolina and said Staley “rants and raves” at the officials and “calls the referees some names you don’t want to hear.” UConn finished with 17 fouls, compared with eight against South Carolina.
He also said, “They’ve been beating the s— out of our guys down there the entire game. I’m not making excuses, ’cause we haven’t been able to make a shot. But this is ridiculous.”
UConn star Sarah Strong had to change into a No. 55 jersey after her No. 21 was torn, and Auriemma questioned how there wasn’t a single foul called against South Carolina in the third quarter. One angle of a video showed Strong ripping her own jersey, but it was unclear whether it was initially torn in any way. She called it an accident.
“I just want to make sure there’s not a double standard,” Auriemma said of Staley’s sideline behavior. “I’m of the opinion that if I ever talk to an official like that, I would get tossed. So, I just want to make sure there’s not a double standard, that some people are allowed to talk to officials like that and other people are not. That’s it.
“So yeah, I was pretty frustrated.”
Staley declined to address the incident or Auriemma’s accusations during South Carolina’s postgame news conference.
“You can ask Geno the question,” Staley said. “He’s the one that initiated the conversation. I don’t know what happened there to dampen what we were able to accomplish today.”
There seemed to be frustration stemming from before the game as Auriemma said he waited for a traditional pregame handshake for three minutes. He added that he had no regrets with what he said on the broadcast interview.
“Why would I? Why would I?” Auriemma said. “I’ve been coaching a long time. I’ve never had a kid have to change their jersey because somebody ripped it and the official said, ‘I didn’t see it.’ There are a lot of things that happened in that game. Unless you’re on that sideline, you have no idea what’s happening on this sideline.
“For 41 years I’ve been coaching and, I don’t know, 25 Final Fours. The protocol is before the game you meet at half court. Anybody see that before? Two coaches meet at half court and they shake hands, correct? … I waited there for like three minutes. So, it is what it is.”
Despite pointing out the foul discrepancy and the end-of-quarter comments, Auriemma said he didn’t have any issue with the physicality of the game. He said physicality goes both ways and that the Huskies “weren’t aggressive enough on the offensive end to match.”
Staley was an assistant coach under Auriemma on the United States Olympic team at the 2016 Olympics in Rio. He did credit the way she has built her school’s program into a three-time national champion that has reached the title game in four of the past five tournaments and advanced to the past six Final Fours.
Auriemma added that he has a “tremendous amount of respect” for Staley.
