Geno Auriemma has had a lot to say over the last few days.
The UConn women’s basketball coach spent a couple of hours talking ball while he served as a color commentator on ESPN’s broadcast of the Dallas Wings-New York Liberty game on Tuesday night. He also went on the podcast “Sports Media with Richard Deitsch” earlier this week, weighing in on controversy over hard fouls against WNBA star Caitlin Clark.
Advertisement
Later in the podcast, Auriemma was asked about the state of officiating in the WNBA, and he circled back to another controversy– his gripe with NCAA officials over the way UConn’s Final Four game against South Carolina was called. The Huskies lost, 62-48.
“Yeah, I mean, obviously, I have a lot of thoughts on it because we just played in an NCAA semifinal, where there was not a foul called against the other team in the entire third quarter, in a game that looked like the old Philadelphia Flyers versus the New York Rangers,” Auriemma said.
After the game, Auriemma and South Carolina coach Dawn Staley got into a scuffle during the postgame handshake. Geno apologized in the days after.
Perhaps in response to the podcast appearance, Staley tweeted out “gloves off” on Monday afternoon, after it came out.
Advertisement
Deitsch asked Auriemma if things were good between him and the South Carolina coach.
“Yeah, why wouldn’t we be?” he said. “If I were to tell you how many times there’s been issues between coaches that maybe go unseen that are bubbling below the surface, you’d be shocked, but at the same time it’s competitive, it’s emotional. You let things interfere with what you’re doing, what you’re trying to do and I just think that’s human nature, that’s being human. That doesn’t mean that you’re anything different than you were before that, not at all, not at all.”
UConn will host South Carolina in the regular season on Nov. 24.
