Geno Auriemma may not be coaching in Sunday’s Women’s NCAA Tournament national championship game, but the Connecticut head coach still received his fair share of boos from those at the Mortgage Matchup Center in Phoenix.
Just before tip-off between No. 1 South Carolina and No. 1 UCLA, Gamecock fans in the crowd loudly booed Auriemma when he was shown on the Jumbotron celebrating the program’s 12 national championships throughout the years.
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They, of course, applauded loudly when footage of South Carolina and Dawn Staley celebrating their three national championships in 2017, 2022, and 2024 was shown on the Jumbotron.
REQUIRED READING: UCLA vs South Carolina in women’s national championship: Highlights, score
The loud boos come just two days after Auriemma and Staley got into a heated confrontation before the postgame handshake in Friday’s Final Four game between the Huskies and Gamecocks, a win for South Carolina that handed UConn its first loss of the season.
With just a second left in the game, ESPN cameras caught the two coaches going in for a handshake, but caught Auriemma making some comments at Staley. That led to a brief shouting match between the two, with assistant coaches and officials breaking up the scuffle. He was then seen heading towards the locker room on his own immediately after the game clock went triple zeros.
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“You can ask Geno the question,” Staley said in her postgame news conference on Friday when asked about the incident. “He’s the one that initiated.”
Auriemma issued an apology on Saturday to South Carolina’s team and staff, mentioning that “there’s no excuse” for how he acted in the final second of the game. It’s worth noting that he did not mention Staley’s name in his statement.
“There’s no excuse for how I handled the end of the game vs. South Carolina. It’s unlike what I do and what our standard is here at Connecticut,” Auriemma wrote in the statement. “I want to apologize to the staff and the team at South Carolina. It was uncalled for in how I reacted. The story should be how well South Carolina played, and I don’t want my actions to detract from that. I’ve had a great relationship with their staff, and I sincerely want to apologize to them.”
In a media availability on Saturday, Staley told reporters that she was “concentrating on winning a national championship” when asked about Auriemma’s apology.
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South Carolina is looking for its fourth national championship under Staley on Sunday, a feat that only three Division I women’s basketball coaches have done in the history of the Women’s NCAA Tournament, with Auriemma being one of them.
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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: South Carolina fans boo Geno Auriemma on Jumbotron at women’s national championship
