Geno Auriemma Made It All About Himself and That’s a Real Shame

It’s not exactly clear what happened between the Huskies coach and Dawn Staley after South Carolina beat UConn, but he made it publicly personal.

Geno Auriemma and Dawn Staley got into a heated argument following South Carolina’s Final Four win over UConn. | Jordan Naholowaa Murph/Sports Illustrated

PHOENIX — “I’ve been through this many times with other coaches,” Geno Auriemma said in a hallway scrum with reporters on Thursday. “And I never want it to be Geno and Dawn, Geno and this, Geno and that … I’ve tried really, really hard over the years to not make it about that ever again.”

It does not seem that he tried hard enough. Just as it was so often about Geno and Pat, and then about Geno and Muffet, it will now be about Geno and Dawn. Which is a shame. 

UConn and South Carolina played a hell of a Final Four game on Friday. A previously undefeated Huskies team that had looked all but destined for a national championship found itself locked out of that destiny by the Gamecocks. This 62–48 win by South Carolina and coach Dawn Staley was revenge for the 2025 national championship. It was a showcase for a number of players new to this rivalry. It was a rough sendoff for Huskies star graduate student Azzi Fudd. But none of that will drive the conversation here.

That, instead, will be largely about Geno and Dawn. It says far more about him than it does about her.  

Geno Auriemma on what the coaching battle between himself and Dawn Staley means in 2026:

"I've been around so long that there's certainly been a lot of 'em... I've been through this many times with other coaches, and I never want it to be Geno and Dawn, Geno and this, Geno and… pic.twitter.com/NTNYOL6Lt9

— Storrs Central (@StorrsCentral) April 2, 2026

It’s hard to say exactly what transpired here. What is clear is this: Auriemma used a sideline interview with ESPN’s Holly Rowe to prove that sideline interviews actually can be interesting, with a few choice words about the refereeing and a pointed complaint about Staley, too. In the final seconds of the game, Auriemma walked up to Staley, and the pair briefly got into a heated argument. Auriemma left the court before his team and did not shake hands with anyone from South Carolina.

“There were six fouls called that quarter, all of them against us,” Auriemma said during the sideline interview, before the start of the fourth quarter. “And 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. Their coach rants and raves on the sideline and calls the referee some names you don't want to hear. And now we get 6–0, and I got a kid with a ripped jersey, and they go, ‘I didn't see it.’ Come on, man. It’s for a national championship.” 

In a live television interview of her own on the floor, immediately after the win, Staley said Auriemma had told her that she did not shake his hand before the game. 

“I have no idea,” she said when asked what happened. “But I’m gonna let you know this, I’m of integrity. I’m of integrity. So if I did something wrong to Geno, I had no idea what I did. I guess he thought I didn’t shake his hand at the beginning of the game. I didn’t know. 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 offered much in the way of specifics during their postgame media 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.”

Dawn Staley said that Auriemma initiated the argument in their postgame interaction. | Jordan Naholowaa Murph/Sports Illustrated

Asked the same question, Auriemma initially did not offer much more. (“I just said what I had to say,” he said. “Nothing. Nothing.”) But he was asked further questions, as he surely knew would be the case, and he gave more answers, all of them rather taciturn and none of them particularly illuminating: 

“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.” 

“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.”

“I just want to make sure there’s not a double standard. 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.”

“It’s not my place to judge whether any coach should ever get tossed. I’m not suggesting that that should have happened tonight at all. Not at all.”

Two legendary coaches meet again 🤝#WFinalFour pic.twitter.com/yB1EdTOxTC

— NCAA March Madness (@MarchMadnessWBB) April 3, 2026

Auriemma did spend time waiting for a handshake before the game. (The pair still had a pregame handshake as shown on ESPN.) South Carolina did take far more free throws than UConn. (The Gamecocks also drove to the basket far more, and the Huskies ended up fouling several times as a matter of strategy when trailing late, but South Carolina had 22 free-throw attempts to UConn’s six.) Yet none of that really matters here. 

To grasp for technically correct points in a postgame session like this one is to have already lost. It’s one thing to complain about officiating and physicality. And it’s another to set up a point-by-point examination of a pregame handshake, letting a whole game be swallowed by a needlessly public, unfortunately personal frustration. 

Auriemma and Staley have been linked for years. They have played each other for the national championship in two of the last four years. They are both from Philadelphia. They both have ties to UVA—Auriemma began his college coaching career there as an assistant, and a few years later, Staley burst onto the national scene with her time as a player there. They have both coached Team USA. Yet their greatest tie is this: They are two of the only coaches remaining in the women’s game who have the particular blend of charisma and success to be larger than their programs and, in some ways, larger than the sport itself. That is vanishingly rare in the modern NCAA.

There is a form of power in that and, of course, a responsibility, too. Auriemma knows that as well as anyone. “I’ve tried really, really hard over the years to not make it about that ever again,” he said Thursday. He will need to keep trying. 

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