Geno Auriemma Explains Coaching 'Misery' Despite Dominant UConn NCAA Tournament Win
On Saturday, the No. 2 seed UConn Huskies women's basketball team beat No. 15 seed Arkansas State by a staggering 69 points in the first round of the 2025 NCAA Tournament.
This didn't come as a surprise, given that six of the eight No. 1 or No. 2 seeds in this NCAA Tournament won their first-round game by at least 38 points, and all eight won by at least 20. In fact, the entire first round of the tournament was essentially upset-free, as no seed lower than No. 10 advanced to the second round.
The women's NCAA Tournament typically has markedly less "madness" than the men's NCAA Tournament, which suggests that there's a bigger talent gap between the top teams and the fringe Tournament bid teams in the women's game compared to the men's side.
Huskies head coach Geno Auriemma discussed this when speaking with the media postgame, and put it into pretty hilarious terms.
"We didn't beat the Lakers today. No disrespect to Arkansas State, the talent gap is huge," Auriemma said, per an X post from SNY. "So you should expect to play really, really well."
Later on, Auriemma added, "Even though the talent gap is great, you still have to make sure that you play... On a coach's mind, we're looking at things going, okay, let's say Monday night. Will that same action they just did, will that carry over to Monday? Because if we do it just like that on Monday, yes. That one, will that carry over? No. If we do that Monday night, that ain't gonna work. It only worked tonight because of circumstances.
"So that's how we have to think as coaches," Auriemma continued. "And that's what makes me always, I don't want to say unhappy, but various degrees of misery, because you're always trying to interpret... how much if we did this stuff exactly the way we did it is going to help us win that game?"
"We didn't beat the Lakers today, no disrespect to Arkansas State. The talent gap is huge. You should expect to play really, really well."
— UConn on SNY (@SNYUConn) March 22, 2025
Geno Auriemma talks about the talent disparity in today's game and whether or not UConn played a "perfect game" in the win: pic.twitter.com/WQ2xjZzP60
It's fascinating to hear Auriemma break down his coaching mindset after blowout wins like these.
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Grant Young covers Women’s Basketball, the New York Yankees, and the New York Mets for Sports Illustrated’s ‘On SI’ sites. He holds an MFA degree in creative writing from the University of San Francisco (USF), where he also graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Marketing and played on USF’s Division I baseball team for five years. However, he now prefers Angel Reese to Angels in the Outfield.