UConn coach Geno Auriemma and South Carolina coach Dawn Staley had a heated exchange on the sideline after the Gamecocks defeated the undefeated Huskies 62-48 in the NCAA women’s tournament semifinals on Friday night. South Carolina ended UConn’s 54-game winning streak and secured a return trip to the national championship game.
As the two moved to shake hands with 0.1 seconds remaining, Auriemma appeared to shake Staley’s hand and began yelling in his direction. Staley responded with his own words. The assistant coach went to calm both sides, and UConn inbounded the ball to end the game.
Allow content provided by a third party?
This article contains content hosted by embed.bsky.app. We ask for your permission before loading anything, as the provider may use cookies and other technologies. To view this content, Click ‘Allow and continue’.
Staley went to shake hands with the UConn staff, while Auriemma walked toward the tunnel without shaking hands with any South Carolina players or coaches. Players from both teams shook hands before the UConn players hurried down the tunnel.
“I’m honest. So if I did anything wrong to Geno, I don’t know what I did,” Staley told ESPN’s Holly Rowe in a postgame interview. “I guess he thought I didn’t shake his hand at the beginning of the game. I went out there before the game, shook hands with everyone on my staff. I don’t know what he came up with after the game, but hey, sometimes things get heated. We move on.”
Early in the fourth quarter, Auriemma gave a heated interview to Rowe midway through the game, expressing his frustrations about the officiating.
“There were six fouls in that (third) quarter, all of them against us. And they were beating our guys the whole game. And I’m not making any excuses for us, we didn’t make a shot, but it’s ridiculous. Their coach curses on the sideline and calls the refs some names you don’t want to hear, and now we get six to zero and I’ve got a kid with a torn jersey and (the refs) go. ‘I didn’t see it.’ Come on, friend. This is for the national championship.”
Allow content provided by a third party?
This article contains content hosted by embed.bsky.app. We ask for your permission before loading anything, as the provider may use cookies and other technologies. To view this content, Click ‘Allow and continue’.
UConn’s frustrations boiled over after a brutal offensive night for the team’s All-America combo of Sarah Strong and Azie Fudd. Strong finished with only 12 points on 4 of 16 shooting. Fudd scored eight points on 3 of 15 shooting, including 2 of 9 from long range.
The problem for Strong and Fudd was that they couldn’t hit shots, even though they had a little space to work with. The 6-foot-2 powerhouse was troubled by South Carolina’s interior size, with many of her inside shots going in and out.
Bodies from both teams kept flying under the basket for most of the night. UConn was whistled for 17 fouls, while South Carolina was called for eight fouls.
UConn (38-1) heads to the Final Four undefeated for the ninth time in school history and remains without a title for the third consecutive time. The Huskies also lost in the national semifinals in 2017 and 2018. It was the fewest points scored by UConn since 49 in a national championship game loss to the Gamecocks in 2022.
“Coach was pretty crazy going into this half,” Latson said of coach Don Staley. “She was screaming ‘Meet the moment! Meet the moment!’ We can’t be afraid to play on this stage, especially against UConn. I mean, they were undefeated.”
Tania Latson added 16 points and Agot Maker had 14 points for South Carolina (34-3).
The teams came into the game as the second and third leading scoring teams in the country, both averaging over 87 points per game. It was a defensive battle.
Leading 46–44 a few minutes into the third quarter, South Carolina scored five consecutive points, capped by Maker’s three-pointer to increase the lead to seven.
Sarah Strong hit a three-pointer to bring the Huskies back within 51-47 with 4:39 left. After South Carolina scored 11 consecutive points, the Huskies did not score again until Strong hit a free throw with 30.8 seconds remaining.
After trailing 26–24 at halftime, South Carolina took the lead with a 12–2 run in the third quarter. The Gamecocks extended the lead to 40–30 – the largest deficit the Huskies have suffered this season.
UConn defeated South Carolina in last year’s national championship game. The Gamecocks will try to capture their fourth national title against the winner of Friday night’s other semifinal between UCLA and Texas.
