South Carolina Postgame Thread

[CGK]

That's exactly right. Everyone on this thread who starting criticizing Geno because of what they saw at the end did not wait for the facts. Dawn purposely left him waiting at half court at the beginning of the game, the traditional on court handshake. She knew exactly what she was doing and played the poor victim role at the end. Let her explain her behavior. How dare she embarrass him or any other coach? The speed at which people on this thread threw Geno under the bus was astounding and it was wrong.

I couldn't agree more. I'll add this: in this day and age, people rush to judgement in a millisecond to condemn. They "saw it" on internet. My goodness people....
I agree that Geno's actions & behavior were unacceptable, unclassy and plain wrong no matter what. He has to apologize to all and he ought to do it quickly and with sincere contrition. But people who say he should resign, or compare his actions to Woody Hayes... stop it. You need to look at the bigger picture. The type of scholar athletes he has brought in, developed and who are good in the classroom, who stay out of trouble, who learn discipline and charity from the staff and expectations.... and many go on to greater heights after graduation. They come back often to share joy, comradery and to celebrate being a UCONN Husky on their own dime. There is a community that has been built by CD, Geno and the staff. It is a unique culture of love and respect as well as tolerance and working hard. It's the best of the best. If you know UCONN, then you know that this THE basketball capital and has a tightly bonded house of fans, support staff and players over decades with results no other program in history can compare to. So I submit to you finger-pointing, shoot from the hip condemners, that one really bad night doesn't wipe out what is good. You might look in the mirror and ask just how fair others were when you did something that was completely screwed up. You might appreciate a little objectivity and realize Geno went off because it was just too much. No excuses, but please take a breath.

 

[oldude]

This is exactly what SC plays like, but back then we had more athletic and rough players to deal with it, Geno owes no one an apology, but what he does owe, is our amazing frontcourt next year, some tough minded athletic wings and guards, or we will lose again when it matters most because our guards and wings are good enough until we get to this point again. You want to recruit good people i understand, but there is a certain toughness we were missing this year and I noticed it, but honestly thought we were good enough to pull it off. KK needs to be a scoring and shooting threat and we need to look in the portal for a 2 guard that fills what we don't have. Can't get bullied again. At the very least, Azzi needed to go out shooting. I would have taken a loss like that much better than her being hesitant and not wanting to miss and let her team down. Too nice. Need some rough necks on the team.

I’m not sure if it was last season or before. But I remember Dawn saying something to the effect that “If SC played a pretty brand of basketball against UConn they would lose.” Credit to her for preparing her team to play and win an ugly game.

By the way, the same was true for Cori Close and UCLA last night who surprisingly “out-uglied” TX, something I thought was impossible.

 

[ABCDFE]

South Carolina vs UCLA tomorrow.

In my job, if I lost my temper and blew up at a representative of a competitor in front of all of our coworkers, employees, and friends, I would expect to at least be reprimanded. And that is even if I was justified in my anger. As a manager and representative of my company, I have responsibilities that are more important than my anger and that still holds no matter what I’ve accomplished at my job and how widely respected and perhaps loved I might be by my peers. An apology would need to be given to the competitor and their employee.

Geno is an employee of the State of Connecticut and his job is to coach the State’s women’s basketball team. I expect UConn will issue a formal apology to South Carolina. But if Dawn did something that offended or angered Geno, he should discuss it with her in private, address it through both universities’ official channels, or the head of referees (if that’s the problem).

He took the spotlight off the young women of South Carolina. It was their moment and he took the attention off them and put it on him. It was wrong and he should apologize

.

Read the article by ESPN. He is not apologizing and after reading it myself it definitely sheds light into what we’ve all been saying. Does it excuse his actions entirely probably not. Can I see why he reacted that way, yes. My point is that too many of us have come at Geno without painting the entire picture or at various points knowing the entire picture and immediately threw him under the bus. He deserved more support from us fans and maybe that’s because I’m loyal to a fault because the UConn peeps are like fam to me.

Regarding the corporate setting. I’ve seen it happen another way where a competitor has repeatedly disrespected, undermined and was down right rude in etiquette to another. In that instance his staff and his company were proud that he stuck up for himself and his company. The employees were in fact emboldened by it, and made sure to work harder to gain the account.

This is the last I will post on this topic. I congratulate the SC team for the win. I wish Geno could’ve been bigger and shook the hands of the opposing team and staff. But I have absolutely have no problem with him yelling at Dawn and letting her know how he felt. And I wish the people who have come to watch Geno and see how much he cares and articulates his passion for people and the game and be a genuinely good person to give him a little bit more benefit of the doubt, because as Geno said in the espn article he sees things that we haven’t or maybe totally understand.l what’s happening

Disrespect brings out strong emotions let alone wasting someone’s time in plain sight. In some countries more than just a tongue lashing. I mean god knows we in the U.S. get offended and pissed when the person in front of us doesn’t go when the speed light turns green after 1 second. After ten seconds multiple honks. I can’t imagine what the other car drivers would do should the driver purposely wait there for 10 min making everyone wait. Just saying. Have a great Easter weekend folks. I’ll be watching the men’s tonight and hope for a win to wash away the sour taste of this loss.


Regarding

 

[ME Husky Fan]

Ok Boneyard, let’s not be that fan base.

Blaming the refs is ridiculous. Yes, there was a big foul differential. But that didn’t lose the game for us.

Team play was disappointing. Let’s stay away from dogging individual players who are having a terrible evening.

We have loved this team all season.

I think one needs to take a look a the points total for both games last night and ask why? Just good defense? Just bad shooting; all at the same time? Or maybe there was a directive to ‘let them play’ at all cost and with that comes fouls that usually get called within each of the conferences, but come the spotlight, the refs swallow their collective whistles. Something to ponder.

 

[oldude]

I couldn't agree more. I'll add this: in this day and age, people rush to judgement in a millisecond to condemn. They "saw it" on internet. My goodness people....
I agree that Geno's actions & behavior were unacceptable, unclassy and plain wrong no matter what. He has to apologize to all and he ought to do it quickly and with sincere contrition. But people who say he should resign, or compare his actions to Woody Hayes... stop it. You need to look at the bigger picture. The type of scholar athletes he has brought in, developed and who are good in the classroom, who stay out of trouble, who learn discipline and charity from the staff and expectations.... and many go on to greater heights after graduation. They come back often to share joy, comradery and to celebrate being a UCONN Husky on their own dime. There is a community that has been built by CD, Geno and the staff. It is a unique culture of love and respect as well as tolerance and working hard. It's the best of the best. If you know UCONN, then you know that this THE basketball capital and has a tightly bonded house of fans, support staff and players over decades with results no other program in history can compare to. So I submit to you finger-pointing, shoot from the hip condemners, that one really bad night doesn't wipe out what is good. You might look in the mirror and ask just how fair others were when you did something that was completely screwed up. You might appreciate a little objectivity and realize Geno went off because it was just too much. No excuses, but please take a breath.

I thought the comparison to Hayes is appropriate in one sense. Both Geno and Hayes are/were incredibly successful and they had/have been around for many years. They both reacted badly to a loss on national TV.

For what it’s worth, Hayes did a lot of good for his players, along with the many assistants who went on to be HC’s, over his many years at tOSU. Unfortunately, the one incident against Clemson in the Gator Bowl somewhat overshadowed all the good he did.

Unlike Hayes, Geno should get the opportunity to get past his unfortunate reaction from last night. Right now he needs a little time to decompress from a long and demanding season, as well as a few rounds of golf.

 

[H Dog]

She would need to improve A LOT for AA consideration.

If she has offense that is ready to be unleashed, she should’ve been using it tonight.

She’s not bad. But she’s not elite either.

You’re entitled to your opinion but obviously you’ve got KK derangement syndrome lol. She’s an elite athlete and AA caliber PG and if people like you think that she’s mediocre or “not bad” so be it. I’m not even going to bother citing her and the team’s stellar offensive and defensive statistics and efficiency (which is a direct result of pure PG play) to you in support of the great historic season and win streak that unfortunately just ended because it is a thorough waste of time with people like you who only want to unfairly and wrongly criticize these tremendous young athletes and persons like our KK.

 

[Henry]

I watched our game last night, but skipped the 2nd game. The scores in those 2 games resemble HS game scores. That was from the 4 best teams in the country. Are you kidding me???

Regardless of the FT discrepancy, we could've won that game if we shot and rebounded better. Too many missed lay-ups, poor 3 pt shooting. It also seemed like we made no halftime adjustments. Ash and K9 did what they could. Sarah played ok, but that's not what we expect from her. And Azzi seemed tentative all game. You could almost see this coming based on how we played last weekend.

Having to play every BE team twice cut into our OOC schedule. That didn't help prepare us for playing the types of teams you meet later in the tournament.

 

[Way We Were]

I have lurked for as long as I can without responding. I don't know if Geno should apologize, maybe Staley should apologize. I'd love for Geno to spill it and tell us what staley was saying to the refs - was it acceptable or should she have been tossed. Is he right and is there a two tier system that allows some coaches to jump the rails without penalty and others not. On TV you can't see what you can see from the floor. Were our kids roughed up without foul calls. TV commentators said it was the SEC style of play. That begs the real question-does the rule book say its legal. Geno recruits goods kids that are nice, pleasant and make for great children and grand children. They don't brawl-they're not tough kids-they play finesse basketball - they get intimidated which is the major reason we shot so poorly. The refs let South Carolina brawl-should fouls have been called- I do know - we got the majority of the foul calls. That doesn't pass the eye test. There are two possibilities. (actually it is on a continuum) SC didn't foul and they just killed us or they roughed us up - intimidated us - took us out of our game and did it all with the approval of the Refs.
I'd love for Geno to tell us more!
Can the board stop being so conflict averse! Possibly Geno should apologize or possibly spill it and tell us all what was going on on the floor and sidelines.

 

[sno-cat]

No offense at all to Sarah, she’s a remarkable player who’s done great and has two more years to accomplish great things. But last night’s performance was not good. Let’s not even compare her to Stewart.

Don’t forget that Stewie had off days also.

 

[oldude]

Agreed, why isn’t there more media coverage that Dawn was a no show for the pre Game Center court ceremonial handshake. He said he stood there for 3 minutes. Talk about poor sportsmanship.

It was never about the handshake. Do you really believe that after he already shook Dawn’s hand and gave her a hug, that not getting a 2nd hug while Dawn was perhaps distracted talking to her team, that Geno held that in for 2 hours until the game was over so he could confront Dawn after the game and then complain about it to the media? That would be the very embodiment of being petty.

 

[CONNCAN]

He was an idiot. I don’t know what his problem was but he shouldn’t have acted that way. Totally unprofessional

Actually shocked and pleasantly surprised at your response concerning Geno's unprofessional conduct. Is it time for Geno to hang it up?

 

[oldude]

Actually shocked and pleasantly surprised at your response concerning Geno's unprofessional conduct. Is it time for Geno to hang it up?

Not there yet. But it’s certainly time for some soul searching.

 

[JSB60]

Who cares about handshakes? Sarah didn’t post up hard and let a 5’9 player guard her. Azzi passed up shots she needed to take. That’s my takeaway.

 

[ABCDFE]

Why should he care? He saw that Staley was still in her huddle, so give her 30 seconds and just go back to your own huddle. How can this be the main thing on your mind two hours later? I believe he was mad that she got away with hammering the refs all night and that it skewed the calls in the game. Right or wrong, go tell it to the media. Don't embarrass yourself and your team.

Yes everything you said make sense. But you’re making these comments from your couch. People get stirred up for a variety of reasons, super smart people, leaders of the world will sometimes slip up or do something that you and I may seem out of character but it happens, we’re human. What I’m saying is let’s present the whole story including what Dawn did and try to understand that TO GENO the direspect was real TO HIM. I thought it was in poor judgement he didn’t shake the SC players and other coaches hands. But let’s not say he embarrassed himself and he’s idiot and he blacked out when you aren’t in his shoes. He’s also trying to right or wrong fight for his players and the style he believes basketball should be played. In the end I guess maybe you and many of the BYers here are just better people than me and maybe Geno deserves this one sided negative opinion. I just choose to say the instigator should not be make to look so innocent and the reactor to be looked so evil upon.

 

[mike012]

Geno may have lost the battle but he was trying to win the war. Get dawn distracted before the championship game Sunday . It may work. They won yesterday but no title on Sunday means a stale victory. Geno is playing 4d chess

 

[sno-cat]

Agreed, why isn’t there more media coverage that Dawn was a no show for the pre Game Center court ceremonial handshake. He said he stood there for 3 minutes. Talk about poor sportsmanship.

Can anyone provide a video of Geno standing there for three minutes?

 

[Vowelguy]

You’re entitled to your opinion but obviously you’ve got KK derangement syndrome lol. She’s an elite athlete and AA caliber PG and if people like you think that she’s mediocre or “not bad” so be it. I’m not even going to bother citing her and the team’s stellar offensive and defensive statistics and efficiency (which is a direct result of pure PG play) to you in support of the great historic season and win streak that unfortunately just ended because it is a thorough waste of time with people like you who only want to unfairly and wrongly criticize these tremendous young athletes and persons like our KK.

Typical BY. I dare to say someone is not an AA, so that must mean I’m saying they don’t deserve a scholarship.

 

[1974yankees]

Well this is what Dawn said after Geno approached her.

Real class?

 

[Zonepress]

This is exactly what SC plays like, but back then we had more athletic and rough players to deal with it, Geno owes no one an apology, but what he does owe, is our amazing frontcourt next year, some tough minded athletic wings and guards, or we will lose again when it matters most because our guards and wings are good enough until we get to this point again. You want to recruit good people i understand, but there is a certain toughness we were missing this year and I noticed it, but honestly thought we were good enough to pull it off. KK needs to be a scoring and shooting threat and we need to look in the portal for a 2 guard that fills what we don't have. Can't get bullied again. At the very least, Azzi needed to go out shooting. I would have taken a loss like that much better than her being hesitant and not wanting to miss and let her team down. Too nice. Need some rough necks on the team.

complete over reaction
The player of the year and a first team all American did not play well i’m sure a lot of it was South Carolina’s defense
But they simply didn’t make open shots and weren’t strong enough with the ball
you play a team that is just as talented as you are and you don’t play particularly well you’re going to lose
when the season started, I thought there were five teams that all had a chance at the national championship and they were all very close in talent
It was going to come down to who could play well in the final 4 for 2 games

 

[jostar1]

There is an article written by Jerry Brewer for the NYT/the Athletic that does an excellent job of explaining the incident last night and what was behind it. It’s worth reading.

Here is the article:

The night Geno Auriemma snapped — and Dawn Staley showed the game has changed

The power dynamic is shifting atop the world of women's basketball. And Auriemma knows it.

www.nytimes.com

 

[Zonepress]

This season was interesting. I was surprised when the team didn’t miss a beat losing Paige. But as the season unfolded, I was concerned with how the national landscape was playing out. You could see a top 4 with a massive drop off to the 5th best team. Each of South Carolina, UCLA, and Texas were exposed to one another. Uconn was not.

I know you can only play the opponents in front of you, but our schedule was soft. Nobody could have predicted the injury to Juju, the exodus of players at ND, etc. And we never had that February game to be tested against a team like South Carolina.

Couple that with this almost fake depth. In this tournament, you saw how KK/Serah/Allie/Jana were not viable offensive options. Shade struggled a lot but did have a redemption final four. Same with Heckle to a degree.

We were a duo dominant team all season. And issues with that started in the sweet 16 when teams could focus on Fudd or Strong. Blanca emerged as the third part of the trio last weekend, but I felt we didn’t prioritize giving her that role all year, then just expected that from her to win a championship.

I don’t think this team was as dominant all year as it appeared on paper. And they got exposed when they finally played a team with similar talent. Credit to Dawn who came up with a plan to get under the skin of Azzi and Sarah. She forced officials to make a call and they didn’t, UConn never adjusted. First time I’ve seen Sarah actually struggle in college, and as evidenced by the jersey rip, she was never able to regain composure.

Unfortunate ending with Geno. Really makes the ending of this season feel especially messy.

A very accurate post

 

[oldude]

You misrepresented the F4 pre game coaches ceremonial handshake, that’s a standalone F4 tradition. It has nothing to do with the other stuff you brought up. If you are in the building it’s a big F4 tradition and deal. I have never heard of a F4 coach not doing that before. It is crazy to support her behavior.

I am not supporting Dawn’s behavior. I am criticizing Geno’s overreaction while suggesting that he had another reason for it that had nothing to do with the perceived slight.

 

[sno-cat]

I can’t wait for the next episode of the Dawn/Geno show at this November’s game against SC!

 

[cleobel60]

I think one needs to take a look a the points total for both games last night and ask why? Just good defense? Just bad shooting; all at the same time? Or maybe there was a directive to ‘let them play’ at all cost and with that comes fouls that usually get called within each of the conferences, but come the spotlight, the refs swallow their collective whistles. Something to ponder.

Many may disagree with my opinion, but this year's team had a very key missing piece. That was a real strong team leader who could keep her teammates together and focused on winning. Last year we had Paige. Nobody really stepped up to fill this role. Also being undefeated is so difficult, and after winning so many games I feel certain they probably got too comfortable mentally and felt somewhat invincible. Makes me kind of think that maybe we should have lost a game to reset mentally just like the Tennessee game did last year. Lastly it is time to focused on getting bigger. Players are bigger, taller, faster and skillful. Freshman recruits are coming in fully capable of being inserted into starting lineups. They don't like sitting and waiting, and with high NIL offers to choose from, will go to a school where they think they have an opportunity to play. The landscape has changed; it will be hard to catch up if we fall behind.

 

[Scoe]

UConn WBB has to play with the hand it’s been dealt. They’ve done it before, including last year. I’m so tired of this weak conference excuse. We had TWO AAs on the floor last night. Both of whom had last year’s FF experience, including other players who have tourney/FF experience. They did not perform well. Being in the SEC would give us some nice experience but at the end of the day you still have to show up and play to your ability.

Look at Texas, who actually IS in the SEC. They totally disappeared last night.

It's crazy that people draw their conclusions of last nights game based off of 1 thing that's not relevant to the game.

I also find it laughable that taking out Sarah Strong early in blowouts played a role. Look at Luca the other night the Lakers left him in the game in a blow out he gets hurt and may miss the rest of the season.

 

[Bigpetunia]

I am as ardent a Husky fan as one could find...quite literally, during their games, I live and die on every possession. Because I not only recognize the fundamental nature of sports for what it is, and love sports for that reason, at the conclusion of each contest, whether thrilled or disappointed by the outcome, my confidence that the sun will rise in the morning remains undiminished. My wife patted me on the head before sleep last night and sympathetically tried to ease my pain, but, truth to tell, my sadness over the loss had already begun to fade into memory. It's a lovely Saturday where I live (I think...haven't looked outside), my coffee tastes great, and I'm going to have a great day and watch some baseball. My team may well lose. Gee, I don't know how I'll handle it if they do!

 

[Vowelguy]

Many may disagree with my opinion, but this year's team had a very key missing piece. That was a real strong team leader who could keep her teammates together and focused on winning. Last year we had Paige.

Yup. Paige was incredibly difficult to replace, but folks cast her off like losing her was no big deal.

 

[jazz]

A portion of the UConn WBB fanbase is what’s embarassing. Always there to enjoy Geno’s successes but when he is blantantly disrespected pre game by an opposing coach you have her back not his. Shame on you.

As GA has said many times, the game is not about him, it is about the kids playing the game. So, if he was disrespected at the beginning of the game, who cares? This has nothing to do with the game and maybe Staley was trying to create leverage by getting in his head. GA has done this before but before games and in the media. So, my take is that GA lost control of his principles and should have just taken the high road even if he was disrespected. The respect he gets is not important at all. The game is all that matters.

Then there is the optics and GA should have known that DS would play the victim if he tried to make some deal out of him being disrespected at the beg of the game...and the cameras would be rolling. The optics are exponentially worse due to the different types of people involved. GA should have anticipated this and avoided it.

With that said, GA deserves a mulligan (pass) for this as he has been first class, despite the sarcasm for over 40 years.

 

[CONNCAN]

Are you actually telling Geno how to coach? 😊

No, never on how to Coach. He is the GOAT.
But how to behave? Absolutely YES. His actions post game was an embarrassment to his team, his legacy, and to the University

 

[#1florida]

No, never on how to Coach. He is the GOAT.
But how to behave? Absolutely YES. His actions post game was an embarrassment to his team, his legacy, and to the University

I really think many people commenting about Geno's actions are covering up their frustration about losing. So, they attack Geno, and therefore do not have to deal with their feelings regarding the loss.