{"id":725869,"date":"2026-05-05T00:18:25","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T00:18:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/725869\/"},"modified":"2026-05-05T00:18:25","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T00:18:25","slug":"geno-auriemma-felt-like-a-dumbass-after-final-four-blowup-with-dawn-staley-not-worried-about-impacts-to-legacy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/725869\/","title":{"rendered":"Geno Auriemma felt ‘like a dumbass’ after Final Four blowup with Dawn Staley, not worried about impacts to legacy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Geno Auriemma was very harsh on himself as he walked into the locker room after UConn\u2019s Final Four loss to South Carolina<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t the loss that was dominating the moment, though. Instead, it was his interaction and blowup with South Carolina coach Dawn Staley.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I walked in the locker room afterward, the coaches were shaking their heads, \u2018You couldn\u2019t hold it in for five more second?\u2019\u201d Auriemma said on Monday, via the Hartford Courant<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd you feel like a dumbass for the way it played out. We\u2019re all human and we all do dumb [stuff].\u201d<\/p>\n

Auriemma had to be physically pulled away<\/a> from Staley in the final seconds of the Huskies\u2019 62-48 loss to the Gamecocks in the Final Four. The two got into it, and Auriemma ended up walking off the court on his own without shaking hands with the opposing team.<\/p>\n

The incident apparently stemmed from Staley not shaking Auriemma\u2019s hand and meeting him before the contest, though ESPN showed footage in the moment of the two doing just that.<\/p>\n

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Auriemma stood by his behavior in the moment, saying that he \u201cjust told the truth.\u201d He eventually issued a statement, but did not name Staley, and then addressed it again days later<\/a>. He said the two had spoken about the incident, he claimed to apologize to her, and said he was moving on.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve lost more games in the Final Four than any coach in history. But Friday I lost something more important,\u201d he wrote, in part<\/a>. \u201cI lost myself.\u201d<\/p>\n

Auriemma not worried about his legacy<\/p>\n

Auriemma is undoubtedly one of the best and most accomplished coaches in basketball history.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s been at UConn since 1985, and turned the program into the dominant powerhouse in the sport. The Huskies have won 12 national titles under his watch and reached the Final Four 25 times. He\u2019s also the winningest coach in college basketball history, men\u2019s or women\u2019s, with 1,288 wins to his name.<\/p>\n

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While his incident with Staley certainly dominated the conversation around the Final Four, Auriemma isn\u2019t worried about any long-term impacts it may have on him. It wasn\u2019t the first incident he\u2019s been a part of, and, even though he\u2019s now 72 and nearing the end of his career, it may not be the last.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese things that happen, you take them all with a grain of salt and understand them,\u201d Auriemma said. \u201cFor me, I\u2019m at an age now, not to say you couldn\u2019t care less what people think about you, because we\u2019re all human beings and we all have feelings about what we did or what we should have done, what people think of you. I think that never goes away.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut in terms of how I\u2019m going to be viewed? I don\u2019t give two s**ts about that. I did what I did, I apologized for it and moved on.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Geno Auriemma was very harsh on himself as he walked into the locker room after UConn\u2019s Final Four…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":725870,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3723],"tags":[7,217,3377,6108,231,772,1544,4259,922],"class_list":["post-725869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-basketball","tag-basketball","tag-college-basketball","tag-dawn-staley","tag-geno-auriemma","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-basketball","tag-ncaab","tag-south-carolina","tag-uconn"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116519102314861848","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/725869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=725869"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/725869\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/725870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=725869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=725869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=725869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}