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Friday’s women’s March Madness game between UConn and South Carolina saw an eruption of tempers boiled over as two of the game’s sport’s most legendary coaches got into engaged in a heated sideline confrontation.
UConn’s Geno Auriemma and South Carolina’s Dawn Staley were seen shouting aggressively at each other in the closing moment moments of the game. South Carolina was on the verge of a 62-48 win in the Final Four, when With South Carolina closing in on a 62-48 Final Four win, Auriemma approached Staley, and the exchange began to speak to her aggressively, before the conversation devolved into quickly escalated into a visible shouting match.
After the game, Auriemma did not shake Staley’s hand.
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UConn head coach Geno Auriemma watches a play late in the second half of a Sweet 16 game of the NCAA college basketball tournament against North Carolina in Fort Worth, Texas, on March 27, 2026. (LM Otero/AP)
Staley addressed the incident in an interview with ESPN immediately afterward.
“I have no idea, but I’m going to let you know this, I’m of integrity. I’m of integrity,” Staley said. “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 we came with after the game, but hey sometimes things get heated. We move on.”
Auriemma was seen shaking Staley’s hand in ESPN footage before the game.
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UConn head coach Geno Auriemma reacts to a play during the first half of a Sweet 16 game of the NCAA college basketball tournament against North Carolina in Fort Worth, Texas, on March 27, 2026. (Julio Cortez/AP Photo)
Auriemma addressed the incident in the postgame press conference.
“I don’t want what happened there to dampen what we were able to accomplish today,” Staley said.
Meanwhile, Auriemma expressed displeasure with Staley and the referees during an in-game interview on ESPN.
“There were six fouls called that quarter — all of them against us,” Auriemma said on the broadcast. “And they’ve been beating the (expletive) 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 to 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.”
After the game, Auriemma declined to elaborate on the incident.
“I said what I had to say and… nothing… nothing,” he said when asked what happened with Staley, refusing to tell reporters what he said.
“Why would I say it. I said what I said and obviously she didn’t like it. I just told the truth.”
Auriemma later addressed the speculation over the handshake pre-game and his mid-game interview.
“I don’t have any regrets,” Auriemma said of his mid-game interview.
“I’ve been coaching a long time, I never had a kid have to change their jersey because somebody ripped it and the official said they didn’t see it. There were a lot of things that happened in that game. Unless you’re on that sideline you have no idea what’s happening on that sideline…
“The protocol is, before the game, you meet at halfcourt, anybody ever see that before? The two coaches meet at halfcourt and they shake hands… they announce it on the loud speaker. I waited there for like three minutes.”
Footage of the shouting exchange quickly went viral on social media, with many fans shocked to two of women’s basketball’s most respected figures clash so publicly.
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Dawn Staley of the South Carolina Gamecocks argues with Geno Auriemma of the UConn Huskies during the second half of an NCAA Women’s Final Four semifinal game at Mortgage Matchup Center in Phoenix, Ariz., on April 3, 2026. (C. Morgan Engel/NCAA Photos via Getty Images)
ESPN star Stephen A. Smith blasted Auriemma for the incident in an X post.
“That was some straight B.S. from the GREAT Geno Auriemma. Never — ever — thought I’d see the day when the greatest woman’s college coach in history would go down so CLASSLESSLY!!! Horrible look, and should be called out for it. He got OUTCOACHED,” Smith wrote. “Plain and simple. And gets in her face like she did something wrong to him instead of being gracious. Had Dawn Staley acted like that we would be all over her.”
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