South Carolina coach Dawn Staley and UConn coach Geno Auriemma approach each other with hands extended at the end of the Final Four.
At the end of Friday night’s Final Four game, UConn coach Geno Auriemma had a tense exchange with South Carolina’s Dawn Staley as the Gamecocks were a second away from securing a trip to the national championship with a 62-48 victory.
It’s the third Final Four or national championship matchup between the two in the past five years, with South Carolina now up 2-1. South Carolina’s win at Mortgage Matchup Center ended UConn’s 54-game winning streak. The teams’ on-court rivalry would be enough to spark interest in meetings between the elite programs, but their conflict in Phoenix added another layer.
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Of course, Staley isn’t Auriemma’s first foil.
He has coached for 41 seasons, with 25 Final Fours and 12 national championships. He’s had his rivals, notably Tennessee coach Pat Summitt in the late 1990s to early 2000s, and Notre Dame coach Muffet McGraw in the early 2010s.
He’s also had some previous tense moments with Staley.
Here’s a history of Auriemma’s history with his rivals:
Geno Auriemma and Pat Summitt’s rivalry helped bring attention to women’s basketball.Damian Strohmeyer / Sports Illustrated via Getty Images
Pat Summitt and Tennessee
The Tennessee-UConn rivalry began initially in an effort to place two of the game’s biggest brands on national television to elevate the sport in 1995, which UConn won on the way to an undefeated national championship. The two engaged in a contentious annual rivalry over the next few years that was mostly dominated by Tennessee, with three straight national championships from 1996-98.
As the century turned and UConn began shifting the tides of the rivalry back to Storrs with four of five national championships between 2000 and 2004, Auriemma aimed verbal jabs at Summitt.
At the 2000 Final Four in his hometown of Philadelphia, Auriemma was asked about two cheesesteak restaurants named “Geno’s” and “Pat’s” across the street from each other. “Pat’s is older and more dilapidated,” he joked to reporters, according to ESPN. “Geno’s is bigger and brand-new.”
Through the years, he referred to Tennessee as “the Evil Empire” and said Summitt “hates my guts.”
The contentious relationship seemed to reach a boiling point over the recruitment of future Hall of Famer Maya Moore. Auriemma said Summitt had accused him of cheating. He also said it was the reason Summitt ended their annual series before the 2007-08 season.
“I think she should just come out and say she’s not playing us because she hates my guts,” Auriemma told the Hartford Courant. “And I think people would buy that. Then everyone [who seeks a reason] would be happy. She should just say that (Auriemma is) a dope, a smart-ass, and then everyone could say that they agree with her.”
She referenced in a radio interview the importance of not cheating. She was asked if she was referring to Tennessee men’s basketball coach Bruce Pearl, who was facing investigations into potential violations.
“I didn’t have Bruce Pearl on my mind,” she said. “I probably had Connecticut on my mind. There’s a reason we don’t play them.”
Summitt refused to ever face UConn in the regular season so long as Auriemma was the coach. The coaches both said their relationship improved through the years. But UConn and Tennessee didn’t play again until 2018, after Summitt had died due to complications from early onset Alzheimer’s disease in 2016.
“Pat set the standard for which programs like ours dreamed of achieving, both on and off the court,” Auriemma said after Summitt’s death. “Our sport reached new heights thanks to her success, which came from an incomparable work ethic and a larger than life, yet, compassionate personality.”
Auriemma led the all-time head-to-head series 13-9 and had a 5-2 record in tournament games.
Auriemma and Notre Dame coach Muffet McGraw share a laugh before a 2017 game.Cloe Poisson / Hartford Courant / Tribune News Service via Getty Images
Muffet McGraw and Notre Dame
Notre Dame’s Muffet McGraw became a new rival for Auriemma.
Originally Big East foes for several years, Notre Dame later joined the ACC, and McGraw suggested the Huskies were ducking the Irish in scheduling. Auriemma responded by saying, “It’s not nice for Muffet to fib during Lent,” according to The Washington Post reporting at the time.
It was part of a war of words that led up to the 2014 national championship game between the undefeated Huskies (39-0) and Irish (37-0), which UConn won 79-58. McGraw mused over UConn’s lack of foul calls.
“I think it’s amazing: They committed the fewest fouls in the nation,” she said. “So, they can be a really physical team and yet not manage to foul.”
Prior to the 2014 national championship game, the Huskies had lost just 11 games in the previous six seasons. Six of those losses had been to the Irish before Notre Dame left the Big East.
“We don’t have a relationship,” McGraw told reporters. “I think that got lost. When we were in the same conference, I think there was a modicum of it, but I think after beating them and not feeling any respect from that, we lost something.”
At the time, Auriemma reduced her pointed comments to symptoms of a traditional rivalry. But he also mused that she was jealous of UConn’s success. He regularly pointed out the vast difference in the number of national championships between him and McGraw; before they met for the 2014 title, he had eight titles to McGraw’s one.
Other barbs were exchanged between the programs after top 2014 recruit Arike Ogunbowale shunned UConn from her top-five list on Twitter. Auriemma tweeted, “Stay tuned for my list of the 5 players I saw the past 7 days that I have zero interest in recruiting…. #whatajoke.” Ogunbowale ended up at Notre Dame and was a key part of the 2018 national championship team.
After McGraw retired in 2020, she expressed that ESPN showed favoritism toward UConn.
“I think it goes over the top with ESPN,” she said in an appearance on the “Off The Looking Glass” podcast. “That is Connecticut’s network. Notre Dame has NBC. Connecticut has ESPN. And that is absolutely complete bias there.”
Auriemma responded with another jab.
“I guess Muffet’s bored,” he said, according to the Hartford Courant. “I guess she doesn’t have a whole lot to talk about. And usually when she was coaching, when she did talk, nobody listened anyway. So I guess she figures she’s got her platform now.
Auriemma has an all-time 29-11 record vs McGraw but a 3-5 record in tournament games.
Auriemma and former Stanford coach Tara VanDerveer chat before a 2022 NCAA Tournament game.C. Morgan Engel / NCAA Photos via Getty Images
Tara VanDerveer and Stanford
The duo have battled for the most wins in college basketball, VanDerveer securing the record before Auriemma passed her in 2024. Both started coaching in 1985; VanDerveer winning her first title in 1990, which was five seasons before Auriemma. They were both women’s national team coaches. She held a 7-12 record (2-5 in the NCAA Tournament) against Auriemma before she retired after 45 years of coaching.
Their histories run deep and was mostly built on mutual respect. But there have been some occasional pokes at each other.
After UConn beat Stanford 87-60 in the 1995 Final Four, VanDerveer predicted that Tennessee would beat the Huskies in the national championship. (UConn ended its season with a perfect 35-0 record and a national title.) “How’s that make any sense? We just beat you by 27. Pick us and make yourself look good,” Auriemma said of VanDerveer’s comment.
They had a few other exchanges, but compared to others, these spars were mild.
Staley and Auriemma embrace before last season’s national championship in Tampa. UConn won that battle.Tracy Glantz / The State / Tribune News Service via Getty Images
Dawn Staley and South Carolina
Friday’s Final Four wasn’t the first time Auriemma and Staley have been at odds.
In February 2023, the Gamecocks beat UConn 81-77 in a regular-season matchup. Auriemma expressed his frustration with his player, Lou Lopez Sénéchal, having bruises on her body from the game, and lamented the Gamecocks’ style of play to the media.
“It’s just appalling what teams do to her now,” he told reporters. “It’s not basketball anymore. I don’t know what it is, but it’s not basketball.”
Staley responded a few days later on the radio: “We’re called something other than players that are locked in. (South Carolina players) play the right way and approach it the right way whether they win or lose. We don’t denounce anybody’s play. They are always uplifting the game of women’s basketball, and when we were getting our heads beat in by UConn for all those years, I said nothing.”
Staley continued to express her frustrations with the attacks on the integrity of her teams in 2023.
“We’ve been called so many things, and I’m sick of it,” Staley said. “I’m sick of it because I coach some of the best human beings the game has ever had.”
In response to Auriemma’s frustration with her on Friday, Staley again expressed that she simply hopes to do things the right way, and wasn’t exactly sure why Auriemma was upset, other than claiming that she didn’t shake his hand – a second time – prior to the game.
“I have no idea,” Staley said when ESPN’s Holly Rowe asked her about what sparked the exchange. “But I’m (gonna) let you know this: I’m of integrity. I’m of integrity. 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 he came with after the game. But hey, sometimes things get heated, we move on.”
Auriemma holds the all-time head-to-head record against Staley, 9-7, while the two are now tied with a 2-2 record against each other in tournament games. Staley now has a 2-1 edge in Final Four games.
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