Stephen A Smith blasts ‘classless’ Geno Auriemma for Dawn Staley altercation after UConn loss

UConn Huskies women’s basketball head coach Geno Auriemma and South Carolina Gamecocks’ head coach Dawn Staley had a tense exchange in the closing moments of Friday night’s Final Four contest.

It ended in a 62-48 win for South Carolina, which is now headed to the national championship game for the third straight time. The loss was UConn’s first defeat of the season after a 38-game winning streak.

Tensions escalated in the final moments when Auriemma approached Staley as the clock wound down. What is typically a routine postgame handshake instead turned into a verbal confrontation. Both coaches exchanged heated words before assistants and officials intervened. Auriemma then left the court without completing the customary handshake.

Reacting to the incident, ESPN talk show host and personality Stephen A Smith blasted Geno, saying:

“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!!!” Smith wrote on X at 9:35 p.m. Friday. “Horrible look, and should be called out for it. He got OUTCOACHED. 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. #HorribleGENO!”

Smith’s latest comments were a far cry from the praise he gave just a year ago, when he called Auriemma the greatest coach in women’s college basketball after the Huskies’ 12th national title.

Staley addressed the incident postgame, stating she was unaware of what triggered Auriemma’s reaction.

“I have no idea,” Staley said. “I’m gonna let you know this. I’m of integrity. So if I did something wrong to Geno, I have 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 where he came with after the game. Hey, sometimes things get heated. We move on.”

Auriemma, meanwhile, opening up about the incident, said he had been waiting for a pregame handshake with Staley that never happened, but declined to provide specifics about the exchange, saying, “I said what I said.”

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