Auriemma responds to Staley’s comments

UConn women’s basketball coach Geno Auriemma was critical of officiating following a loss to South Carolina Sunday, focusing specifically on how Lou Lopez Sénéchal has been guarded.

On Tuesday, South Carolina coach Dawn Staley responded on her radio show by saying the Gamecocks “play the right way and approach it the right way whether they win or lose.”

“We don’t denounce anybody’s play,” Staley said. “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.”

On Wednesday night, Auriemma was asked if he spoke to Staley or if he had a reaction.

His response? No, he has not spoken to Staley.

But he did have a reaction.

“I don’t know whether Dawn was referring to me specifically, or whether this has been happening to her team for quite some time now,.” Auriemma said. “If people have been paying attention, seriously, I’ve been making that statement for 20-some years, since Diana (Taurasi) was playing for us. And I said the exact same thing after the Villanova game. The exact same thing... anybody that was paying attention, ask Holly Rowe what I said at halftime of the Tennessee game. I said it after the Providence game.

“And in each one of those instances, everything I said was directed squarely at the officials and not one of those coaches said a word. Because you have a right to coach your team any way you want. I have enough trouble coaching my own team. But I can have a say in how officials call the game and and if the rules are supposed to be the rules as they’re interpreted to me, then they’ve got to be called according to the rules.

“And if I’m never allowed to question in official about their calls, and criticize them for the way they officiate a game, without someone thinking I’m casting (aspersions) towards their team, that’s just asinine. If you’ve been paying attention, I’ve been saying it for 20 years. So .... ”

Auriemma made the comments after UConn’s loss at Marquette, as the Huskies dropped back to back games for the first time since 1993.

His postgame comments Sunday were in response to a question about a technical foul he incurred late in the game, when the screamed at an official and threw a water bottle on the floor.

“The technical was stupid,” Auriemma said Sunday. “I didn’t say anything for a long, long, long time. And I just felt like ... if you want to bring Lou in, you see the bruises on her body. It’s just appalling what teams do to her now. and it’s not basketball anymore. So that was a problem ... I don’t like to see a kid get manhandled like that, right in front of the officials.”

Staley said Tuesday that South Carolina is “called something other than players that are locked in.”

“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.”

The Huskies have lost four of the last five meetings with the Gamecocks, including last year’s national championship game.