What UConn coach Geno Auriemma said after blowout win over South Carolina
After falling to South Carolina in its last four matchups — including the 2022 national title game — UConn women’s basketball finally took down Dawn Staley and South Carolina. The No. 7 Huskies snapped USC’s 71-game home winning streak without any drama, coming out with a dominant 87-58 victory Sunday.
Following the 29-point win over No. 4 South Carolina, UConn coach Geno Auriemma said he knew the Huskies had to play nearly perfect to beat USC.
“I’ve come down this building and won by a lot,” he said. “(I’ve) come down here and get smacked a little bit a couple times. So I know how hard it is to play on the road against a great program like this.”
Auriemma continued to praise South Carolina’s crowd, even acknowledging that the first time he brought a team to Colonial Life Arena in 2008, the crowd had “no idea how to behave,” adding that they’ve now become incredibly knowledgeable about women’s basketball.
“Coming down here is really, really, really hard, and it didn’t used to be a long time ago. And I think they’ve made it really special,” Auriemma said. “It would be great if this happened in more places, but it’s a testament to all the people down here and Dawn and their staff and what they’ve built.”
One of the big keys to the blowout victory was UConn’s dominance on the glass. They out-rebounded the defending national champions by 19
“The rebounding stats are always about effort and about how bad do you want to win?” Auriemma said. “As opposed to, ‘I hope we I hope we don’t lose tonight.’ And I think that, more than anything else, was evident today — that we played to win, that there wasn’t any, ‘I hope I don’t miss the shot. I hope I don’t. I’m not going to take the shot because I don’t want to miss it.’”
Auriemma noted the history between these two programs, which have now played 11 times since 2017.
“This is a great rivalry. It became a rivalry when they started winning,” he said. “It became a headache for me back home when they started winning, but it became a great rivalry. I think it’s one of the premier games in college basketball right now. It means a lot to a lot of people, which is great.”
It also means a lot toward seeding for the NCAA Tournament. Just before Sunday’s game, the NCAA Tournament selection committee released its first Top 16 rankings, which had South Carolina as a No. 1 seed (second overall) and UConn as a No. 2 seed (seventh overall). Auriemma didn’t seem too interested in the stakes of Sunday.
