Wow, Geno just turned into a little *****. Him crying about fouls after the 3rd quarter and crying about Dawn's language was ridiculous!

I have respect for Geno as the GOAT, but he acted like a baby tonight.

The better team won. Plain and simple. And they led for most of the game (pretty much the entire 2nd half).

I know that losing a chance at a perfect season in the semifinals has got to be painful (it's happened 3 times in the last 10 years to UCONN), but you HAVE TO take your loss like a man in that spot.

He definitely lost his cool. But he does have a broader point. Staley gets away with a TON on the sidelines. He had to have a strong reason for calling her out

Really bad look for him to go down there and mouth off to Dawn. SC was just the better team tonight. He's kicked enough people's asses that he should know better to act like that after his team got beat like that.

I'd like to know what all she was saying before being too harsh on him. We're talking about a guy who's been on the sidelines with the biggest personalities in the game. The Muffets, Mulkeys, Summits etc. and not once have I seen him deliberately go after an opposing coach. Pretty confident Dawn crossed a line. At least in his eyes. Doesn't excuse him not taking the high road though

IowaBear said:

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He definitely lost his cool. But he does have a broader point. Staley gets away with a TON on the sidelines. He had to have a strong reason for calling her out

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Nah. He was trying to work the refs, like a great coach normally does. But it wasn't enough tonight (although UCONN did get a generous whistle to start the 4th).

The reason UCONN was getting called for fouls was BECAUSE they were fouling.

And fouling a lot!

There was a stretch in that 3rd quarter where it seemed like UCONN was fouling on every Carolina possession. Players were getting knocked to the floor and hacked left and right, and the refs were still swallowing their whistles for half of it.

If anything, I was looking for Dawn to blow her lid and get 'T'd' up. But she was waaay too calm for my liking on some of those calls.

I think it was just frustration boiling over, because UCONN probably thought they were gonna run away with the title this year.

And had they played any other team except South Carolina, they probably would have.

And that includes both Texas and UCLA.

Said she didn't shake his hand before the game but he's wrong. There is video of it. Geno getting forgetful in his old age. He wouldn't be the first coach who coached a long time who went off the rails latter in their career. I'll never forget what Woody Hays did.

IowaBear said:

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UConn was definitely fouling. But so was SC. SC is quite literally known for their physical play. A 6-0 foul discrepancy in the 3rd is asinine. Especially when the team with 0 fouls is every bit as physical. UConn was outplayed no doubt about it. Not denying that. But any coach is gonna complain about that big of a discrepancy in that high stakes of a game

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He's lucky they were only called for 6 fouls. Probably should have been more like 12.

There's a difference between being physical and blatantly fouling. And UCONN was fouling, like they normally do. Difference is they actually got called for 'em tonight.

I don't know how many UCONN games I've watched over the years where they were sitting on just 1 or 2 fouls late in the game.

In any case, go back and look at that 3rd quarter if you like, and you'll see a number of calls that were missed on UCONN.

The fact of the matter is this:

South Carolina didn't forget about last year. And that fueled them tonight.

UCONN and Geno rarely faced adversity this year (at least not in the 2nd half of games).

And once they got punched in the mouth, they became flustered and didn't know how to respond.

This is one of those times where that horrible Big East schedule did UCONN no favors, from a preparation standpoint.

Refs didn't determine the outcome.

A difference in athleticism that lead to UConn taking poor shots and committing turnovers that lead to SC transition buckets was the difference.

Even when UConn created turnovers, their transition offense was putrid because SC beat them down the court.