Pat McAfee weighs in on drama between Geno Auriemma, Dawn Staley over Final Four handshake

After South Carolina defeated UConn in the Final Four on Friday, Huskies head coach Geno Auriemma initiated a heated exchange with South Carolina‘s Dawn Staley. The pair had to be separated by their respective coaching staffs.

Naturally, the fiery moment quickly spread across the internet, sprouting theories to explain what had gone wrong. On Monday, ESPN’s Pat McAfee weighed in on the unusual interaction between the women’s college basketball legends.

“So many things happen in a game. Maybe get lost in the moment and just feel disrespected by somebody because something happened,” McAfee said. “Geno, legend in the game. He knows that whenever he starts pouting after game, that’s going to be the conversation.

“Some people say he it did on purpose. Some people say he it did it on purpose that way people didn’t talk about the ass beating that happened against South Carolina.”

South Carolina walked away with a convincing 62-48 win over UConn. It was the Huskies’ only loss of the season. After the game, Auriemma claimed that Staley his frustration was due to Staley not participating in the traditional pregame greeting between head coaches at halfcourt.

However, footage from the broadcast showed Staley shaking hands with Auriemma and other UConn staff members before the game. In response, Auriemma said he was referring to a separate moment. After receiving significant backlash, Geno Auriemma issued an apology on Saturday.

“There’s no excuse for how I handled the end of the game vs. South Carolina,” he said. “It’s unlike what I do and what our standard is here at Connecticut. I want to apologize to the staff and the team at South Carolina. It was uncalled for in how I reacted. 

“The story should be how well South Carolina played, and I don’t want my actions to detract from that. I’ve had a great relationship with their staff, and I sincerely want to apologize to them.”

South Carolina suffered a 79-51 loss to UCLA in the national championship two days after the altercation between Staley and Auriemma. Following the loss, Dawn Staley avoided discussing the viral incident.

“It really is a Geno question. I haven’t heard from Geno, so … I have not. I got 800 text messages. I don’t know if he texted or not,” Staley said. “This is UCLA’s day, right? Let’s keep it (about) UCLA, them winning the national championship. 

“Again, I will address all of that at another time, just not this weekend. We’re not going to damper UCLA’s day with it,” Staley continued. “We talk about South Carolina, us losing, talk about UCLA winning the national championship, what’s great about our game today.”