UConn’s Geno Auriemma explains loss to South Carolina this way: ‘Damn man, they found us out’
PHOENIX — Deep down, coach Geno Auriemma always knew the UConn women’s basketball team’s Final Four collapse against South Carolina on Friday was possible. Auriemma has experienced losses in the NCAA Tournament that he never saw coming, unpredictable opponents getting hot at the right moment or making clutch plays when it mattered most. But the 2025-26 Huskies had weaknesses that Auriemma recognized all season long, and they showed in the worst possible moment against the toughest opponent the team faced all year.
“The losses that are the hardest are the ones where you feel like your team has very, very few flaws, very few areas where the other team can exploit,” Auriemma said. “Then there’s other losses, where you come here with a team and you know, there are things that could happen that we would not be able to recover from. “When your flaws, when things happen that are exposed, you kind of go, ‘Damn man, they found us out.
’” For most of this season, UConn seemed infallible. The Huskies dominated nearly every opponent in their path on their historic 54-game win streak, which tied the fourth longest in NCAA history. The team won 34 in a row by at least 14 points and entered the Final Four leading the country in scoring defense, steals, assists and field goal percentage.
But UConn was also never truly tested throughout its undefeated run. The other three 1-seeds that reached the last weekend of the NCAA Tournament — UCLA, Texas and South Carolina — all played at least one game against another Final Four team during the regular season. The best opponent the Huskies faced before South Carolina was Michigan back in November, and the Wolverines got blown out by Texas in the Elite Eight.
Without having experienced a major challenge, UConn’s flaws were easy to sweep under the rug. South Carolina dragged them into the light. Unfortunately for UConn, South Carolina found the way to rattle and disrupt Huskies’ best player “I was never comfortable with that (undefeated) narrative, people talking like that going into the season, in the middle of the season,” Auriemma said.
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