Geno Auriemma and Dawn Staley’s teams will meet for the first time since the two coaches had a tense exchange at the end of their Final Four matchup.
UConn and South Carolina will play at the annual Basketball Hall of Fame Women’s Showcase at Mohegan Sun in Connecticut on Nov. 24.
Defending champion UCLA will play St. John’s in the other game of the women’s doubleheader. This past year the Showcase was a two-day event with teams playing a pair of games. This season it’s back to one night.
The South Carolina-UConn matchup had been announced in November while the Bruins and Red Storm game was made official on Tuesday.
Auriemma has since apologized to Staley after he was visibly upset in the final seconds of South Carolina’s 62-48 victory last month. Earlier this month Auriemma said he felt “dumb” for how his heated postgame exchange played out in front of a national audience.
“When I walked into the locker room afterward with the coaches, you are just shaking your head, thinking five more seconds, you couldn’t keep it in for five more seconds,” Auriemma said in his first news conference since then.
“You just feel dumb for the way that it played out,” he added. “We are all human and we all do dumb (stuff).”
Staley said in a social media post a few days after the incident that she urged fans to turn the page.
“With the college women’s basketball season behind us, it’s time to move forward and close the chapter on how our semifinal game with UConn ended,” Staley wrote in her statement. “I spoke with Geno and I want to be clear — I have a great deal of respect for him and what he’s meant to the game. One moment doesn’t define a career and it doesn’t change the impact he’s had on growing women’s basketball.”
UCLA beat South Carolina for the national championship — the Bruins first. Cori Close’s team lost its top six players to graduation with all of them getting drafted into the WNBA.
“We are so excited to take part in the Basketball Hall of Fame Women’s Showcase again,” Close said. “This event always helps us prepare to be at our best and compete at the highest level. To have a national platform to grow the game, we couldn’t be more thrilled.”
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