ESPN pundit rips UConn's Geno Auriemma over heated incident with Dawn Staley

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ESPN pundit Michael Wilbon teed off on UConn women’s basketball coach Geno Auriemma on Monday, following the coach’s outburst toward South Carolina's Dawn Staley on Friday night.

Auriemma was seemingly frustrated with Staley’s lack of a traditional handshake before UConn and South Carolina played their Final Four game. South Carolina would eventually win the matchup, but Auriemma and Staley had a heated exchange at the end of the game as they went up to greet each other.

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South Carolina head coach Dawn Staley and UConn head coach Geno Auriemma argue after a women's NCAA college basketball tournament semifinal game at the Final Four in Phoenix on April 3, 2026. (Rick Scuteri/AP)

The UConn coach also complained at halftime that Sarah Strong didn’t get a foul call despite her jersey getting ripped. Strong later said she accidentally ripped her own jersey.

Wilbon didn’t mince words in his criticism of Auriemma on ESPN’s "Pardon the Interruption."

"I’m going to take the rest of the time to deal with Geno, who was guilty of not just the handshake, but the bogus apology and the fictional lies he had a ripped jersey, saying the other team behaved like thugs when his own player ripped her own jersey. It’s the disgraceful behavior of a massively insecure bully," he said, via Awful Announcing. "It was petulant, it was classless."

"The fictional visualization of the ripped jersey is unbelievable. The apology didn’t even address the person he offended. We’re all taught to shake hands at the end of a game, no matter what happens. Maybe before a game. He couldn’t even do that. He wandered away, and