Six weeks after his team lost to South Carolina in the Final Four, UConn coach Geno Auriemma said Monday that he felt “dumb” for how his heated postgame exchange with Gamecocks coach Dawn Staley 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. Auriemma sparked a firestorm of criticism after he went over to Staley in the final seconds of South Carolina’s 62-48 victory at the Final Four in Phoenix and appeared to chastise her.
