“Maybe it’s because we were close to New York and we have this inferiority complex that we have to prove to everyone that we’re smarter, tougher and better than everyone else,” said Auriemma. “I think all of us in this area wear that. We know everything about everything. We are smarter than you. We are tougher than you. And everything we don’t know is because we don’t want to know. And everything you know that we don’t know is because you don’t know what we know. We rationalize all of this, believe me.

The press conference room burst into laughter.

There was a lot of Geno-Dawn and Dawn-Geno talk on Saturday and understandably, with compelling titans of the sport representing the two remaining programs. It’s the Final Four funhouse, all sorts of room for conversation and comparison in a week finally remembered for the final two hours of basketball and 40 minutes of playing time.

“I don’t think I’ve won a single national championship, and I don’t think Dawn will win any either,” Auriemma said. “I think his team has a great chance of winning a national championship. I think my team has a chance to win a national championship. I don’t want to speak for Dawn. But I feel like once this game starts, once you give a warning, you kind of relinquish about 80% of control to the players, and they now have the option to win or not. You can coach the best match of your life and lose. You can make the most mistakes you’ve ever made as a game manager, and your team will find a way to win.

So maybe this scene becomes Azzi Fudd’s as if it was once, say, Breanna Stewart’s. Maybe it’s Destanni Henderson as it was once A’ja Wilson. But both teams’ arrival at this point has been guided by compelling Philly personalities who have moved an entire sport forward.

Auriemma has actually won 11 championships, of course. UConn is 11-0 in national championship games.

“We’re 1-0,” Staley said of the Gamecocks’ 2017 title. “So we’re 100% as well.”

More laughter filled the room.

They charted different basketball paths starting in Philadelphia. When Auriemma – Virginia’s assistant coach before Staley got there as a player – first coached UConn to a Final Four in 1991, the Huskies lost to a Virginia team managed by Staley.

Auriemma found himself at UConn in 1985 and turned what looked like an intramural program into a national powerhouse by the time Staley retired as a player in 2006. He is in his 37th season at UConn and won 1,000 more games than he lost, with a career record of 1,149-149 – with more national championships than any college basketball coach in history.

He first broke through here in Minneapolis in 1995 with a victory over Tennessee and Pat Summitt, the longtime rival he had defeated four times in the championship game (1995, 2000, ’02, ’04). He beat Jeff Walz of Louisville in 2009 and 2013, Muffet McGraw of Notre Dame in 2014 and 2015, Sherri Coale of Oklahoma in 2002, Tara VanDerveer of Stanford in 2010 and Quentin Hillsman of Syracuse in 2016.

“He had a legendary career,” Staley said. “Whether people believe it or not, he’s helped our game grow tremendously. I think a lot of what we’re able to do and achieve is because of their success. … If you invest in it, you might end up having similar success. In fact, not even similar success. Just, you might actually scratch the surface and be successful, so it’s going to be cool, competitive.

Staley, one of the best point guards in history, won three Olympic gold medals and played in the WNBA until 2006, long after her 2000 debut as a coach at Temple, where she spent eight years. Hired in South Carolina in 2008, Staley is in her 14th year with the Gamecocks. This is their fourth Final Four appearance and they are 92-8 over the past three seasons. His career record is 365-105 at South Carolina, 537-185 overall.

Auriemma coached the U.S. national team for the gold-medal Olympic races at London 2012 and Rio 2016, with Staley as an assistant for the latter. Staley then took over as coach, leading the United States to gold at the 2020 Tokyo Games. Auriemma was inducted into the Naismith Hall of Fame in 2006, Staley in 2013.

“I think anyone who builds a program that can get to the Final Four and win a national championship and put themselves in a position to do it multiple times has been able to do that by building a solid base, a solid foundation,” Auriemma said. . “She is very, very demanding and very precise in what she wants and what she expects from her players. They play exceptionally strong defensively. Doing all of those things then allows you to recruit a team like the one they have right now – high school All-Americans who want to win a national championship. And once you do that, then that train goes, and it won’t stop as long as she’s here.

Auriemma is 68 and doesn’t even seem ready to consider retirement.

“I won’t be here at 68,” Staley, 51, said.

And there were more laughs.

Geno-Dawn fits so comfortably into preparing for such a national event. It’s not the Geno-Pat rivalry. It’s not Geno-Muffet’s total contempt. It’s not Geno-Jeff’s friendship. It’s unique. He is a man who has built something that may never be equaled. She’s a woman who’s building a program that’s already been successful enough to break into the landscape of a sport that was once so dominated by UConn.

Both will have left a significant mark on the sport each time they leave. UConn will have the impossible task of trying to replace a coach whose success will likely be unmatchable. Staley’s success and exposure will have created more opportunities for black female coaches and black coaches in general.

Auriemma is coaching in his 12th league game, two nights after coaching in a domestic semi-final for the 22nd time. Staley is in his second league game. No player from either team has played in a league game – but one, some of them, will make plays on Sunday night to become the real story of the 2021 season- 22.

“We can talk about the numbers, but the numbers don’t give them any advantage,” Staley said. “The numbers are not going to give us an advantage. Our season, the great season we had, is not going to give us an advantage. We have to play it. They have to play it. He’s not going to think, ‘Oh, we’re 11-0. We have the 12th in the bag. We’re not going to think, ‘Oh, this is UConn. We will automatically win. You can’t go into games thinking that way. You have to play. And we’re going to play off this year. We are not going to play their story.