SAN ANTONIO — UConn women's basketball coach Geno Auriemma responded to NBA superstar LeBron James’ criticism of a no-call during the final seconds of his team's Elite Eight matchup against Baylor.
James took to Twitter during the highly anticipated game Monday night to call out the refs for failing to call a foul against top-seeded UConn.
In the final moments of the game, Baylor’s DiJonai Carrington was smacked in the face before falling to the floor with her team down by one with one second to go in the River Walk final against UConn.
The Lady Bears wanted a foul called, but UConn felt the no-call was the right decision. Carrington's shot came up well short after contact. But she didn’t get the opportunity to go the free throw line since no foul was called.
Baylor lost 69-67, ending its reign as national champion.
“Cmon man!!! That was a FOUL!!,” James tweeted, following that up with another post about what a great game it was.
Former Connecticut All-American Swin Cash agreed with James that her former got away with one.
“I love my Huskies but yeah they missed that foul.... whew child,” she tweeted.
After the game, coach Auriemma stood firm in accepting the lack of a foul, calling out James’ criticism.
"I don't think LeBron has ever won a game on a bad call by the other team, by the other officials," he said. "I probably doubt that in his career he's ever won a game and decided to give it back because he looked at it and went 'that was a foul'.”
Auriemma said things have a way of balancing themselves out.
"So it is what it is, it is what it is, you know. The officials made....one time I asked one of the officials, how did Paige end up on the ground with the Baylor player on top of her on a loose ball,” he said. “He goes, I don’t know. That was the answer, he said, I don’t know. So you know, you want to go back and check every single call throughout the entire game and then add them all up, you don't. And that’s the nature of the sports, that's the nature of sports."
He continued: "We probably, we probably fouled a number of times during the game and we didn’t get called for it. They probably fouled the number of times during the game, and then didn't [get] called for it. Or we got easy, or we got free throws because of non-fouls."
The UConn coach said he is not going to “apologize for it” and knows people will talking about it for the rest of the week – and they are just going to have to live with it.
“You’re welcome to do that. It's not going to change the outcome. And you're not going to make me feel bad that it was a foul."
The Huskies advanced to their 13th consecutive women’s NCAA Final Four.
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