Connecticut coach Geno Auriemma, disappointed by a half-full arena for Tuesday's home NCAA tournament game, says his team's fans have been spoiled by years of the Huskies' dominance in women's college basketball.
"I think it's probably natural. I guess we need to win more," Auriemma said after UConn advanced to its 18th straight Sweet 16 with a 64-60 win over Purdue in the second round of the NCAA tournament. "Everybody loves a winner, you know."
"Maybe we should offer free parking, more giveaways," he added. "We should let some of the fans coach the team, maybe a guest coach every quarter."
Auriemma's comments came after an announced crowd of 5,729 watched the last home game of star Maya Moore's college career. That's a little more than half of the 10,027-seat capacity at Gampel Pavilion, the school's on-campus basketball facility.
UConn has won 112 of its past 113 games -- with the lone loss, on Dec. 30 against Stanford, snapping a 90-game winning streak -- and the past two Division I national championships.
"We have a spoiled group of fans who assume we are going to win, who assumed we would be in Philadelphia [for the regionals] and be at the Final Four," Auriemma said. "We had the season, the Big East in Hartford and now the NCAA tournament. You are asking them to do a lot. So I think we don't bid on [hosting the NCAA first round] for five years."
-ESPN.com
I don't think there is a more delusional, pompous, piece of shitake mushroom (you like that mrs. dunn? see what I did there?) in all of sports than Geno Aureimma. It pains me to even think this man is an Italian brother of mine. But honestly, what does Geno expect? He has developed a monopoly on the game of women's basketball (notice "game" not "sport") and he expects people to actually still watch? I have lived with UCONN people for 13 years of my life, and I can tell you that the most hardcore fans in CT are the UCONN Women's fans. They are fierce and literally I am scared of them. The only problem is they are all 50-95 year old women; and after going to every game for the past 5 years and watching their team win by 80 each game they have to say "eh I'll think i'll sit the 1st and 2nd round games against east timbuktoo U out." I mean let's be real, Women's basketball is not even that great of a product. Scratch that it is not a great product at all, and Geno is lucky to have more sellouts than the Boston College Men's team has had in it's entire existence. The poor girls at BC give tickets away and still barely get 1000 fans...and they are good. 6,000 fans aint enough for big bad Geno? Heres a thought, how bout you don't play 25 games at home, then have your conference tourney at home, and then play the ncaa tourney at home for the first two rounds.How many games do you want your fans to see? Why doesn't Geno take his monopoly out to Palo Alto and play the first two rounds on Stanford's home floor? Bottom line is Geno needs to get a grip on reality and realize he's lucky people give two shitakes about him and his team.
Posted by Mucc.
Dude honestly, it was like every senior citizen center in Connecticut took a field trip to the game yesterday. And I wasn't even at the game that's just from walking around campus.
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