The UConn Huskies men’s basketball team is one win away from reaching their third national championship in the last four years.

The Huskies got to the Final Four after a stunning Elite Eight win over the Duke Blue Devils when Braylon Mullins nailed a long 3-pointer to give them the lead right before the final buzzer. Duke reached the game with a victory over the St. John’s Red Storm.

Dan Hurley’s wife, Andrea, weighed in on St. John’s fans seemingly rooting against the Huskies as they took on the Michigan State Spartans in the other Sweet 16 matchup on that side of the bracket. It appeared the rivalry between the two schools is alive and well.

“OK, I’m gonna say it. St. John’s fans … When we went to the game, all those St. John’s fans were rooting against us,” Andrea Hurley said on “The Field of 68: After Dark.” “And that just broke my heart. … It’s really sad. … That’s crappy … That was crappy.”

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Hurley said she was talking to Rick Pitino’s wife during the Big East Championship and asked her how she did it, seemingly forming a bond with the family over the rival school.She added that she may not have wanted to see the Red Storm in the tournament, but didn’t necessarily want to face the Blue Devils either.

Dan Hurley had praise for his wife earlier in the week after he said she was able to keep players from storming the court after Mullins’ shot went in against Duke. UConn may have received a technical foul for going on the court too early, which may have presented a different conversation from the media going into Final Four.

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UConn will take on Illinois in their Final Four matchup. The winner will either play Arizona or Michigan.

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In response to the reader last week who was wondering why so many All-Area basketball players are leaving L.A. for other colleges: Mick Cronin.

Paul Kawaguchi
Rosemead

Never needing a filter, UCLA coach Mick Cronin let it fly! In response to the question, what was needed for UCLA to advance further in the NCAA tournament past its early second-round exit, Cronin barked, “About 5 more million!”

Obviously, his inability to retain 7-foot-3 center Aday Mara was frustrating and ultimately devastating. His height, passing and shot-blocking expertise was sorely missed. Add the loss of the Bruins’ leading scorer and rebounder, Tyler Bilodeau, to injury and Cronin was fit to be tied by both lack of funds and the injury bug.

Hopefully, both of those issues will be resolved by next season and UCLA will find itself back in another Final Four as the elite program their history has shown.

Rick Solomon
Lake Balboa

The Los Angeles Times welcomes expressions of all views. Letters should be brief and become the property of The Times. They may be edited and republished in any format. Each must include a valid mailing address and telephone number. Pseudonyms will not be used.

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Friday’s women’s March Madness game between UConn and South Carolina saw an eruption of tempers boiled over as two of the game’s sport’s most legendary coaches got into engaged in a heated sideline confrontation.

UConn’s Geno Auriemma and South Carolina’s Dawn Staley were seen shouting aggressively at each other in the closing moment moments of the game. South Carolina was on the verge of a 62-48 win in the Final Four, when With South Carolina closing in on a 62-48 Final Four win, Auriemma approached Staley, and the exchange began to speak to her aggressively, before the conversation devolved into quickly escalated into a visible shouting match.

After the game, Auriemma did not shake Staley’s hand.

Staley addressed the incident in an interview with ESPN immediately afterward.

“I have no idea, but I’m going to let you know this, I’m of integrity. I’m of integrity,” Staley said. “So if I did something wrong to Geno, I had no idea what I did, I guess he thought I didn’t shake his hand at the beginning of the game, I didn’t know, I went down there pregame, shook everybody on his staff’s hand, I don’t know what we came with after the game, but hey sometimes things get heated. We move on.”

Auriemma was seen shaking Staley’s hand in ESPN footage before the game.

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Auriemma addressed the incident in the postgame press conference.

“I don’t want what happened there to dampen what we were able to accomplish today,” Staley said.

Meanwhile, Auriemma expressed displeasure with Staley and the referees during an in-game interview on ESPN.

“There were six fouls called that quarter — all of them against us,” Auriemma said on the broadcast. “And they’ve been beating the (expletive) out of our guys down there the entire game. I’m not making excuses, ’cause we haven’t been able to make a shot. But this is ridiculous.

“Their coach rants and raves on the sideline and calls the referee some names you don’t want to hear. And now we get 6 to 0, and I got a kid with a ripped jersey, and they go, ‘I didn’t see it.’ Come on, man. It’s for a national championship.”

After the game, Auriemma declined to elaborate on the incident.

“I said what I had to say and… nothing… nothing,” he said when asked what happened with Staley, refusing to tell reporters what he said.

“Why would I say it. I said what I said and obviously she didn’t like it. I just told the truth.”

Auriemma later addressed the speculation over the handshake pre-game and his mid-game interview.

“I don’t have any regrets,” Auriemma said of his mid-game interview.

“I’ve been coaching a long time, I never had a kid have to change their jersey because somebody ripped it and the official said they didn’t see it. There were a lot of things that happened in that game. Unless you’re on that sideline you have no idea what’s happening on that sideline…

“The protocol is, before the game, you meet at halfcourt, anybody ever see that before? The two coaches meet at halfcourt and they shake hands… they announce it on the loud speaker. I waited there for like three minutes.”

Footage of the shouting exchange quickly went viral on social media, with many fans shocked to two of women’s basketball’s most respected figures clash so publicly.

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ESPN star Stephen A. Smith blasted Auriemma for the incident in an X post.

“That was some straight B.S. from the GREAT Geno Auriemma. Never — ever — thought I’d see the day when the greatest woman’s college coach in history would go down so CLASSLESSLY!!! Horrible look, and should be called out for it. He got OUTCOACHED,” Smith wrote. “Plain and simple. And gets in her face like she did something wrong to him instead of being gracious. Had Dawn Staley acted like that we would be all over her.”

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