UConn Huskies coach Geno Auriemma once talked about how fierce his former player Paige Bueckers‘ trash-talking game was. In July 2023, Auriemma appeared on The Connecticut Forum’s season finale, entitled “Husky Nation!”, wherein he was asked about his thoughts on his players engaging in trash-talk with opponents.
Auriemma shared a story of Bueckers’ trash-talk getting into the heads of one of the male practice players during a Huskies practice session in her first year of college basketball.
“We had a practice, and one of our practice players got a bucket in Paige’s freshman year. He turned around and he looked at CD (associate head coach Chris Dailey) and he went like, ‘HUH!,’ in one of our practices and CD was like, ‘What’s wrong with this guy?’ Like, all right, we’ve got to find what’s going on here. And he said, ‘CD, I’m sorry, but you have no idea what she’s (Bueckers) saying every time she comes in the lane,'” Auriemma said (1:28).
“What she would say under her breath to those guys, you don’t want to know. So I get it, it’s part of the game, but when it comes back to you, you’ve got to be able to take it,” he added.
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Coach Auriemma and the Huskies are coming off a 2024-25 season in which they won their program its 12th national title in history.
They did this by defeating the 2024 national champions, the South Carolina Gamecocks, in this year’s national championship game by 23 points, 82-59.
Geno Auriemma says Diana Taurasi is the greatest trash-talker of all time in women’s basketball
During the same interview, coach Geno Auriemma opined that the greatest trash-talker of all time in women’s basketball is WNBA legend Diana Taurasi, who retired from professional basketball earlier this year.
“I was fortunate to coach the greatest trash-talker in the history of women’s basketball, Diana Taurasi. So, I like when they do it and nobody knows it because if you do it and you show somebody up bad like that knucklehead from the Grizzlies who’s talking about LeBron, like if you’re going to say that then you better back it up,” Auriemma said (0:25).
At the time, the Memphis Grizzlies, who had Dillon Brooks, matched up against the LA Lakers in the first round of the 2023 NBA Playoffs. Brooks was notoriously loud and brash when it came to trash-talk throughout the series. Brooks and the Grizzlies lost to the Lakers, 4-2. With this, Auriemma revealed that he prefers Taurasi’s more laid-back style.
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