Sports

Geno Auriemma Says That UConn Huskies Should ‘Shut The F*** Up And Win Games’

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Geno Auriemma is an immensely successful basketball coach.

In fact, Auriemma is the most success women’s college basketball coach of all-time in terms of national championships (11) and is just six victories behind Stanford’s Tara VanDerveer for the most wins of all-time.

But Auriemma’s UConn Huskies aren’t exactly the unstoppable force they once were.

He took over as the head coach at UConn in 1985. Starting in 1993, the Huskies went 30 YEARS without losing back-to-back games.

But that unbelievable stretch came to an end last season with consecutive losses to South Carolina and Marquette.

Since the 30-year streak began, the Huskies have won 11 NCAA Tournaments, made 21 Final Four appearances and won 24 conference championships. They’d made at least the Elite Eight of the NCAA Tournament every season since 2004-5.

But that streak, too, came to an end this past season when UConn lost to Ohio State, 73-61, in the Sweet 16.

Superstar guard Paige Bueckers returns for the Huskies in 2023-24 after tearing her ACL in August of 2022. The year prior, Bueckers played just 17 games after tearing her lateral meniscus, requiring surgery.

But Auriemma isn’t worried about a comeback story, or a redemption arc. Instead, he put it much more bluntly when asked about the season to come on Tuesday.

“It’s more important what we see every day, not what we hear,” Auriemma said of his team. “This isn’t a 1970s rock band out for their 60th tour and they have to give every tour a name. Everybody’s got ‘redeem team’ and everybody’s got ‘reload team’ and everybody’s got ‘unfinished business team’ and everybody’s got all this stuff going out there, you know. Maybe we’re not very social media savvy. How about we just shut the f*** up and win games? How about we just do that? Maybe that’s what the tour should be. Shut the f*** up and win games.”

UConn fans were fired up by the message.

If the Huskies win another national championship in 2024, we can only imagine the amount of merch with ‘shut the f*** up and win games’ on it.