The Huskies head coach fired back at the former Notre Dame coach, who criticized ESPN for having what she characterized as a “complete bias” for the Huskies.
Nearly two weeks after former Notre Dame coach Muffet McGraw made critical comments about what she perceived as “complete bias” by ESPN toward UConn’s women’s basketball program, Huskies head coach Geno Auriemma has fired back.
“I guess Muffet’s bored. I guess she don’t have a whole lot to talk about,” Auriemma said, per Daniel Connolly of The UConn Blog. "Usually when she was coaching, when she did talk nobody listened anyways."
On Dec. 22, McGraw spoke with Kate Fagan and Jessica Smetana on the Off the Looking Glass podcast, saying the popular sports network is biased towards the Huskies.
“UConn has done great things and they’ve won way more than anybody else, except Tennessee,“ McGraw said. “I think people measure their team by them. When we joined the Big East, we were like, ‘We want to get to where they are. That’s what we want to be. We’re trying to emulate them.’
“But I think it goes over the top with ESPN. That is Connecticut’s network. Notre Dame has NBC, Connecticut has ESPN. That is absolutely complete bias there.”
McGraw was the head coach at Notre Dame for over 30 years, winning two national championships. She led the Irish to nine Final Four appearances and was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2017. She now works as an analyst with the ACC Network, which is operated by ESPN.
Auriemma has won 11 NCAA titles at Connecticut and made 21 Final Four appearances.
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