M
Mike Uva
Guest
Yesterday on the Paul Finebaum Show, Dawn Staley appeared via phone and the very first question she was asked was from Finebaum was about the cancellation of Thursday’s UConn game.
Following Sunday’s win against Vanderbilt, Staley explained that with the postponement to their Ole Miss game on Jan. 2, they knew that they needed to make that game up to ensure that they played a full conference slate. Yesterday on Finebaum, Staley provided a deeper look into what went into that thought process to cancel their game against UConn and replace it with Ole Miss, on that same date:
Staley: "I wanted to play the game (against UConn) but I also know that us playing that game and what it would do to the rest of our schedule would’ve just been inequitable for our team and equitable for the teams we would’ve had to play once we had to play Ole Miss on a Tuesday.
“We just played Monday, we would’ve played UConn on Thursday then turn around and play at Florida on Sunday and then we would have had to play Ole Miss (two days later) on Tuesday. Knowing that we already had two games on Thursday and Sunday, I thought it was too much. Ole Miss had January 27th off (as well) and it just made sense.
“(Geno Auriemma) could’ve said he wanted to play the game (when I told him about our predicament), and obviously TV would’ve probably liked us to play the game but I told him, and I wanted to make sure that I told Geno, that if this game was canceled, people are gonna look at it; I don’t want you guys to look bad. I didn’t want UConn to look bad in this whole equation so I told him we were gonna take the hit because it’s us - we’re the ones that are in this position in our league and we’re the ones that have to take the initiative and it canceled the game. He agreed with that and once we talked the administrators actually got together and started doing their thing. I just wanted to make sure we keep our rivalry going beyond this particular year."
Following Sunday’s win against Vanderbilt, Staley explained that with the postponement to their Ole Miss game on Jan. 2, they knew that they needed to make that game up to ensure that they played a full conference slate. Yesterday on Finebaum, Staley provided a deeper look into what went into that thought process to cancel their game against UConn and replace it with Ole Miss, on that same date:
Staley: "I wanted to play the game (against UConn) but I also know that us playing that game and what it would do to the rest of our schedule would’ve just been inequitable for our team and equitable for the teams we would’ve had to play once we had to play Ole Miss on a Tuesday.
“We just played Monday, we would’ve played UConn on Thursday then turn around and play at Florida on Sunday and then we would have had to play Ole Miss (two days later) on Tuesday. Knowing that we already had two games on Thursday and Sunday, I thought it was too much. Ole Miss had January 27th off (as well) and it just made sense.
“(Geno Auriemma) could’ve said he wanted to play the game (when I told him about our predicament), and obviously TV would’ve probably liked us to play the game but I told him, and I wanted to make sure that I told Geno, that if this game was canceled, people are gonna look at it; I don’t want you guys to look bad. I didn’t want UConn to look bad in this whole equation so I told him we were gonna take the hit because it’s us - we’re the ones that are in this position in our league and we’re the ones that have to take the initiative and it canceled the game. He agreed with that and once we talked the administrators actually got together and started doing their thing. I just wanted to make sure we keep our rivalry going beyond this particular year."
