It's UConn-Tennessee In Battle Of Saving Face, And Geno Auriemma's The Winner Over Candace Parker | Patricia Babcock McGraw

It might be an unwritten rule of the universe: those associated with the Tennessee women’s basketball program and those associated with the Connecticut women’s basketball program are never supposed to be besties or trusted confidants. Like ever.

But, even the late, great Pat Summitt, the legendary coach at Tennessee who succumbed to Alzheimer’s disease in 2016, might advise arguably her best player ever, Candace Parker, to take some cues from her greatest adversary ever, Connecticut women’s basketball coach Geno Auriemma.

Geno Auriemma (Photo: Randy Snyder, Icon SMI/Icon Sport Media via Getty) and Candace Parker (Photo: GFiume, Getty)

“For the love of Rocky Top, Candace,” Summitt might (but probably would never!) say, “be like Geno, and know when to button it and move on.”

TAMPA - Candace Parker (L) and head coach Pat Summitt of the University of Tennessee women's basketball team participate in a National Championship Press Conference on April 9, 2008 at the Hyatt Regency. Matt Marriott/NCAA Photos via Getty Images

Beware The Social Media Trolls, Haters And Antagonists

Over the last week, both Auriemma and Parker have taken some direct shots on social media. Harsh ones.

How they handled those shots…quite different.

Geno Auriemma sounded off in a presser after a game at St. John’s about the problems with NIL and the transfer portal. Meanwhile, Parker opined on TV about New York Knicks guard Jalen Brunson and his effectiveness in the playoffs.

Loyalty, or a lack thereof, was Auriemma’s main point. He seemed dismayed about how transactional women’s basketball, like football, is becoming as players can now transfer willy-nilly, and use NIL money to create bidding wars for their services.

“What kind of relationship can you have with someone who is telling you, ‘I might be here maybe one, maybe two, maybe three years, maybe four, or I may be at four schools in four years,’” Auriemma asked reporters rhetorically. “This has nothing to do with the money. Forget the money part. This is about the ability that you can just walk out at any time you want.

“So how do you coach in an environment where the players feel like they owe you nothing and you owe them everything. What kind of relationship can you have?”

Auriemma then went on to refer indirectly (not by name) to a player who recently transferred from Big East conference foe Seton Hall to Mississippi State. That player, Lauren Park-Lane, took exception to his analysis and so did a tribe of her supporters on social media: from fans to her trainer to one of the superstars of the game, Angel Reese from fellow SEC school LSU.

"Keep my (point guard's) name out your mouth," Park-Lane’s strength trainer, Kaiti Jones, wrote in response to Geno Auriemma.

Geno Auriemma Stays Quiet; Candace Does Not...And Then Doubles Down

Auriemma, wisely, did not get into a social media pissing contest (at least not that I could find) with Park-Lane or with anyone else who spoke up on the topic.

Parker should have channeled her inner UConn Huskie (kidding, Pat...but kinda not kidding!) and followed that example and done the same. Stayed quiet.

She did not. In fact, she doubled down.

Parker took a beating earlier this week from Knicks Nation for her assertion that Brunson faded from the first round to the second round last year in the 2023 NBA Playoffs.

“When the game slows down in the playoffs, and you get jammed up, we’ve seen Jalen Brunson in the playoffs with the , and he was No. 2, No. 3, came in, played minutes, supplemented Luka handling the ball.” Parker said “But as a No. 1 option last year in the playoffs, great first round, second round not so much.”

The problem is, here were Brunson’s stats from the first and second rounds last year:

First round: 24 ppg, 4.8 apg, 4.2 rpg; Second round: 31 ppg, 6.3 apg, 5.5 rpg

Ummmmm. Someone didn’t do her homework. Brunson’s numbers actually got BETTER!

And thanks to social media, Parker found out exactly how brutal it can be sometimes to be a part of the media.

You get facts wrong…WATCH OUT!

Knicks fans went off on Parker’s mistake and then went off on her even more when she got into a social media back-and-forth to “explain/justify” her commentary.

“I get it Knicks (fans). Everything someone says, you take it personally,” Parker wrote on X. “My comments yesterday have NOTHING to do with what I think about Brunson as a player. I think he’s an Fn monster. I love Villanova guards and Jay Wright. Having a helluva season…ALL STAR!”

Someone named KnicksMuse replied: “Pinning this on us instead of simply admitting you made a basic mistake is wild.”

Said Cynical: “If you want to be (on) national TV, be prepared to get cooked if you’re flagrantly wrong.”

Parker also tried to explain on X that people were missing her original point, which was that she was trying to add to the discussion about whether it is possible to win a “CHAMPIONSHIP with a small player (like Brunson) as your best player,” she wrote.

She made some good points on that topic. However, they were completely lost as she went deeper and deeper into providing a social media defense against Knicks fans.

Know When To Quit When You're Ahead

Like Parker, Auriemma had some flaws in his original commentary. His comments weren't bullet-proof and did open him to criticism.

His indirect reference to Park-Lane was a bad example of the NIL/transfer problem, considering that Park-Lane was a four-year player at Seton Hall and showed nothing but loyalty to that program before transferring elsewhere for a bonus fifth year.

But, because Auriemma didn’t keep adding logs to the ensuing social media dumpster fire, his overarching point about the significant challenges that NIL money and the transfer portal present to team chemistry and player/coach relations still strongly resonates.

Does anyone even remember Parker’s original point now?

Barely, if not at all. And that’s the point. Now, the story is all about the fact that she’s in a brutal war of social media one-upmanship with Knicks fans.

Pat Summitt might (no, definitely) would choke on these words, but she’d be right to tell Parker to “take some social media cues from Geno, girlfriend.”

In real life, silence, unless you issue an apology (which Parker hasn’t done as I write this), is sometimes better than getting the last word.

In the world of social media, that goes ten-fold.

This time, Tennessee Nation, Uncle Geno’s got it right.

Geno Auriemma of Connecticut gets the Dub over Candace Parker of Tennessee in this week's battle of Social Media Saving-Face. (Photo by Benjamin Solomon/Getty Images)

So what do you think? Is there a preferred way to handle social media controversy? Did Geno get it more right than Candace? Share your thoughts: @patricia.babcockmcgraw@outkick.com