Candace Parker curse over UConn, Geno Auriemma seems real

It’s official, Geno Auriemma and the UConn Huskies are in their longest national title drought since the program won its first back in 1995. Former Tennessee Lady Vols superstar Candace Parker seems to have something to do with that.

In 2016, Auriemma made the vindictive decision to leave Parker off the U.S. Olympic team. At the time, UConn was in the midst of what would be the longest winning streak in women’s or men’s college basketball history. They had also won four straight national titles.

Auriemma made the decision less than a month after his most recent national title. Later that summer, Pat Summitt tragically passed away. Then Auriemma led the U.S. Women’s Basketball Team to a gold medal for the third time in his career a month and a half later. He hasn’t matched that success since.

Parker won her first WNBA Finals and Finals MVP that same year. Auriemma got his winning streak to 111 games the next season before losing to the Mississippi State Bulldogs in the Final Four. The next year, his team went undefeated in the regular season again only to lose to the Notre Dame Fighting Irish in the Final Four.

As we know, Parker won WNBA Defensive Player of the Year in 2020, and she then joined the Chicago Sky to win another WNBA Championship in 2021. Auriemma suffered three more Final Four losses, losing to the South Carolina Gamecocks Sunday night.

Perhaps it was the Curse of Candace Parker. It could be the Curse of Pat Summitt. However, making the decision to humiliate Parker like that when her coach and mentor was dying was a low blow, and make no mistake, it was a decision to humiliate her. Just listen to Parker talk about it.

The only way Auriemma doesn’t look horrendous is if Parker’s lying. Not only is that unlikely, but Auriemma hasn’t refuted anything she said. Taking that into account, the safest assumption is that Auriemma left Parker off the team out of sheer spite.

Given the fact that Parker didn’t commit to UConn, led UT to its most recent two national championships and never lost to UConn while on Rocky Top, it’s just as reasonable that this was Auriemma’s way of getting revenge. Still, it speaks to his character in a big way.

Well, he’s still looking for his first national title since that decision. To humiliate him even further, Aliyah Boston, who had 11 points and 16 rebounds for South Carolina in their win against UConn Sunday, decided to shout out Parker, who was in the audience, after the game.

Since that low-class decision to cut Parker out of pettiness, UConn has continued its Final Four streak, which is up to 14 years. However, they have made five straight and not won a title, which seems unprecedented, and two of those include undefeated regular seasons.

Right now, they are on six straight years without a title, but the drought is five years since COVID shut down 2020. Before that, Auriemma had never gone four years since that ’95 title. The ghost of Pat Summitt and the aura of Candace Parker continue to hang over him.