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🏀 ESPN rips Geno. Right after a heated interaction between Geno Auriemma and Dawn Staley in the waning moments of` their Final Four matchup on Friday night, ESPN’s Andraya Carter and Chiney Ogwumike offered a sharp and detailed rebuke of Auriemma that would set the narrative for the rest of the weekend.

🏀 Raft wants more. In an interview with Awful Announcing ahead of the Final Four, longtime college basketball announcer Bill Raftery said he hopes to call games for ten more years, even joking that his CBS bosses may have to pry him from his seat before he’s ready.

👀 McAfee returns to the ring. After walking away from WWE commentary last summer, Pat McAfee reappeared this weekend alongside Randy Orton, turning heel and setting up a polarizing new angle ahead of WrestleMania 42 this month — the first to air on ESPN.

📺 Stephen A vs. LeBron, again. After LeBron James made critical statements toward the Grizzlies and the city of Memphis on a YouTube show last week, ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith once again locked horns with the NBA superstar. Smith chastised James for being insensitive toward the city and for involving white content creators in the story — despite Smith drawing ire for very similar comments just last year.

🏈 NFL TV $ estimate. As the NFL begins renegotiations with its existing TV partners and dangles larger packages for streamers like Netflix, researchers at MoffettNathanson are projecting $15.8 billion in revenue for the league’s new broadcast packages. The number would mark a 58 percent increase on the existing deals.

Read more of today’s top stories at Awful Announcing.

From inside the press conference room in Phoenix, the feeling permeating the room was not animosity but confusion.

Geno Auriemma had entered the Final Four on another undefeated streak and exited in shame. The legendary UConn head coach lost his temper in the waning moments of a beatdown at the hands of the Gamecocks, and shown an unusual lack of grace, berating rival coach Dawn Staley for purportedly disrespecting him during the customary pregame handshake.

The problem for Auriemma was that cameras caught the two shaking hands. As that footage trickled onto the social media feeds of reporters in the presser, Auriemma was repeatedly asked versions of the question, “What on Earth are you talking about?” Folks genuinely wanted to give Geno a chance to explain himself. Because neither his behavior nor his stubborn tantrum about being upstaged during a handshake made any sense, even given his past feuds with other coaches during his UConn tenure.

When a reporter told Auriemma of the video showing he and Staley in fact shaking hands, Auriemma claimed we all didn’t understand what he was talking about.

Given the chance to elaborate or specify the issue, Auriemma demurred.

Geno was also caught in a fabrication over the crux of his issue with Staley during the game, which he shared with ESPN’s Holly Rowe at halftime. Auriemma accused Staley of shouting profanities at the officials and swaying the way the game was being called. The example he gave was that his star forward Sarah Strong was being defended so physically that her jersey had been torn up.

But inside that same press conference room moments before Auriemma fielded questions, Strong had confirmed to reporters what our eyes already told us: That she had torn her own jersey in frustration after a missed first-half shot attempt.

Was Geno lying or just explaining himself poorly? Reporters in Phoenix tried desperately to understand. One scrum in a hallway loudly discussed whether there was a second, unknown customary handshake between coaches.

Around the country, though, the rest of the media knew what it had seen. In a somewhat unusual pattern, columnists and podcast hosts around the country roundly shredded Auriemma while the in-person contingent pressed for answers. The tide turned on Auriemma before his weak response had even been published.

Perhaps we should have expected this, given that ESPN’s postgame show slammed Auriemma as soon as it went to air. Credit to Andraya Carter, Chiney Ogwumike and the show’s production staff for disproving Auriemma’s claims with video evidence, then sharply criticizing him for allowing his temper to overshadow the game’s biggest stage and Friday’s winning teams.

By the time Auriemma apologized on Saturday, still without mentioning Staley by name, it was too late. Most of the top opinion writers and commentators in sports had come out against him. The tide had turned against the most famous figure in women’s college basketball, a favorite across the media.

Auriemma has clashed with rivals before, lost his cool just a week ago toward the NCAA and tournament organizers. But this was different: Outlandish behavior, blatant lying, and an ugly loss.

The easy bet is that UConn will be right back in the Final Four next year, and the run of dominance in Storrs will continue. But the cracks are showing in the media’s support for Auriemma.

No matter how hard the women’s college basketball media contingent looked for answers in Phoenix on Friday, they could not find an answer that made Auriemma look like anything but the poor loser and unprofessional bully he was that night.

Within moments of the Chicago Bulls cutting Jaden Ivey following the young guard’s anti-LGBTQ tirade on Instagram Live, the story became far more of a media one than a basketball one.

Predictably, many conservative media outlets painted Ivey as an icon of the religious right, while mainstream voices struggled to find their lane.

In a live edition of our podcast The Play-By-Play, I was joined by managing editor Sean Keeley to discuss the media reaction to the Ivey story, and the change from the “cancel culture” debate to a more reductive focus on “freedom of speech.”

“Mike, I was talking to my friends, man. And I was talking about eradicated, obliterated, devastated. They thought I was talking about Iran. But I was talking about the Bulls.” - MSG Network’s Walt “Clyde” Frazier, supposedly providing pregame analysis of a Knicks-Bulls game.

“There is a zero percent chance we went to the moon.” - ESPN college football analyst Greg McElroy, on his Alabama radio show.

“I don’t have any evidence that you can truly build a brand through social media now like I did 15 years ago.” - Bomani Jones, arguing that social media algorithms are now geared toward video clips and aggregators over individuals’ original content.

“The phone went to green. I DM’d her, no response.” - Barstool’s Dave Portnoy, revealing that WNBA phenom Caitlin Clark is ghosting him after he got into a spat with her boyfriend, who works for the Butler men’s program and is the son of former Iowa head coach Fran McCaffery.

“…I think the Dolphins were wise in understanding my relationships around the league and knowing that I have information that they don’t have or can’t get.” - Troy Aikman, saying the quiet part out loud about his role with the Miami Dolphins. Definitely what you want to hear from an active ESPN commentator!

“…if you took the top junior player in the world, the top 17 year-old and put him up against Sabalenka, they beat her 6-1, 6-1 or something.” - ESPN commentator and famously great guy Patrick McEnroe, discussing his and some teenagers’ chances against world women’s No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka.

Heading into the NCAA women’s Final Four in Phoenix, I had a chance to speak with ESPN’s Christine Williamson on the process of replacing Elle Duncan on NCAA Women’s Championship Live alongside Andraya Carter and Chiney Ogwumike.

Williamson opened up about the learning curve covering women’s college basketball for the first time, ingratiating herself with the fan base, and more.

Read the full story here.