Geno Auriemma taking an undefeated UConn team to Final Four for 9th time

Geno Auriemma is taking an undefeated UConn team into the women’s Final Four for the ninth time.

This group, while extremely talented like the rest, is a bit different than the previous ones for the coach.

Auriemma recalls those earlier teams with AP Player of the Year winners Sue Bird, Diana Taurasi, Tina Charles, Maya Moore and Breanna Stewart as having “that kind of swagger, trash-talking kind of mentality” when wondering why people were surprised that they hadn’t lost any games.

“We don’t walk around with that attitude,” Auriemma said. “That’s why I think, for me, I just keep my fingers crossed because it’s not the kind of team that I’ve had in the past that has gone this far undefeated. It’s not. They don’t have that kind of mentality off the court, on the court.”

The NCAA’s winningest men’s or women’s coach with 1,288 victories and 12 national championships instead calls them “just a bunch of really nice kids that play hard for each other.”

They are an unbeaten bunch with their own AP All-America teammates Azzi Fudd and Sarah Strong going for their second national title, along with Big East Conference top freshman Blanca Quiñonez. They have a 54-game winning streak that began with three-time All-America guard and WNBA top overall pick Paige Bueckers during the Huskies’ championship run last year, and could give Auriemma only his second 40-0 record in 41 seasons.

“What we’ve done the last (38) games was all in preparation for moments like this,” said Fudd, the fifth-year star guard seen all over TV commercials and social media during March Madness. ”So when it comes down to it, we have full confidence in ourselves, in each other. We know the coaches feel the same.”

UConn (38-0) is in its record 25th Final Four since the women's NCAA Tournament debuted 44 years ago. Part of a quartet of all No. 1 seeds in Phoenix, and the same four teams as last year, its semifinal Friday will be against South Carolina (35-3) in a rematch of last year’s national championship game.

These Huskies are winning by an NCAA-best average margin of 37.8 points a game, with a 72-69 win over Sweet 16 team Michigan in November their only game decided by fewer than 13 points. They have set NCAA single-season records with their 890 assists (23.4 per game) and 597 steals (15.7 per game), and also are tops nationally in scoring defense (50.1 ppg) and field goal shooting — both on offense (52%) and defense (33.4%).

Sophomore standout forward Strong averages 18.6 points, 7.6 rebounds and 3.9 assists. Fudd, the most outstanding player in last year’s Final Four after coming back from a torn ACL that limited her to two games during the 2023-24 season, is at a career-best 17.5 points per game.

Quiñonez, also selected as the Big East’s top sixth player, has at least 15 points in each NCAA Tournament game, the best four-game stretch of her young career while making 27 of 43 (62.7%) of her shots.

This is the 10th season since UConn's sixth and last undefeated national title in 2016, a 38-0 team with a roster of eight future pros that included four-time champions Stewart and Moriah Jefferson in their senior seasons when Napheesa Collier and Katie Lou Samuelson were freshmen.

“That 2016 team was very, very mature,” Auriemma said. “This is a very young team doing it in a completely different way. ... This isn't that (2016) team, but they find their own way to get the same things done."

That ended an unprecedented run of four championships in a row (2013-16), and a span of six titles in eight seasons for the Huskies, who then didn't win another one until last year.

After Gabby Williams, Collier and Samuelson returned from that 2016 title team, UConn got into the Final Four undefeated again in 2017 and 2018 before losing on last-second overtime shots in back-to-back national semifinal games.

The Huskies' 111-game winning streak and championship run came to a stunning end in 2017 when Morgan William made a game-ending basket in Mississippi State's 66-64 win. The coach then for the Bulldogs was Vic Schaefer, now in his sixth season at Texas and with the Longhorns in their second consecutive Final Four.

UConn was 36-0 again in 2018 before Arike Ogunbowale's jumper with a second left gave Notre Dame a 91-89 semifinal win.

Six of Auriemma's national championship teams finished undefeated. His very first title was a 35-0 team in 1994-95 with Rebecca Lobo and 6-foot-7 center Kara Wolters.

Bird was part of two titles, including the 39-0 championship team in 2002, when Taurasi was a sophomore for the first of three consecutive championships though the last two weren't undefeated.

Four-time All-America forward Moore and Charles were part of back-to-back 39-0 teams that won the 2009 and 2010 national titles. UConn's only 40-0 championship came in 2014, when Stewart was a sophomore and won the first of three consecutive AP Player of the Year Awards — more than any other player.

AP March Madness bracket: https://apnews.com/hub/ncaa-womens-bracket and coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness

FILE - Connecticut coach Geno Auriemma, center, watches the crowd with Breanna Stewart, left, and Moriah Jefferson during a parade in Hartford, Conn., on Sunday, April 13, 2014, celebrating their recent NCAA national championship. (AP Photo/Fred Beckham)

FILE - Connecticut's Tina Charles (31), Kalana Greene (32), Maya Moore (23) and Renee Montgomery (20) celebrate behind coach Geno Auriemma in the final moments of Connecticut's 83-64 win over Stanford in a semifinal of the NCAA women's college basketball tournament Final Four on Sunday, April 5, 2009, in St. Louis.. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson, File)

FILE - UConn guard Azzi Fudd (35) shoots over Creighton guard Jayme Horan (12) as UConn head coach Geno Auriemma looks on during the second half of an NCAA college basketball game in the finals of the Big East Conference tournament, Monday, March 10, 2025, in Uncasville, Conn. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill, File)

UConn head coach Geno Auriemma is presented with a Fort Worth Regional Champion trophy after his team defeated Notre Dame in the Elite Eight of the NCAA college basketball tournament, Sunday, March 29, 2026, in Fort Worth, Texas. (AP Photo/LM Otero)

LONDON (AP) — U.S. President Donald Trump says he's strongly considering pulling the United States out of NATO, ratcheting up his criticism of European allies and exposing a wider rift in the trans-Atlantic alliance — this time over the Iran war.

While Trump's talk of a possible NATO pullout dates back years, the comments to The Telegraph newspaper in the U.K., published Wednesday, were among the clearest and most disparaging yet — suggesting that the fracture has deepened perhaps to a point of no return.

Asked whether he would reconsider U.S. membership in the alliance after the conflict in the Middle East ends, Trump replied: “Oh yes, I would say (it’s) beyond reconsideration."

NATO didn't provide immediate comment when contacted by The Associated Press.

U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer said that his government was “fully committed to NATO” and called it “the single most effective military alliance the world has ever seen.”

Many European leaders have felt political pressure over the war, which faces opposition in their countries and has sent petroleum prices soaring as Iran has effectively shut the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway between Iran and Oman through which about one-fifth of the world’s oil passes.

“Whatever the pressure on me and others, whatever the noise, I am going to act in the British national interest in all the decisions I make,” Starmer said Wednesday.

The U.K. is working on plans that could help assuage Trump, and Starmer said military planners will work on a postwar security plan for the Strait.

On Thursday, British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper will host a virtual meeting of 35 countries that have signed up to help ensure security for shipping in the Strait — after the fighting ends.

Iulia-Sabina Joja, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, alluded to Trump's exhortation on Tuesday for allies to “go get your own oil” — in a social media post insisting it wasn't America's job to secure the Strait.

“The Europeans are not keen to go into an active warfare situation, to so-called ‘get’ their energy out of the Strait,” said Joba, a former deputy project manager at NATO Allied Command Transformation in Virginia.

Long-simmering tensions within the alliance have bubbled up again over the war.

As energy prices have spiked, Trump has been desperate to get countries to send their ships to the Strait of Hormuz. He has called NATO allies “cowards."

Even since his first term, Trump has urged the allies to assume greater responsibility for their own security and spend more on defense. He has argued that the U.S. has done more for them than the other way around.

A U.S. pullout would essentially spell the end of NATO, which flourished for decades under American leadership.

Speaking Tuesday on Fox News, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said: “I do think, unfortunately, we are going to have to reexamine whether or not this alliance that has served this country well for a while is still serving that purpose.”

Rubio raised questions with interviewer Sean Hannity about whether NATO has “become a one-way street where America is simply in a position to defend Europe — but when we need the help of our allies, they’re going to deny us basing rights and they’re going to deny us overflight.”

The criticism from Rubio could raise concerns in the alliance about whether the U.S. under Trump may no longer consider NATO as worth the time, money and personnel that Washington has invested in it.

The very mention of a pullout could weaken the alliance’s deterrence, particularly with Russia: It relies on ensuring that Russian President Vladimir Putin believes NATO will retaliate if he decides to one day expand Moscow's war in Ukraine.

NATO is built on Article 5 of its founding treaty, which pledges that an attack on any one member will be met with a response from them all.

As the Iran war has spread, missiles and drones have been fired toward NATO member Turkey and a British military base on Cyprus, fueling speculation about what might prompt NATO to trigger its collective security guarantee and come to their rescue.

The alliance hasn't intervened or signaled any plan to. NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte — who has voiced support for Trump and Washington's role in the alliance — has been focusing mostly on the Russia-Ukraine war since Ukraine borders four NATO countries.

NATO operates uniquely by consensus. All 32 countries must agree for it to take decisions, so political priorities play a role. Even invoking Article 5 requires agreement among the allies. Turkey or the U.K. can't trigger it alone.

The U.S. can’t just simply walk away all that easy.

A Defense Act passed under U.S. President Joe Biden in 2024 prevents an American president from withdrawing from NATO without support of two-thirds of the Senate or under another act by Congress. It is unclear whether the Trump administration, which during his first term claimed broader authority on the matter, would challenge that law.

European leaders have called for the Middle East conflict to stop and want the U.S. and Iran to return to negotiations over Tehran's nuclear program, which Washington and Israel see as a threat.

The vocal opposition in Europe to Trump's war against Iran has started to turn into action.

Spain has closed its airspace to U.S. planes involved in the war.

Early last month, France agreed to let the U.S. Air Force use a base in southern France after receiving a “full guarantee” from the United States that planes not involved in carrying out strikes against Iran would land there.

The government of Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni, long seen as one of the European Union leaders with the best personal ties with Trump, denied permission for U.S. bombers to land at the Sigonella air base in Sicily for one mission related to the Middle East.

Franco Pavoncello, a professor of political science at Rome’s John Cabot University, said that decision might cost Meloni a lot of her political capital in Washington.

But he said: “The Italian government could not be seen by the European allies as too submissive to American interests, as it would have very negative repercussions both at home and in the EU.”

U.S. relations with Europe had already soured in recent months over Trump's call for Greenland — a semiautonomous territory of stalwart NATO ally Denmark — to become part of the United States, prompting many EU countries to rally behind Copenhagen.

Jamey Keaten reported from Geneva. Lorne Cook in Brussels, Giada Zampano in Rome, Sam McNeil in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and Matthew Lee in Washington, contributed to this report.

President Donald Trump answers questions from reporters after signing an executive order in the Oval Office of the White House Tuesday, March 31, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer speaks during a press conference at Downing Street in London, Wednesday, April 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Frank Augstein, Pool)

Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer speaks during a press conference at Downing Street in London, Wednesday, April 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Frank Augstein, Pool)

Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer speaks during a press conference at Downing Street in London, Wednesday, April 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Frank Augstein, Pool)