Rebecca Lobo gives Geno Auriemma remote learning lesson to use Instagram Live chat
If it had been any other year, Geno Auriemma would have been at the Final Four on Friday. Instead, the Connecticut Huskies head coach had to learn how to use Instagram Live without the help of any technologically savvy grandchildren.
The reason for this chat was that there’s a quarantine going on, after all.
Auriemma joined his former player, Naismith Hall of Famer Rebecca Lobo, for a live chat on the UConn women’s basketball Instagram page Friday and it started about as well as one would expect. The 66-year-old was absent from the video at first, asked why he only got half the screen, and balked at answering questions from fans.
He taught me how to reach my potential. I taught him how to do an Instagram live. We’re even. (Full hour on the UConnWBB Instagram page.) @UConnWBB https://t.co/KLeumfCuCI
— Rebecca Lobo (@RebeccaLobo) April 3, 2020
“You don’t have a grandchild there who can help you figure this out,” Lobo, an ESPN analyst, asked.
“No,” Auriemma answered. “We’re quarantined, man. I’m the only one in the house. How am I supposed to do this?”
Auriemma did eventually get the hang of it, though it took him 45 minutes to figure out how to get on Instagram and he Facetimed the team’s sports information director, Anna LaBonte, to help him do it.
Call it his own virtual learning.
Geno said "You gotta laugh to keep yourself from crying" during the coronavirus crisis.
Some highlights of his livestream with Rebecca Lobo earlier today, starting with Geno vs. Instagram: pic.twitter.com/dKgmBuvsdx— Daniel Connolly (@DanielVConnolly) April 3, 2020
“I could be in Washington. I could be in charge,” Auriemma quipped. He later added a joke about coronavirus being “scared s—less” of the Serbians.
He won’t be taking hot takes like that to Twitter any time soon, either. He’s self-banned so he doesn’t “get in trouble” as often.
Why Geno self-banned himself from Twitter pic.twitter.com/DZmepfh6E3
— Daniel Connolly (@DanielVConnolly) April 3, 2020
Auriemma addresses best of brackets, national championship
In the hour-long conversation, he threw in some digs at fans voting in the best player of all time bracket on the Huskies Twitter page. And he roasted the ESPN voters, too, for deciding Michael Jordan was the best of all time. Many have taken it to task for not being Breanna Stewart, a four-time national champion, but he thinks it’s Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
As for the NCAA tournament that was canceled last month due to the pandemic, he said he thought Oregon and South Carolina would have been in the championship game. Sorry, Dawn Staley, but he gave the edge to Oregon for the experience.
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