NCAAW: Auriemma argues NIL, revenue sharing is to blame for toxic locker rooms

If there’s one thing UConn’s Geno Auriemma knows, it’s great coaching. Ever since he took over as the Huskies’ head coach in 1985, he has cultivated an environment that has spawned generations of athletes who all look back on their time at the school with happiness and pride.

Unfortunately, this isn’t always the case. The Sweet 16 and Elite Eight were packed with a lot of incredible basketball, but in between games, a theme emerged: Players like Hailey Van Lith and Sedona Prince opened up about the mistreatment they suffered at different programs, apparently at the hands of coaches and cultures that harmed them.

In response to a question asked by Swish Appeal during a Thursday’s press conference ahead of UConn’s Final Four game against UCLA, Auriemma said there are a lot of things that can contribute to a toxic program, but there are two factors that contribute to toxicity in 2025: revenue sharing and NIL.

There’s an “incredible” pressure to win—a pressure on coaches, teams and schools—that is born of a still-new dynamic that sees players being treated as employees rather than student-athletes. And though that shouldn’t mean those “employees” are treated badly, it’s well known that not all “work” environments are created equal. “The pressure to win is only going to get greater,” he explained. “‘You mean I’m paying you guys, and this is what I’ve got to work with? Somebody’s getting fired.’”

Women’s college basketball is “only going to get more pressure-packed,” he added, so the question becomes: How does a coach react under pressure? Auriemma elaborated:

If you’ve been there, done that, and you’re secure, you just stay the course. If you’re young, you’re trying to make a name for yourself, and you’re close but not quite there… [you think], “Well, I can buy a team. It’s better than recruiting one, I’ve got to wait forever for them to get better.”

He continued:

Well now, the kids all know that they came to your school to get paid. And when everybody’s getting paid and they find out who’s getting paid what… the animosity now between coaches and players, it used to be that players didn’t like that coaches have all the power. Now coaches hate the fact that players have all the power. Players on the team hate each other because of what one is getting and not getting… and all of a sudden, no one’s coming there to win a national championship. They’re coming there to build their brand, to make their money, and, “Oh, by the way, if we get to the Final Four, wouldn’t that be cool?”

Van Lith and Prince both transferred to TCU and helped lead the program to the Elite Eight for the first time in program history. Van Lith, who spent three years at Louisville and one at LSU before joining the Horned Frogs, told reporters she felt “trapped” at earlier stages in her career.

“When I was younger in college, I was suicidal, I was heavily medicated and felt trapped. And you would never know it because I was having a ton of success on the court,” she explained. “But internally, and in life in general, I was ready to be done.”

Prince, who played at Texas her freshman year, was confronted with her own demons when the Horned Frogs faced the Longhorns in Birmingham earlier this week. While speaking to reporters after the game, she looked back on her time in Austin. “I don’t think I really realized how much it affected me until probably this year, to be honest. But, yeah, I mean, I’m from Austin, raised in Austin, committed in eighth grade,” she said.

Prince added:

Texas was my dream school, 40 minutes from where I grew up, and my family. I won’t go into details, because it’s a long time ago, and there are things if you want to go research it but—yeah, I mean, it was a very, very difficult year for me as a young woman, as a young player to be thinking I was a part of a family and to be treated in the way that I was.