Indianapolis — Geno Auriemma is usually easier to read than a roadside billboard. This event wouldn't be any different. An awards ceremony, the last one of the day, on the podium at the Final Four. He would receive the Associated Press Coach of the Year.

It would go like this: Thank the players, coaches. Say something humble. Say something funny. Take a few questions. Rinse. Repeat.

This was Saturday in Indy, maybe 4:30 in the afternoon, after he'd already spent 30 minutes at the podium earlier in the day, seemingly having answered every possible question.

And then Geno Auriemma, unwittingly overcome with emotion, cried.

Twice.

He kept saying he didn't know why.

He even needed Breanna Stewart, his latest whiz kid, who just received AP Player of the Year award seated next to him, to start talking.

It was the oddest moment, mostly because it came from nowhere. The last time most of us around the program saw him cry was in 1998, the day after Nykesha Sales ruptured her Achilles in the regular-season finale, one point short of the program scoring record. Auriemma was speaking to the media that day, announcing Sales' career was over, and broke down.

But how to explain the man who is the Lombardi of his sport, undefeated record, 10 national titles, suddenly going Dick Vermeil on us during an awards ceremony?

A little more than 24 hours later Sunday night at Bankers Life Fieldhouse, after the Huskies advanced to the national championship game by tap-dancing on Oregon State, inquiring minds still wanted to know.

"I was 'whoa, he's emotional,'" Kia Nurse said. "I turn to CD (associate head coach Chris Dailey) and she's emotional. Then I look at Gabby (Gabby Williams) and she's emotional. Then I got emotional. I was confused. You don't really get to see him like that. I was really confused for a little bit there. I had no idea what was going on. Obviously, it was something important."

Dailey, by Auriemma's side for more than 30 years now, offered a theory:

"Part of it is you want these three (seniors, Morgan Tuck, Breanna Stewart, Moriah Jefferson) to go out the way you think they deserve to go out and be able to put them in that position to have a chance for history. It means a lot to us as coaches. It's always been about (the players). All of our teams.

"You want badly for these kids to have a shot at history. It just got to him. I can't explain it. I was not expecting that. And we are not like that. We have very few pictures of he and I and the national championship trophy. I know we had one in 1995. That's maybe the last one we had. I think he said it. As you get older you appreciate things differently."

Auriemma uses the word "fragile" a lot when discussing seasons, tournaments and legacies. And had he known Saturday what would happen Sunday — a season-ending foot injury to Katie Lou Samuelson and two quick fouls on Stewart — he might have bawled more than Sally Field in "Steel Magnolias."

There'll be no crying Monday. Or Tuesday. At least not until the championship trophy is hoisted. Samuelson's injury just might have created a team of laser beam focus to graduate to DEFCON 5.

"We've always said that anything worth achieving is supposed to be hard," Dailey said. "Someone goes down, the next person has to be ready to stand up. The stuff we preach all year. You have to be ready. You don't know when your name will be called, whether because of fouls or injury.

"When Shea Ralph got hurt in 1997 (tore a knee ligament during the first game of the NCAA Tournament) we mishandled that as a staff and as a team worse than anything we've ever done. We learned from that. We had kids writing 'Shea Ralph' on their shoes as if she died. I was like, 'what is this? She didn't die. She hurt her knee.'"

So to recap: Nobody, including Auriemma, has any idea what prompted the emotions a day earlier. It shows a man of great passion who isn't afraid to mix some humanity into a crack at history. He's a must watch, that Geno. You never know what's coming next.

This is the opinion of Day sports columnist Mike DiMauro.