Albany, N.Y. — The overall excellence of UConn women's basketball hasn't been as much of a narrative lately as the program's margin of victory. This was mostly the residual effect of the 140-52 win over St. Francis (Pa.) in the first round of the NCAA tournament last week, during which St. Francis coach Joe Haigh thought it prudent to play at Connecticut's preferred tempo.

Sort of like going up to Secretariat and saying, "First one to the stables gets all the oats, horsey."

Ah, but that didn't stop selected pundits from piling on UConn coach Geno Auriemma. One guy, to whom Auriemma later referred as "that dope from USA Today," began the carousel. Phil Mushnick of the New York Post, whose sunny disposition disappeared about the same time as the Andrea Doria, called Auriemma a "bully" in Friday's editions.

Makes you wonder the reaction from the keepers of the gate following Saturday's rather pedestrian 72-59 win over Duke at the Times Union Center in lovely Albany (Youngstown wasn't available, apparently). The Huskies didn't cover the 20.5-point spread. They "only" won by 13. Even some of their fans on Twitter were hysterical at the humanity of it all.

So we asked Auriemma, given that his margins of victory have been talking points lately, how he'd respond to the general observer who'd raise an eyebrow at — gasp — only winning by 13.

"It's not as easy as we make it looks sometimes," Geno said. "This is not easy stuff. This idea that, well, they have all the best players, of course they should win every game by 40. When you're playing against pretty good players, you shouldn't be able to win by the numbers that we win by sometimes, and certainly not in the NCAA tournament. That makes no sense. Not at this stage of the tournament anyway.

"But after the Quinnipiac game (a 71-46 win), somebody said, you know, 'it was just one of those games, we had to grind it out.' I don't know if people talk about 25-point games as a grind it out, but that's kind of where we are. That's the world we've created, and we're just doing our part to make women's basketball a little more competitive, you know? There's probably a couple of dopes out there that were waiting for a 60-point win so they could weigh in. So we're just keeping them at bay for a little bit longer."

Classic Geno. His words resonated even more before he said them. Earlier Saturday in Duke's postgame news conference, a reporter asked the Dookies if South Carolina had a chance in Monday's regional final. The question:

"I was wondering, now that (Duke has played both) South Carolina and UConn, I wonder if you could sort of size up for all that A'ja Wilson has accomplished in her career she's 0-4 against UConn and never been within 10 points. Do you think South Carolina can beat UConn, and if so, what would they have to do?

Let's pause to discuss.

Do you think South Carolina can beat UConn?

Who else but the UConn women could come off as a bigger favorite than the Russians at Lake Placid before playing the defending national champions returning the potential No. 1 pick in the draft?

That's right. South Carolina is the defending champ. Not UConn. South Carolina has the likely No. 1 pick. Not UConn. And yet because of UConn's cachet, the champs are just like everyone else: doomed.

Lexie Brown, Duke's thoughtful guard (and daughter of former Celtic Dee Brown), said, "I think they can beat UConn. I think we could have beat UConn. I think that people just need to not play the UConn on the (front of the) jersey."

Hmmm. Wonder what would happen if more kids and more coaches approached the game with that kind of verve?

Wonder what would also happen if the drive-by pundits actually examined all the "good for the game" things that happened here Saturday?

The two regional semifinals drew 10,658 to the Times Union Center, including a nice group from 11th-seeded and upstart Buffalo. Not only did the fans show up, but the Buffalo media did, too. This is how the game grows. One city and one school at a time.

Buffalo, into the Sweet 16 for the first time, has a terrific junior named Cierra Dillard, whose basketball IQ drew bon mots from UConn assistants Shea Ralph and Marisa Moseley, who were courtside scouting the game.

Once again for effect: If you are truly interested in The Game — what's good for it and how far has it has grown — you'd have looked around the Times Union Center for something other than UConn's final score.

But then, that would require showing some interest and insight in the sport.

Auriemma is a much easier target.

This is the opinion of Day sports columnist Mike DiMauro