For once, Dawn Staley and Geno Auriemma didn’t meet in the regular season. Now they meet in the Final Four.

PHOENIX — This was going to be the first season since 2013-14 without a Connecticut-South Carolina game. But the basketball gods weren’t going to let them get away with it.

They, and the humans on the women’s NCAA Tournament selection committee, set the Huskies and Gamecocks on paths to meet in the Final Four. Over the last few weeks, both teams have fulfilled that promise.

Now they form a quartet with the other No. 1 seeds, as was expected of the nation’s top four programs. UConn and South Carolina meet in Friday night’s first game (7 p.m., ESPN), then UCLA and Texas meet in the second (9:30 p.m., ESPN).

So here they are again, Dawn Staley and Geno Auriemma, the two titans of the women’s college game who, coincidentally, share deep ties to the Philadelphia area and cherish them. As the nation has gotten to know them over the years, it has also gotten to know North Philadelphia and Norristown, 25th and Diamond and Bishop Kenrick High School.

But this time, as Staley put it, their teams “don’t know each other.” That makes it feel different.

“This is the first time we’re going into playing them in the postseason, at this stage, without having any prior scouting,” she said. “So I’m interested to see how we come out to play, and what they do and what we do, having not played. ... It’ll all play out on Friday, and we’ll see whether or not we need to schedule them during the regular season.”

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Auriemma, too, said this matchup has “a different sense” to it.

“I think in this case, I like that we haven’t played against each other,” he said. “Neither of us have anything to go by — we didn’t get beat; we didn’t win. So I think there’s more uncertainty in this game, maybe, then there has been other times when we knew each other really well.”

Some players had opposing views, including a veteran on each side. South Carolina senior guard Raven Johnson gave the traditional “we take [it] one game at a time,” even as she knew that couldn’t quite stand with this opponent.

“It doesn’t matter if you play them throughout the season, Final Four, championship, first game,” she said. “They’re still going to be UConn, and we’re still going to be South Carolina. But I think when we do play them, we’ve got to be ready.”

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When UConn graduate student guard Azzi Fudd was asked if this game is different, she started with a quizzical “No?” and stuck to it.

“We’re still going to play our hardest, scout the same, treat the game like it’s the biggest one we’ve played all year — and it is,” she said. “We respect this team a lot, really focus on our scout [work], focus on what we need to take care of. But I think we treat it the same as we would any big game.”

Staley and Auriemma have coached against each other 15 times before, with the former winning five and the latter 10. Three of the meetings have come in the NCAA Tournament: the 2025 and 2022 national championship games, and a 2018 regional final.

This will be the first time they meet in a national semifinal, adding another twist to the decorated plot.

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“UConn has been the standard in women’s basketball for a very long time, and everyone has to measure up to their standard,” Staley said. “I think they allow us something to reach for, and when you have a tradition-rich program like that, I think it helps us all grow. It helps us all try to game-plan, and figure our ways to measure ourselves up to them, and then possibly beat them.”

The Gamecocks have grown and then some in Staley’s 18 years at the helm, winning three of the last nine national titles and two of the last four. But she is the first to admit that’s a long way from Auriemma’s 41 seasons and 12 championships with the Huskies.

If UConn wins it all this time, it will be his seventh undefeated campaign, and his second at 40-0. The first, 2013-14, was Breanna Stewart’s sophomore season.

“To be able to do that over a period of time, it’s almost impossible,” Staley said. “But it’s incredible the standard that they have had for the past 35-40 years.”

Auriemma also is accustomed to seeing the coaches’ names on the marquee. His series with Staley isn’t the same kind of rivalry that he had with Tennessee’s Pat Summitt or Notre Dame’s Muffet McGraw, herself a Bishop Shanahan and St. Joseph’s graduate. But it undoubtedly commands attention beyond women’s basketball.

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“I think every time we play South Carolina, there’s always that, but I never want it to be,” Auriemma said. “I’ve been through this many times with other coaches, and I never want it to be Geno and Dawn, Geno and this, Geno and that. I’ve tried really, really hard over the years to not make it about that ever again.”

His tone was a little sharp as he concluded. But then he cracked a wry smile, in the way that he often does. He knew it was the story no matter what.