Air ball: GOP trolls Malloy over Auriemma mispronunciation

Just because you’re in the pantheon of college basketball coaches and the highest paid employee of the State of Connecticut doesn’t mean the governor can pronounce your name.

Case in point, Geno Auriemma. That’s Oar-EE-Emma for you non-Italophiles.

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy garbled Auriemma’s name during a victory rally Sunday outside the Capitol for the UConn women’s and men’s basketball teams, which accomplished the rare feat of winning the NCAA Championship in the same year earlier last week.

“So I want to say, in a state which has such great coaches like Geno Arr…Arano, Coach Calhoun and now Kevin Ollie,” a hoarse Malloy, wearing a “Double Trouble” Nike T-shirt, told the restless crowd. “Did I mispronounce it? I know it. I’ve got a bad voice.”

Trying to make hay is the state Republican Party, which created a blooper reel of the tongue-tied governor from the rally with the title, UConn’s Basketball’s #1 Fan.

The video caught the eye of the Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza, a Connecticut son who graduated from Loomis Chaffee.

Neil Vigdor