Auriemma said Taurasi told him that she didn't take the banned substance - modafinil - that she tested positive for last month.
''I'm not privy to all the information,'' Auriemma said after UConn's practice Tuesday. ''I don't know what her attorney knows. I don't know what the Turkish federation knows. I don't know what the doping agency knows. I don't know any of that stuff. All I know is from talking to Diana. And I know she's really, really devastated by all this. And she told me, 'Coach I didn't take that. Whatever they're saying I didn't do it.' And I've got to believe her.''
Taurasi had been provisionally suspended by her Turkish club team Fenerbahce pending the result of her ''B'' sample test, which was analyzed at the doping lab at Hacettepe University in Ankara. Her backup doping sample came back positive and she faces a possible two-year ban, Turkish news reports said Monday.
The Turkish basketball federation did not immediately confirm the reports by the Dogan News agency and private NTV news channel. Neither news outlet cited a source.
''(We've) seen those reports, but there is no official report,'' Taurasi's lawyer Howard Jacobs told The Associated Press. ''It's disconcerting that it would come out before they finished the process.''
If Taurasi is suspended for more than six months it would put her 2012 Olympics status with the U.S. national basketball team in jeopardy. She has helped the team win gold medals at the past two Olympics and was the leading scorer at the women's world championships, which the Americans won in early October.
The International Olympic Committee bars any athlete given a doping penalty of six months or more from competing in the next games.
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