As UConn women’s basketball sets out on its quest to secure yet another National Championship, head coach Geno Auriemma reached another unthinkable milestone. With the Huskies’ 85-41 victory on Wednesday night against Fairleigh Dickinson, Auriemma became the winningest head coach in college basketball history with 1,217 career wins.
Auriemma passed longtime Stanford head coach Tara VanDerveer, who retired before this season, with this win. Both of the women’s basketball icons surpassed former Duke bench boss Mike Krzyzewski, who is the winningest head coach in men’s college basketball history with 1,202 wins.
Auriemma’s accolades are unmatched across just about any sport. He has been the head coach at UConn since the 1985-86 season and has a winning percentage above 88% (1,217-162). He has won 11 National Championships with the team, all between 1994-95 and 2015-16. He has also won 27 conference tournament titles at UConn between its time in the Big East and the American Athletic Conference.
From 2013-16, Auriemma and the Huskies won four consecutive national titles, something that no other women’s college basketball team has ever done. He has been to the Final Four 23 times as the head coach, accounting for more than half of his seasons.
Auriemma has also made a big impact on the international level as the head coach of Team USA, where he won Olympic Gold Medals in 2012 and 2016 as the head coach.
UConn chasing 12th title under Geno Auriemma
While UConn has still been very successful in the last decade or so, it hasn’t lived up to the insurmountable expectations that the Huskies set during their glory days with Geno Auriemma at the helm.
UConn has now gone eight seasons without winning a National Championship, which is Auriemma’s longest drought since he won his first title in his 10th season with the team. He got close to another one last year, but UConn was beaten in a very close Final Four game by Caitlin Clark and Iowa.
The Huskies should feel like they have a great chance to reach the top of the mountain once again this season. Save for star big Aaliyah Edwards, UConn returns a large majority of the core that helped it reach the Final Four last season.
Paige Bueckers is back and might just be the best player in college basketball. Guard KK Arnold and forward Ice Brady are also ready to take a step forward after contributing a lot as freshmen last season. UConn also added five-star forward Sarah Strong, who was the consensus No. 1 player in the country coming out of high school in the 2024 class. Star guard Azzi Fudd also made her return to the lineup on Wednesday after missing more than a year of action due to a knee injury.
Overall, this UConn team has the depth, talent and experience necessary to make a run at the title. It won’t be easy with the defending champs, South Carolina, ranked No. 1 and USC forming a superteam out on the West Coast, but this UConn women’s basketball team has as good of a shot as anybody to get the job done.
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