STORRS — With a victory over Fairleigh Dickinson on Wednesday night, UConn women’s basketball coach Geno Auriemma can add yet another title to his ever-growing legacy: Winningest coach in the history of college basketball.
The No. 2 Huskies host the Knights for a celebration of Auriemma’s 40th season in Storrs alongside associate head coach Chris Dailey, which also coincides with what will likely be his 1,217th win. More than 60 alumni, including legends like Diana Taruasi and Maya Moore, will be in attendance at Gampel Pavilion to witness Auriemma’s record-breaking moment.
Auriemma has built one of the most impressive resumes in the history of college sports over four decades at UConn, and entwined with his historic victories are dozens of other records. His 11 national championship are the most in college basketball, one more than legendary UCLA men’s coach John Wooden won in 27 years with the Bruins. He has led UConn to a record six undefeated seasons — no other women’s basketball team has gone unbeaten more than once — including a 111-game win streak from 2014-17 that set another collegiate record. His 23 Final Four appearances and eight Naismith Coach of the Year awards are both the most in NCAA history across men’s and women’s basketball.
“My plan only went as far as one recruiting cycle. ‘Let’s get a group of players in here four straight years of pretty good recruiting, and let’s see where that takes us and then this place isn’t good enough to go any further than that.’ At the time I truly believed that,” Auriemma said Tuesday. “All in all, how fortunate I’ve been to be healthy, to be able to attract the kind of people that we needed to attract to come here, to have the support that we have here from the school, from the fan base. If any one of those things were not present on a regular basis, I don’t know. So I’m here getting ready for a game tomorrow because of all those things, and I’m very fortunate.”
After Wednesday night, Auriemma will stand alone as the winningest coach in college basketball by the thinnest of margins — just one victory more than Stanford coach Tara Vanderveer retired with after the 2023-24 season. Vanderveer’s retirement came as a shock to Auriemma after decades of battles with the legendary coach across her tenures with Idaho, Ohio State and the Cardinal. Former Duke men’s coach Mike Krzyzewski, who held the record before Vanderveer, retired in 2022 with 1,202 wins.
“I remember the very first time we played (Stanford) … They had a great team, and we had a bunch of young kids that were just happy to be on scholarship at UConn,” Auriemma said. “We went out there and played, and they really showed us what a great program can and should look like. When we left there, I didn’t go back to the hotel and go ‘That’s us someday.’ But I knew we’d be playing them again, and I knew we would be good enough someday to be playing at a higher level than we played that day … I had tremendous respect (for her) back when she was at Ohio State. There’s just a lot of great stuff that we experienced together, and again, I’m totally surprised that she’s not coaching anymore. That was a big surprise to me.”
But in 2024-25, Auriemma stands in a class of his own among active coaches. The next winningest coach across all of college basketball is Andy Yosinoff, in his 46th season leading Division III Emmanuel College women’s basketball. The 76-year-old has 915 career victories, but with a career average of 19.9 wins per season, it would take him roughly 15 more years to match Auriemma if the Huskies coach retired tomorrow.
In Division I, the gap is even wider. Arkansas men’s coach John Calipari has 858 career wins over 33 seasons, but at 65 years old he’s unlikely to outlast Auriemma long enough to catch up. He’d need 14 more years of 25-plus wins if Auriemma retired tomorrow. NC State coach Wes Moore, 67, is behind Auriemma on the women’s side with 831 victories in 35 years, and it would take him at least 15 seasons of 24-plus wins to reach 1,217.
There are plenty of younger coaches that could eventually challenge Auriemma’s record, but it will take well over a decade for anyone to approach his number even if he never won another game. Dawn Staley, who has led South Carolina women’s basketball to three national championships in eight years, has 616 wins to date in her 25-year career. The Gamecocks have become one of the most dominant teams in college basketball, going undefeated in back-to-back regular seasons, but the 54-year-old Staley would have to match last year’s 38-0 record for 16 consecutive seasons to get to 1,217 wins by age 70. LSU’s Kim Mulkey, also in her 25th season as a head coach at age 62, has averaged 29 wins per season in her career and would need 17 more seasons to reach the record at that pace.
“When he was first winning all of his championships I think it was really a two-horse race, and I told him he better take pride in that it’s no longer a two-horse race,” North Carolina coach Courtney Banghart said after Auriemma tied the record against her Tar Heels on Sunday. “Never does anyone lose the respect for what he’s done and what UConn is for our game, but there are a lot of teams that can win a national championship now, and him and Tara have been a huge part of that. It’s made people want to get into coaching. It’s made kids want to choose basketball. It’s made media want to show up. It’s made this the pinnacle of women’s sports, in my opinion.”
