1,098 Career Victories
With Saturday’s win over Providence, UConn coach Geno Auriemma tied Tennessee legend Pat Summitt’s mark of 1,098 career victories, joining his longtime rival at No. 2 on the all-time wins list. Once he passes Summitt, Auriemma will trail only current Stanford coach Tara VanDerveer (1,104). Auriemma’s 1,098 career wins have resulted in 11 national titles, 20 Final
Four appearances, a combined 51 conference titles and championships and so much more. Here are 10 notable numbers pulled from the hundreds
included in Auriemma’s exceptional run that began in 1985.
1: Losing season
Auriemma began his first season at UConn — and first as a head coach — with seven straight wins. His 1985-86 team faltered in conference play, though, and finished the season 12-15 (4-12 Big East). That would be the last time the UConn women finished a season with a losing record, even more remarkable considering the program had just one winning season prior to Auriemma's arrival.
1,240: Games it took to reach 1,098
Summitt coached 1,306 games over 38 years at Tennessee, her final win coming in the Sweet 16 of the 2012 NCAA Tournament. VanDerveer, who preceded her tenure at Stanford (1985-present) with head coaching stints at Idaho (1978-80) and Ohio State (1980-85), tied Summitt's record with a win over Cal on Dec. 13, her 1,351st career game, and surpassed it with the Cardinal's win on Dec. 15 at Pacific.
88.5: Career win percentage
Auriemma's career win percentage ranks No. 1 all-time among all college basketball coaches, men's or women's. Summitt finished with an 84.1 winning percentage, while VanDerveer and Duke men's coach Mike Krzyzewski are currently at 81.4 and 76.7 percent, respectively.
142: Losses
The number of losses over 36 seasons – an average of fewer than four per year - is impressive enough. But consider that since his 200th career win in January 1995, the year he won his first national title, Auriemma has only lost 61 games. Since the 2008-09 season? He's lost 20. The program hasn't lost back-to-back games since the 1993 postseason when UConn fell in the Big East semifinals and then in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.
29: Average margin of victory
Auriemma's teams win big, on average by a margin of 29 points, particularly dominating conference play in the Big East and American Athletic conferences. Only 113 of Auriemma's wins have been decided by single digits.
121: NCAA Tournament wins
The most in Division I basketball history. The previous high was 112, set by Summitt, which Auriemma eclipsed in 2017 with the Huskies' Elite Eight win over Oregon.
264: Wins over ranked teams
Nearly one in four wins have come against ranked teams, either in regular-season play or in the NCAA Tournament. His win percentage against ranked opponents is 79 percent.
21: Percentage of wins from undefeated seasons
In all, 230 wins have come from UConn's six perfect seasons, which culminated in the 1995, 2002, 2009, 2010, 2014 and 2016 national titles. UConn has also had six one-loss seasons under Auriemma, half of which still ended with the Huskies cutting down the nets in April. About 41 percent of the coach's wins have come from either undefeated or one-loss seasons.
111: Longest win streak
You can't talk about UConn's run of dominance without talking about the program's multiple win streaks. The longest (111 wins) spanned from the team's win over Creighton on Nov. 23, 2014 to its heartbreaking Final Four loss to Mississippi State at the buzzer on March 31, 2017. Prior to that, the Huskies had won 90 straight from the 2008-09 season opener through Dec. 30, 2010 s regular-season loss to Stanford — at the time breaking the record set by the UCLA men's team for most consecutive wins (88). Auriemma's focus on the details and intense preparation no matter the opponent have also secured other remarkable feats. The Huskies won an NCAA-record 126 consecutive regular-season games, starting with the Nov. 2014 Creighton game and getting snapped in a Jan. 2019 loss to Baylor. The program's 99-game home win streak from 2007-2012 also set a record, which last year's team fell one game short of tying.
100: Percentage of wins with Chris Dailey on sidelines
Acknowledging Auriemma's accomplishments in Storrs cannot go without recognizing the woman who's been around for the whole ride, associate head coach Chris Dailey. Auriemma and others around the program have long said that UConn would not be what it is today without Dailey. All of Auriemma's wins have come with her alongside. There's plenty of continuity in the rest of the staff as well, with assistants Jamelle Elliott and Shea Ralph. Between her time as a player (1992-1996) and a coach (1997-2009 and Feb. 1 2020-present), Elliott has been a part of 536, or 48.8 percent, of Auriemma's wins. Not including the season she was out with an injury as a player, Ralph has contributed to 571, or 52.2 percent, of the wins. She played from 1996-2001 and made her return to Storrs as an assistant in 2008.
With his win over Providence on Saturday, UConn coach Geno Auriemma finds himself tied with his longtime rival, the late Pat Summitt, in second place on the alltime women's basketball wins list.