Auriemma nears 1,000th win
UConn coach could reach milestone Tuesday
It’s a number only a few coaches in Division I basketball have achieved, and none of them has done it at the same rate or with as many national championships. But according to one of his first bosses, Geno Auriemma was always going to stand out from the crowd. When Debbie Ryan hired Auriemma to work as an assistant at Virginia in 1981, she had a feeling he was going to be good. Still, no one had any idea that Auriemma, an immigrant from Montella, Italy, would go on to be one of the most dominant coaches in all of sports. On Tuesday, when the No. 1 Connecticut Huskies (8-0) host Oklahoma (5-5), Auriemma will be chasing his 1,000th win (CBS Sports Network, 7 p.m. ET). A victory will put him into an elite class: The only other Division I coaches to hit that elusive number are the late Pat Summitt, Syracuse’s Jim Boeheim, Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski and Stanford’s Tara VanDerveer. North Carolina coach Sylvia Hatchell also is likely to hit the 1,000-win mark Tuesday when the Tar Heels play Grambling; the difference is that 272 of her wins came at the Division II level. If he gets his 1,000th win Tuesday, Auriemma’s overall record will be 1,000135 over 33 years in Storrs. (Summitt, the first NCAA basketball coach to record 1,000 wins, did it with a record of 1,000187.) That’s a staggering 30.3 wins a season for the Huskies, who have won 11 national titles. His transcends women’s success basketball. Charles Barkley, who went into the Naismith Hall of Fame with Auriemma in 2006 and remains good friends with the UConn coach, says, “The reason people watch sports is for excellence, and Geno epitomizes excellence.” The Huskies are one of the most dominant programs in any sport in the modern era. The numbers are mindblowing: 45 conference titles, 18 Final Fours, six perfect seasons, winning streaks of 90 and 111 games and dozens of All-Americans. But talk to those who know Auriemma best — his assistants, his friends, his players and his colleagues — and numbers are usually the last thing they bring up. They praise Auriemma for his work ethic, his wit, his heart and his ability to assess situations better than anyone else they know. To celebrate Auriemma’s 1,000th win, USA TODAY reached out to a number of heavy hitters in basketball to ask, what makes Auriemma so good? And what’s his impact on basketball — not just women’s basketball, but the game overall — been?