Lifetime achievement
USBWA naming Coach of the Year award after UConn’s Auriemma
UConn coach Geno Auriemma is the most successful coach in NCAA women’s college basketball history.
When he is done coaching, an award in his name will carry on.
The United States Basketball Writers Association announced Wednesday it will name its annual award for Women’s National Coach of the Year after Auriemma at the conclusion of his coaching career at UConn. The announcement was made before the USBWA held its annual awards banquet at the Missouri Athletic Club in St. Louis, where Auriemma was scheduled to appear Wednesday night.
“Few would have suspected back in his Philly days — or on the day he signed his first contract to coach UConn given its place in the sport at that moment — that Geno would become the most successful of them all, breaking records that are unlikely to be surpassed,” USBWA vice president Mel Greenberg, who has been involved in the association’s awards program for women’s basketball since 1989, said in a statement. “It is fitting and proper that his name be associated annually with the USBWA Division I Women’s Coach of the Year.”
The USBWA has recognized a Women’s National Coach of the Year for the past 35 seasons. Auriemma first received the award in 1995, the year the 35-0 Huskies completed their first perfect season with the school’s first national championship. He also won the award in 2003, 2008, 2009, 2016, and 2017.
There have been four other multiple winners. Dawn Staley of South Carolina won for the fourth time in five years this past season. Kim Mulkey of Baylor and LSU and former Notre Dame coach Muffet McGraw have each won three times while recently-retired Tara VanDerveer of Stanford has won twice.
Auriemma, 70, has compiled a 1,213-162 (.882) in 39 seasons at UConn. His win total is second all-time, three behind VanDerveer, while his winning percentage ranks No. 1. UConn became the second program to reach 1,300 wins, joining Tennessee, when it beat Marquette in the Big East
Tournament semifinals on March 10.
The Huskies have won an NCAA record 11 national championships and have made an NCAA record 23 Final Four appearances in his tenure. UConn holds the NCAA Tournament record for most consecutive national championships (4, 2013-16), most consecutive Final Four berths (14, 2008-22), most consecutive Elite Eight appearances (16, 2006-22), and most consecutive Sweet 16 bids (30, 19942024). Its 30 straight firstround wins is also a tournament record as is its 137 tournament victories.
UConn owns six (1995, 2002, 2009-10, 2014, 2016) of the 10 perfect national championship seasons in NCAA history. Texas (1986), Tennessee (1998), Baylor (2012), and South Carolina (2024) have one apiece.
The Huskies have won 30 conference regular-season titles and 29 conference tournament crowns, all since 1989, including the last 11 seasons — seven in the American Athletic Conference and four in the Big East.
UConn has won either a conference regular-season title, a conference tournament crown, or a national championship in 31 consecutive seasons.
Under Auriemma, 27 Huskies have been selected as WBCA All-Americans for 48 total recognitions. A 2006 inductee to both the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame and the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame, Auriemma also served as the United States national team coach for eight years and guided Team USA to the gold medal at the 2012 and 2016 Olympic Games and the 2010 and 2014 FIBA world championships. He is the only women’s coach to guide his team to two Olympic golds.
The Women’s National Coach of the Year has been the only unnamed award presented by the USBWA. The National Player of the Year receives the Ann Meyers Drysdale Award, and the National Freshman of the Year receives the Tamika Catchings Award.