Mcgraw, Auriemma need no introduction

SOUTH BEND, Ind. — Muffet McGraw and Geno Auriemma have been crossing paths for a long, long time.

Auriemma arrived at Saint Joseph’s as an assistant coach to Jim Foster in 1978, two seasons after McGraw graduated from the school that bills itself as the “Cradle of Coaches.” A year after Auriemma left Saint Joseph’s to coach at his alma mater, Bishop Kenrick High School in Norristown, Pa., Foster hired McGraw as his assistant.

McGraw and Auriemma will see each other again today in the NCAA semifinals. McGraw is trying to lead Notre Dame (35-1) to its second national title and Auriemma is trying to help the Huskies (33-4) win their eighth in a rematch of what has become the biggest rivalry in the game.

“I think it is the most heated rivalry in women’s basketball and it’s a game that everybody enjoys watching, and we enjoy playing,” McGraw said.

McGraw and Auriemma have coached in all 40 games the two schools have played. Auriemma, the coach at Connecticut since 1985, has a 29-11 advantage in wins, including a 10-1 lead in Big East tournament games. But McGraw, the Notre Dame coach since 1987, holds a 3-0 advantage in NCAA Tournament games — all in the national semifinals. The Irish have also beaten the Huskies four in a row and in seven of the past eight games.

Foster is good friends with both McGraw and Auriemma. He met Auriemma playing intramural basketball at Montgomery Community College outside Philadelphia in the 1970s. Foster was hired as the girls coach at Bishop McDevitt High School, and in his second season hired Auriemma as his assistant. When he got the job at Saint Joseph’s two years later, he brought Auriemma with him.

He met McGraw after becoming the coach at Saint Joseph’s and interviewed her when he had an opening.

“I liked the energy she had and the passion she had for Saint Joe’s,” he said.

A photo of Foster’s shows him and some former assistants, including McGraw and Auriemma, at a beach on a cold summer day. In the photo, Auriemma is wearing a Notre Dame sweatshirt.

“He wasn’t a Notre Dame fan, it was a chilly day and he had nothing else to wear,” Foster said. “Irony of ironies, X number of years later they’re at this stage.”