UConn women’s basketball head coach Geno Auriemma tied former Stanford coach Tara VanDerveer for the most wins of all time at 1,216 on Friday night as the No. 2 Huskies defeated No. 14 North Carolina 69-58.
Auriemma’s storied Storrs-based program is looking to capitalize on the astronomical growth of women’s basketball across the country, unwilling to taste the bitter taste of rival schools by letting the sport’s momentum pass them by.
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So far, UConn fans are embracing the ride, encouraged by Auriemma signing a contract extension after flirting with retirement, superstar guard Paige Bueckers leading the 2024-25 roster after she could have gone to the WNBA, and announcing newcomers like Sarah Strong who starred in non-conference action.
UConn sold out its home games at Gampel Pavilion for the first time since 2004-05, after setting a 17-year high in sellouts with six during the venue’s last campaign. The most successful women’s basketball program ever is showing signs it can remain the industry leader even after its NCAA title drought extended to eight years in April.
According to the team, the team earned $2.8 million in ticket sales from 2022-2023 Sportico‘s college sports database, the highest total of any public school by a significant margin. UConn women’s basketball is also a formidable merchandise machine. Bueckers is the NIL Store’s top-selling active female athlete, according to the Mark Cuban-backed company that sells NIL merchandise at 88 schools across the country.
Generations of fans cultivated through eleven national championships have passed their support on to a younger online audience.
As of Friday night, UConn women’s basketball has 461,000 followers on Instagram, compared to Iowa’s 306,000; LSUs 260,000; South Carolina: 257,000; USCs 81,000; Tennessee’s 77,000; Stanford’s 70,000; Baylor’s 56,000; and Notre Dame 59,000. The Huskies also lead those programs in followers on the social media platforms TikTok and X, with only Iowa leading them on Facebook.
Bueckers’ social media reach, with 3 million TikTok followers and 2 million Instagram followers, approaches that of all the top women’s basketball programs combined. The Nike-sponsored guard is the projected No. 1 pick in the 2025 WNBA Draft. She will bring a legion of fans with her to whichever franchise chooses her.
Given UConn’s status as a feeder for next-level talent, Bueckers will likely become teammates with an ex-Husky in her first WNBA season, continuing Auriemma’s stellar reputation there.
Among the teams that could win Sunday’s draft lottery are the Los Angeles Sparks ex-UConn star Azurá Stevens, the Dallas Wings Lou Lopez Sénéchal and the Washington Mystics Stefanie Dolson and Bueckers’ good friend and 2023-2024 college teammate , Aaliyah Edwards. . (Of course, rosters and potential draft positions for entries will shift before the 2025 season ends due to trades, free agency and the expansion draft.)
The UConn system could have ended this year. Auriemma could have walked away after reaching the Final Four last season with the most injury-plagued roster of his 40-year tenure. He repeatedly insinuated that he would retire from the iconic program he helped build — claiming it would have been an easy choice if Bueckers had left.
“I mean, it’s going to be my 40th year,” Auriemma told supporters at a community breakfast in March. “It would have only been 39 if (Bueckers) didn’t come back.”
Over the summer, he put aside his public grumbling about the new era of college sports and possible concerns from outside his program that UConn could soon fall behind. That had not been an abstract concern. Before the Huskies made a Final Four run, they played much of the regular season below program standards and fell to their lowest ranking in 30 years when they fell to No. 17 last December.
Nevertheless, Auriemma signed a five-year contract extension, entered the same transfer portal he once criticized to acquire guard Kaitlyn Chen, and added Strong, one of the top high school recruits in the country, in the span of three months.
Auriemma did this during a period in men’s and women’s sports when many legendary coaches are retiring. Notable departures include Stanford’s VanDerveer, Lisa Bluder (Iowa women’s basketball), Tony Bennett (Virginia men’s basketball), Jay Wright (Villanova men’s basketball) and Nick Saban (Alabama football). Some, like Bennett last month, explicitly cited new tensions in college sports as a reason to retire.
“I was equipped to do the job the old way,” Bennett told reporters during his retirement news conference.
But in a city where basketball, not football, comes with the pressure to be the biggest draw, and where women’s hoops gained widespread attention long before they did elsewhere in the country, the 70-year-old Auriemma is still working to preserve of UConn as a national power.
Sustainably keeping UConn among the elite would contrast with the transfer of Auriemma’s former nemesis, Tennessee, which is in its third head coach since Pat Summitt retired in 2012.
The Volunteers regularly competed for NCAA titles under Summitt. Now they are among hundreds of teams without an Elite Eight appearance since 2016.
While UConn has committed a total of $18.7 million in base salary to Auriemma through 2028-2029 — which equates to about $3.7 million per year — Tennessee will only spend $750,000 per year on new head coach Kim Caldwell, significantly less than her predecessor, Kellie Harper.
The university, like most college programs, considers football its top priority, while basketball is in a much lower stratosphere. Women’s basketball’s modest spending compared to UConn and South Carolina has arguably been a factor in the decline and could continue to impact results.
Conversely, UConn is an outlier in college sports because of its focus on the hardwood. It is the only public FBS school that spends more on its basketball programs than on its football team.
One day, someone will come under pressure to replace Auriemma at UConn, and after Friday, the point of comparison for the next Huskies head coach will be the all-time wins record. It doesn’t get more sublime than that.
However, with the athletic department’s financial commitment, Auriemma’s determination to keep UConn nationally relevant in the NIL era, and Bueckers’ bankable fame forcing the Huskies to watch television during her farewell season, a framework may be in place in which the next coach can shine. .
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