Auriemma, Geno

Geno Auriemma, byname of Luigi Auriemma, (born March 23, 1954, Montella, Italy), Italian-born American basketball coach who led the University of Connecticut women’s team to a record 11 National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) national championships between 1995 and 2016 and to an unprecedented six undefeated seasons.

Auriemma’s family immigrated to Norristown, Pennsylvania, when he was seven years old. While attending West Chester State College (now West Chester University of Pennsylvania), Auriemma took an assistant coach position with the women’s team at St. Joseph’s University in nearby Philadelphia. After graduating in 1981, Auriemma joined the coaching staff at the University of Virginia. In 1985—with no previous head coaching experience—he was hired as the Connecticut head coach. He quickly remade Connecticut, which had just one winning season in its history before Auriemma took over, into one of the premier programs in the country. After posting a 12–15 record in his first year with the Huskies, Auriemma led the team to winning records in each successive season of his tenure.

Auriemma guided the Huskies to a Big East Conference championship in his fourth season and to the Final Four of the NCAA championship tournament in his sixth. In the 1994–95 season Connecticut won each of its 35 games and captured its first national championship. The Huskies defeated the University of Tennessee in the championship game, which marked the beginning of a long-running rivalry between the two schools and between Auriemma and Tennessee head coach Pat Summitt in particular. Connecticut won a second title in 1999–2000, and in 2001–02 the team posted another undefeated season and captured the first of three consecutive NCAA championships. The Huskies went 39–0 during the 2008–09 season to bring their championship total to six under Auriemma. Connecticut matched that result the following season to win another title and in the process broke its own record (established between 2001 and 2003) for most consecutive victories, when the team won its 71st straight game in March 2010; the team’s winning streak ultimately ended at 90 games in December.

The Huskies lost in the NCAA tournament Final Four (championship semifinals) in both 2010–11 and 2011–12. Auriemma led Connecticut to another national championship in 2012–13, which established a record for most consecutive Final Fours for a women’s program (six) and tied Auriemma with Summitt for the most top-division women’s basketball national championships of all time (eight). The following season he broke Summitt’s record as Connecticut captured its ninth title under his guidance. Moreover, he led the team to a perfect 40–0 record in 2013–14, extending his record for undefeated seasons and establishing a new school record for wins in a season. The Huskies lost just one game the following season en route to a 10th national title, which tied Auriemma with John Wooden—whose UCLA men’s teams won 10 titles between 1964 and 1975—for the most NCAA basketball championships as a head coach. He broke Wooden’s championship record the following year as Connecticut reeled off another undefeated season (38–0) in 2015–16, winning every contest by at least 10 points. The seniors on that team became the first basketball players in NCAA history to capture four titles during their careers (the players on Wooden’s teams were not eligible to play as freshmen).

In February 2017 Connecticut became the first team in NCAA history to win 100 straight games, a record for both women’s and men’s programs. The team’s streak ended at 111 games as Connecticut was upset in the 2017 national semifinals when Mississippi State made a dramatic buzzer-beating shot in overtime. Connecticut again advanced to the national semifinals with an undefeated record in 2018 but once more lost on a stunning last-second overtime shot, this time to eventual champion Notre Dame. Auriemma also guided Connecticut to the national semifinals in 2019 and 2021—the 2020 tournament was canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic—but lost both times. Despite a somewhat disappointing regular season, the Huskies entered the 2022 NCAA tournament as a two seed and advanced to the finals. However, Connecticut was easily defeated by South Carolina; it was the first time Auriemma lost a national championship game.

Auriemma was named the head coach of the U.S. women’s national basketball team in 2009 and led it to gold medals at the 2012 and 2016 Olympic Games as well as at the 2010 and 2014 world championships.