After his UConn Huskies defeated South Carolina to win the national championship on Sunday, coach Geno Auriemma discussed how this won compares to the previous championships, as well as how important the UConn program is to the sport of women’s college basketball.
Sunday’s win gave the Huskies their 12th national championship — but the first since 2016. Following the game, Auriemma was asked how this championship team fits into “the legacy of UConn women’s basketball.”
“I don’t know,” Auriemma said. “Usually those things are decided by other people who write what it means. I do think that each championship is a building block and the legacy is all those blocks placed on top of each other. And I don’t know that one — well, the bottom one holds everything up, the first one — but I don’t think any other one means more to the legacy. Maybe what this one means is that there were a lot of people that didn’t think it would ever happen. There are a lot of people that hoped that it would never happen.”
Auriemma continued.
“I’m glad that we were able to get to that spot that Connecticut has occupied,” the coach said. “Not that we had to win a championship. But in the last 30 years, I don’t know that any program’s meant more to their sport than what UConn has meant to women’s basketball. So, I feel good about that.”
Certainly no program has been as successful.
UConn’s 12 national championships are easily the most in women’s college basketball history. Tennessee (8) is the next-best program, while no other school has more than three. The UCLA men (11) are the only other college basketball team — men or women — in double digits. By comparison, UCLA’s most recent championship came in 1995, the same year the UConn women won their first.
That said, the nine years between championships is the longest drought the Huskies have experienced since winning that first one in 1995. So, while he may not want to compare championships with each other, we can certainly see why this one is special for Auriemma.