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Good morning! Win a Cy Young today.
GOATs: Geno Auriemma claims his throne
In the modern era of women’s basketball, there is UConn — and by extension, Geno Auriemma — and there is everyone else.
At one point it was Tennessee and everyone else. Now it might be South Carolina and everyone else. But for over two decades, Auriemma and the Huskies have been the standard. Last night, we saw the coronation: Auriemma is now the winningest coach in college basketball history.
Two important points of that story you may not know:
- Auriemma grew up poor in rural Italy with no running water or electricity, as Chantel Jennings detailed yesterday. He saw his first basketball hoop on the walk from his house to the local church for kindergarten.
- He’s come a long way, after 40 years as head coach at UConn. Not that it was supposed to happen that way. In 1985, at just 31, he took over a young program whose best-ever record had been 16-14. He expected to stay a few years, using UConn as a stepping stone. Then no one came calling, and he started winning titles.
Here we are, 1,217 wins later. Auriemma has won 88 percent of his games, better than…
