Geno Auriemma is, without a doubt, one of the most successful head coaches in women’s college basketball. It’s not for nought that he has won 12 national titles, the most by any coach in NCAA basketball on the women’s side of things.
But this doesn’t happen without a unique approach to coaching. In a recent interview at “The Dinner Table”, 2025 NCAA champion and Huskies guard KK Arnold spoke about what makes Geno Auriemma such a unique coach:
¨He does. And he, like with him he knows what buttons to push. Right. So like it’s just like so crazy like you don’t think like he’ll know but like he knows our tendencies like very well. So like he’ll say something, we’ll be like, “Dang, like that that kind of hit like that kind of hit like really hard.” But like he knows like how to get us going, how to push us. But like I said, like you know, people see like the hardcore like whatever like him like pacing down the sideline, but like he’s really like a great loving guy.¨
The 2025 title, which KK Arnold was a part of, was a special one for Auriemma, as it was the first in almost a decade. Arnold is about to enter her third season with the Storrs program, having been selected as a Big East All-Freshman selection for the 2023-24 season.
Geno Auriemma on why he decided to stay with the UConn Huskies
At one point in the last decade, the UConn Huskies coach thought of retiring from the game. However, he didn’t want to leave the program with the feeling that the Huskies were no longer the premier one in women’s college basketball, he recently told ESPN:
“There was a big part of my inner circle of people that I trust that were hoping that after the Stewie fourth in a row that I should have called it a day back then,” Auriemma said. “That would have been apropos, I guess — ride off into the sunset.
“But … you make the decision you’re not finished yet, and then three, four years go by, and people start telling you that UConn is not UConn anymore and it’s somebody else’s turn. And then five years go by, and six years go by, and seven years go by.”
Nonetheless, the victory in 2025 seems to have changed the whole calculus for him. He further went on to say that winning the title made him feel like coaching was worth it again. We can expect Geno Auriemma to remain with the Huskies for at least a few more years.
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