How Auriemma’s exceptional evolution led UConn to a 12th title

“There was a big part of my inner circle of people that I trust that were hoping that after the [Breanna Stewart] fourth [national title] in a row [in 2016], that I should have called it a day back then,” Auriemma told reporters postgame. “That would have been apropos, I guess — ride off into the sunset with Stewie and [Morgan] Tuck and Moriah [Jefferson] and those guys.”

Auriemma stuck around into 2017, though, leading the Huskies to an historic 111-game win streak that dated back to 2014. In dramatic fashion, that streak was snapped on a Morgan William buzzer beater in the 2017 Final Four, sending Mississippi State to its first-ever national title game. The following season, the Huskies again dropped a close one, this time to longtime foe Notre Dame on an Arike Ogunbowale buzzer beater.

“I don’t look at those two years — the Mississippi State game, the Notre Dame game — I don’t look at those two as heartbreaking frustrations. Now, I would have if I didn’t make two decisions in both of those games that I think have more to do with us losing than those two buzzer-beaters. So that’s the frustration that I take away from that. Why do you keep screwing it up for these guys?”

In the years that followed, UConn maintained its standard of excellence, reaching the Final Four all but one of the seasons in which an NCAA Tournament was held. The Huskies never quite sealed the deal, though, due to a combination of bad injury luck, increased parity in the women’s game and simply coming up short.

For most programs around the country, reaching just one Final Four is an incredible, banner-worthy accomplishment. Reaching consecutive Final Fours is for the sport’s elite. In Storrs, Connecticut, where anything short of a national championship is viewed as a disappointment, a nine-year title drought — despite regular appearances in the NCAA Tournament’s final weekend — signaled to many in the sport that the UConn dynasty had ended.

“When 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,” Auriemma said. “And then five years go by and six years go by and seven years go by — it’s not like it was extra motivation, but it just happened to coincide, the last five years, with the pandemic, the bubble, the injuries.”

Add Locked On Women’s Basketball to your daily routine

Here at The Next, in addition to the 24/7/365 written content our staff provides, we also host the daily Locked On Women’s Basketball podcast. Join us Monday through Saturday each week as we discuss all things WNBA, collegiate basketball, basketball history and much more. Listen wherever you find podcasts or watch on YouTube.

With a dominant 82-59 win over South Carolina — the program that has won three national titles during the Huskies’ title drought — UConn showed it can still reach the pinnacle. Auriemma, by becoming the oldest coach to ever win an NCAA basketball title (71), also proved his continued relevance. In an era when most of his peers on both the men’s and women’s side — names like Krzyzewski, Wright, Williams, Summitt, VanDerveer and McGraw — have left the game behind, Auriemma has remained, demonstrating an exceptional ability to adapt and evolve.

College athletics has transformed over the past several seasons due to changes to the transfer portal rules, the impact of new name, image and likeness (NIL) legislation, and the pending changes around revenue sharing in college sports. It would be understandable if Auriemma wanted to, at this point, take his trophies and hang up the whistle, but that’s not quite his style. Prior to Sunday’s championship game, Auriemma pointed to a work of literature as part of his inspiration to remain on the sideline despite all the ways that college athletics have changed.

“There was a line in [the book “A Gentleman in Moscow”] by Count Rostov when he said, ‘Times change and it’s the duty of gentlemen to change with them.’ So, yeah, I’ve tried to change with the times but I’ve not given up what I believe in and how I think things should be done and what my standards are and what my beliefs are in terms of how to get to those standards,” Auriemma told reporters.

“But I’ve also forced the players that come to Connecticut to adapt to me and not think that they’re going to go to college and stay the same and have me adapt to them more than I wanted them to adapt to me. And it’s the way I always talk to them. You came here because we have something you desperately want. So you have to adapt to what we do in order to get that. And then we will accommodate you as you’re adapting to a point. And we work together.”

It’s that mentality that has allowed Auriemma to sustain his place atop the sport for three decades. He and his staff, led by associate head coach Chris Dailey, who has been by his side for each of UConn’s titles, have their fingerprints all over the sport’s storied past and now it’s future, developing future pros like Paige Bueckers, Sarah Strong and Azzi Fudd.

Perhaps the best example of Auriemma’s ability to still connect with young people as a college coach is his relationship with superstar Paige Bueckers. Bueckers in many ways embodies the new-age college athlete, collecting millions of dollars of NIL endorsements and rising to social media fame. Bueckers didn’t have to return to UConn following last season’s Final Four loss, but wanted to because of her commitment to Auriemma and to the program, and to add a title to her legacy. How has Auriemma, nearly 50 years Bueckers’ senior, been able to get the best out of the program’s prized recruit during her five seasons?

“He has a good sense and a feel of knowing when to push and when to give,” Bueckers told reporters. He does a great job of getting on his players’ nerves but also knowing when to be there to support them and be there to instill a little bit of confidence in them. He’s just super easy to talk to. We’ve had the pleasure of just having a great relationship and talking about anything — basketball, non-basketball — going over to his house for dinners and just being around him constantly, just going up to his office to chat. And it’s meant everything to have that relationship with him.”

Auriemma’s legacy is legendary not only because of his titles and his longevity, but also for his ability to mentor and lead young people throughout the generations. He still has the same ability to connect that he did after he won his first title in 1995, at the age of 41, but it has shifted and adapted with the times. He’s gifted at knowing how to push the right buttons to get the best out of his players.

It would be a storybook ending for Auriemma to leave the game now, like his friends and family urged him to do back in 2016. He is, after all, already the winningest coach in college basketball, a Hall of Famer and the oldest coach to win an NCAA basketball title. Auriemma doesn’t measure his legacy by success, though, and he stated before Sunday’s national title game that if he never wins another title it wouldn’t change his life very much. Instead, he measures his legacy by how he’s been able to impact the student-athletes that trust him with their development during their collegiate years. The moment he’s unable to connect is when he’ll know that the game no longer needs him.

“The minute my players don’t respond, the minute I can’t get my team to respond in the way I want them to respond, then I’ll know that’s the time to walk away,” Auriemma said. “Right now, I’m still getting the response that makes me feel like I’m relevant. When I stop becoming relevant, it’s time to go.”

The Next, a 24/7/365 women’s basketball newsroom

The Next: A basketball newsroom brought to you by The IX. 24/7/365 women’s basketball coverage, written, edited and photographed by our young, diverse staff and dedicated to breaking news, analysis, historical deep dives and projections about the game we love.