UConn women’s basketball coach Geno Auriemma signed a five-year extension that will keep him as the program’s coach through the 2028-29 season, the school announced Tuesday. Auriemma, 70, will be compensated $3.34 million for the first season with a $200,000 raise each year of the contract, making him the highest-paid women’s basketball coach in the country.
“I still find it hard to believe that I’ve been at UConn for over half my life,” Auriemma said in the release. “I feel like there’s so much more that can be done, and will be done, and I’m excited to be the one to do it with my staff and my team. I’m probably as excited about these next few years as I’ve ever been over the last 40.”
The GOATfather is here to stay 🐐
Geno Auriemma has signed a five-year contract extension. pic.twitter.com/1WW2qASDqK
— UConn Women’s Basketball (@UConnWBB) June 4, 2024
Auriemma is four wins shy of passing former Stanford women’s basketball coach Tara VanDerveer as the all-time winningest coach in both men’s and women’s college basketball history. VanDerveer, who retired in April, set the mark this past season (1,216 wins) in her 45th year of coaching.
The 2024-25 season will be Auriemma’s 40th season in coaching, with all 40 seasons coming at UConn.
When Auriemma passed the 1,200-win mark in February — becoming just the third coach in basketball history to do so behind VanDerveer and former Duke men’s basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski — he hinted at what many assumed to be a soon-to-be-announced retirement, saying that he expected his future wins were coming in the single digits rather than the hundreds.
“I could probably say, with a great deal of certainty, that I’ll never be No. 1 in wins, I don’t think that will happen,” Auriemma said. But, this contract extension seems to put at least another 100 wins on the table as a possibility considering the Huskies have averaged 30 wins a year over the past five seasons.
Auriemma had, arguably, his best coaching performance of his career this past season. While dealing with injuries to multiple starters and, at times, having just seven players available to play, the Huskies made a Final Four run.
Behind the inspired play of former national player of the year Paige Bueckers and WNBA players Aaliyah Edwards and Nika Mühl, UConn’s Final Four appearance brought the Huskies back to its national position, after having their record 14-consecutive Final Four appearances broken during the 2022-23 season when the team departed in the Sweet 16 after another year riddled with injuries and changing lineups.
Heading into the 2024-25 season the Huskies return Bueckers, Big East freshman of the year Ashlynn Shade, Azzi Fudd, KK Arnold and Aubrey Griffin.
They also bring in the No. 1 recruit in the 2024 class — forward Sarah Strong — as well as fellow McDonald’s All-Americans Allie Ziebel and Morgan Cheli. Auriemma also picked up point guard Kaitlyn Chen out of the transfer portal, a Princeton product who was coached for three seasons by UConn alum Carla Berube.
If the Huskies can stay healthy, they could be in contention for the program’s 12th national title.
With so much turnover from veteran coaches this past year alone — VanDerveer retiring after 38 years at Stanford, Iowa coach Lisa Bluder retiring after 24 seasons at Iowa and four decades in coaching — the five-year contract gives UConn a level of stability that should help the program maintain its roster and recruiting.
Without an obvious coach-in-waiting like at Stanford or Iowa (with Kate Paye and Jan Jensen, respectively), this contract signals to the outside (and to the current and potential players) that Auriemma isn’t going anywhere soon despite his “single-digit wins” comments, giving the Huskies even more runway to add to their already illustrious trophy cabinet.
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(Photo: Soobum Im/Getty Images)
