Stanford's Tara VanDerveer Breaks Duke Legend Mike Krzyzewski's NCAA Wins Record

Stanford women's basketball head coach Tara VanDerveer made history on Sunday.

She earned her 1,203rd career victory with the team's 65-56 win over Oregon State, passing legendary Duke men's head coach Mike Krzyzewski to become the all-time winningest basketball coach in NCAA history.

VanDerveer, who has been with Stanford since the 1986-87 season, has led her team to a record of 17-2 this year. She's won three NCAA championships, with the most recent occurring in 2021.

She spent the first four seasons of her head coaching career with Ohio State, leading the Buckeyes to an impressive 93-22 record and winning the Big Ten tournament in her first season with the team in 1982.

VanDerveer tied the all-time record on Friday with a blowout 88-63 win over Oregon, and she reflected on her journey ahead of the monumental achievement.

"It's like a dream come true," she said, via Janie McCauley of the Associated Press. "To have a dream and watch it play out. I planned to go to law school because there were no coaches. That was not a job for women. My timing was horrible for playing but it was very good for coaching. I was a head coach when I was like 24 years old. I'm just really thankful that I get to have a job that it's not a 'JOB' job."

VanDerveer has led Stanford to consistent success throughout her decades of coaching, as the team has finished with a winning record in every year since the 1986-87 season. She coached one of the most dominant teams of all time during the school's 1989-90 campaign, recording just one loss in 33 games before winning the program's first title.

She'll look to extend Stanford's current win streak to three during the team's next game, a Jan. 26 matchup with Arizona State.