UConn HC Geno Auriemma Passes Pat Summitt for 2nd-Most Division I WCBB Wins

The UConn Huskies women's basketball team blew out the Butler Bulldogs on Tuesday night, 103-35, giving head coach Geno Auriemma the 1,099th win of his legendary career.

That victory propelled him to second place on the all-time wins list in Division I women's basketball, ahead of late Tennessee Volunteers head coach Pat Summitt.

He is now chasing Stanford's Tara VanDerveer, who sits atop the wins list with 1,105. That number will continue to grow with VanDerveer—who has been coaching since 1978—still leading the Cardinal.

Auriemma, 66, reflected on the accomplishment before the game, telling reporters he was proud of the achievement:

"It's obviously something that you take tremendous pride in. And you can look back on as an incredible accomplishment, to be able to coach this long. To have the opportunity to coach this long, and to want to do it.

"If you put me back in time and drop me down here in 1984 again and say, 'Hey, try to do this,' I would say it's not doable.' Yet in the next breath I can say, 'But we did it.' And we're not finished yet."

In his 36 years as the head coach at UConn, Auriemma has posted an incredible list of accomplishments:

• 11 national championships
• 20 Final Four appearances
• 12 Final Four appearances in a row (2007-08 to 2018-19)
• .886 winning percentage (best in D-I women's basketball history)
• 111-game winning streak (2014-15 to 2016-17)
• Six undefeated seasons
• 13 National Player of the Year winners

Passing Summitt is no small feat. She was a legend in her own right during her time at Tennessee, with the rivalry between the Huskies and Volunteers becoming the main attraction for women's college basketball in the 1990s and 2000s.

"Back when Pat was alive and winning championships, everybody would talk about Pat in two ways," Auriemma told reporters. "One, 'I admire her so much, she wins so much, she does it the right way.' Then you had the other part of the population that would go, 'Man, I want to beat Tennessee so bad.'"

These days, teams around the nation want to beat UConn so bad. Few do.