You’ve just stepped off the bus. A cold, nasty rain coats the sidewalk that was just cleared of snow and slush. Thousands of fans have already gathered at the gates of the arena —some emerge from tents and; others are shirtless in the frigid January downpour.
Photo by Connor Sharp, Photo Editor/The Daily Campus
As you traverse the innards of Gampel Pavilion, the dull screams of fans and a sharp, uniform clap echo from above. You notice that the walls are painted with some of basketball’s most legendary figures, a few partially covered by the open doors using a conference championship trophy as a doorstop.
The bellows of a sold-out crowd intensify as you approach the tunnel. Jogging onto the court, you’re enveloped by a sea of white and blue — a raucous, passionate fanbase that prides itself on winning — chanting your impending doom in five simple letters.
U-C-O-N-N.
It’s loud. It’s emphatic. It’s dizzying. You can barely hear the strength coach barking out your warmup routine as you gaze across the court. The 12 national championship banners hanging high above your head loom as harbingers of what’s to come.
The crowd thunders as you catch sight of a grizzled, diminutive man sauntering up and down the sideline, his arms crossed with a pointed smile dashing his face.
He’s dressed in all black, nothing fancy — a watch or bracelet slipping out from beneath his sleeve. He sits, he stands, he talks, he walks. He keeps the same smile the whole time, even letting out a few laughs while talking to those who approach him.
This is his house. He built this: the walls, the doorstops, the banners — all his. It starts to sink in. You’re up against Geno Auriemma.
“What Geno [Auriemma] has built is just tremendous,” newly minted DePaul head coach Jill Pozzotti said. “It’s a lot of great players, a lot of great coaching and a lot of sweat. The demands that they put on themselves every day and the expectations that they work to fulfill each year are huge challenges.”
Those demands have taken the form of a 62nd conference championship, 25th Final Four appearance and 13th national title in 2025-26. A seventh perfect season would be cool, too.
The Huskies will have to run the gamut through the Big East, however, which has now expanded to 20 conference games — matching the men’s double round-robin schedule. That means each of Connecticut’s 10 in-conference opponents will have two shots at the mighty Huskies, who are 103-3 since rejoining the conference ahead of the 2020-21 season, winning by an average of 28.9 points per contest.
Those three losses? Seven points at Marquette (2023), five points versus St. John’s (2023) and a three point loss to Villanova (2022). Auriemma is 69-2 versus active Big East coaches (.972) and 710-74 all-time in conference play.
“It’s a message we deliver to our team every day. Every practice plan we put into place is preparing to face UConn,” said Villanova head coach Denise Dillon, one of the two coaches who survived to tell the tale of her duel with Auriemma. “I think [Auriemma and Associate Head Coach Chris Dailey] raised the bar for the game itself over the last 40 years.”
Auriemma and Dailey, together now for year 41 in Storrs, have defined the word dynasty in basketball. Their 1,250 wins and 0.833 career winning percentage quantify that claim.
But it’s not the numbers that have propped the Huskies up on basketball’s golden pedestal; it’s the players, the attitudes and culture.
“I get a chance to watch the WNBA training camps, and I watch the rookies [there] specifically. A lot of rookies look lost,” Butler head coach Austin Parkinson said. “UConn players always excel because [Auriemma] runs such a pro-style offense, so there’s a lot of basketball intelligence required [immediately].”
A lot of coaches talked about the need to compete with Connecticut, not beat them. A sign of respect for the northeast’s hardwood goliath — or maybe one of fear.
“We want our players to compete and get out there and be fearless,” Pozzotti said. “[We need to be] fearless in competing against them.”
The eight-time Naismith National Coach of the Year has fortified Storrs into a bastion of basketball stardom. A factory of WNBA superstars. A failsafe winning machine.
They’ve done it for so long, with such mesmerizing consistency, that opposing coaches have come to agree: the crowns of college basketball lay firmly on the heads of Auriemma and Dailey.