UConn's Auriemma on cusp of NCAA record for victories

STORRS, Conn. (AP) — Rebecca Lobo still has the handwritten letters she received from UConn coaches Geno Auriemma and Chris Dailey 35 years ago when they were recruiting her as one of the top high school players in the country.

Before email and texts and limits on phone calls, it was the only way for coaches to talk to recruits.

“That’s how it used to be done. Before they could call you, they could correspond with you,” said Lobo, now an ESPN analyst but back then the storied program's first national recruit. “In my basement, I have 20 letters that coach wrote me in the late ‘80s and early ’90s. After they’d come watch me play, they’d write, ’I enjoyed watching you play. Don’t get frustrated with the refs. You’ll get fouled a lot.'”

Those letters are the only ones that Lobo saved because of the meaning they have to her. While communication methods have changed, the sentiments and the connection that Auriemma and Dailey have with their players hasn't.

Dozens of former players are expected to be on campus Wednesday night when No. 2 UConn plays Farleigh Dickinson. It will be Auriemma's first chance to set college basketball's career wins record, breaking a tie with retired Stanford great Tara VanDerveer at 1,216 victories.

The Hall of Fame coach says he never dreamed that he and Dailey would still be at UConn after four decades together, having built the the greatest program in the history of women's basketball.

“I don’t think anybody goes into anything thinking that they’re going to spend 40 years of their life at one place doing the exact same thing,” Auriemma said. “The best way I can describe it, you know, it just caught up to me.”

Auriemma said he wouldn’t accept the head coaching job at UConn unless Dailey, who was working at Rutgers, came aboard as his assistant. There wasn't much to work with in Storrs, off the beaten path in eastern Connecticut about 90 miles from Boston.

“Maybe the fact that we started at ground zero, at nothing. We didn’t have the advantage of location, the advantages of the reputation of the school, we didn’t have the luxury of a big-time league that could elevate us.," Auriemma said. "We didn’t have the luxury of facilities. We started at the absolute ground level and it has evolved into this.”

The list of accomplishments is unmatched for Auriemma, who will turn 71 in March. Besides a record 11 national titles, including four in a row from 2013-16, he has coached six undefeated teams. The Huskies won a record 111 consecutive games at one point, breaking its own mark of 90 in a row, and have been to 23 Final Fours — a record for men or women. Auriemma has been named coach of the year by The Associated Press nine times.

Reaching all those milestones never was on Auriemma's mind when he took the job after being an assistant at Virginia.

“We were trying to figure out how to beat Providence and Villanova and BC. My focus was on let’s not finish eighth or ninth in the Big East and let these guys play in their first Big East Tournament ever,” Auriemma said. “That was as far as I could think ahead. All of this other stuff was somebody else’s idea, it wasn’t mine."

Auriemma, born it Italy but raised in suburban Philadelphia, has never liked to talk about his resume. This achievement is different though, as Lobo put it.

“It unites everyone from Peggy Myers' class to this current group. I do think he appreciates that piece of it. Every single one of his players has had a hand in it. Every player has this commonality now,” She said. “Every player has a certain bond, you play for them. that shared experience.”

Auriemma has had countless top recruits and No. 1 WNBA draft picks, from Sue Bird and Diana Taurasi to Tina Charles and Maya Moore. Then came Breanna Stewart and now Paige Bueckers, who is expected to go No. 1 in the draft next year.

“He’s breaking records left and right and it’s the reason why you came to play under him,” Bueckers said. “What he’s built here at UConn, the history, the players, the success, the national championships -- it means everything to play for UConn, and to play for him.”

While he may have adapted his style of play over the years, the core values that he and Dailey have instilled in the program have not wavered.

Whether it is walking through the airport without headphones, or learning the name of the bus drivers, or lining up by height for the national anthem, there is a standard that the pair put in place.

“Everything they do is rooted in relationships,” said former UConn guard Jen Rizzotti, “They teach you about being part of a team and caring more about team success and being selfless and being giving and kind to your teammates. They teach you about a work ethic that’s unmatched in a lot of ways.”

Former players describe them as being perfectionists and “relentlessly annoying." They find a way to push the right buttons to get the best out of their players. Lobo remembered a drill she did as a freshman that 25 years later she saw Auriemma running with Stewart.

“He was needling her the same way he did me all those years ago,” Lobo recalled. “It made me better and her better.”

Auriemma is no fan of the current transfer portal/NIL era and has not said how much longer he will coach, only saying in the past he'd step away when he stops getting the type of players he wants. His latest contract extension, valued at $18.7 million, runs through 2029.

For now, there is a season underway and his team, should they remain healthy, has a chance to deliver a 12th national championship.

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AP Basketball Writer Aaron Beard and AP freelance writer Jim Fuller contributed to this story.

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