As the No. 1 overall score on Friday night, UConn women’s hockey mind coach Geno Auriemma tied past Stanford head coach Tara VanDerveer for the most wins of all time. 2 Huskies defeated No. 14 North Carolina, 69-58.
Auriemma’s famous Storrs-based system is attempting to leverage upon astronomic women’s hockey progress globally, unwilling to tongue the bitter taste of rival schools using the sport’s momentum to move it by.
So far, Participated fans are enjoying the ride, encouraged by Auriemma’s contract extension after flirting with retirement, actor guard Paige Bueckers leading the 2024-25 roster after she may have left for the WNBA, and welcomed Sarah Strong, a newcomer, into nonconference activity.
After recording a 17-year high in sellouts at the venue with six last campaign, UConn sold out its home games at Gampel Pavilion for the first time since 2004-2005. Even after its eight-year NCAA title drought ended in April, the most successful women’s basketball program is displaying signs that it can continue to be a market leader.

The team earned$ 2.8 million in ticket sales in 2022-23, according to Sportico’s college sports database, the highest total among all public schools by a significant margin. UConn women’s basketball is also a formidable merchandise machine. Bueckers is the NIL Store’s top-selling active female athlete, according to the Mark Cuban-backed company that sells NIL items across 88 schools nationwide.
Younger online audiences have received the support they had during the 11 national championships.
As of Friday night, UConn women’s basketball has 461, 000 followers on Instagram, compared to Iowa’s 306, 000, LSU’s 260, 000, South Carolina’s 257, 000, USC’s 81, 000, Tennessee’s 77, 000, Stanford’s 70, 000, Baylor’s 56, 000, and Notre Dame’s 59, 000. On the social media platforms X and TikTok, the Huskies also have the most followers, and only Iowa has a slight advantage over them on Facebook.
Bueckers ‘ social media reach, with 3 million TikTok followers and 2 million Instagram followers, approaches that of all the top women’s basketball programs combined. The projected No. is the Nike-sponsored guard. 1 pick in the 2025 WNBA Draft. Which franchise will pick her will have a slew of fans.
Given UConn’s status as a feeder for next-level talent, Bueckers will likely become teammates with an ex-Husky in her first WNBA season, continuing Auriemma’s stellar reputation there.
Among the teams capable of winning Sunday’s draft lottery, the Los Angeles Sparks have ex-UConn star Azurá Stevens, the Dallas Wings have Lou Lopez Sénéchal, and the Washington Mystics have Stefanie Dolson and Bueckers ‘ close friend and 2023-24 college teammate Aaliyah Edwards. Before the 2025 season kicks off through trades, free agency, and the expansion draft, rosters and potentially entry draft positions will undoubtedly change.

This year, the UConn system might have been over. With the most injury-ravaged roster of his 40-year career, Auriemma could have left after reaching the Final Four last year. He repeatedly claimed that if Bueckers had left, it would have been an easy decision and that he would step down from the renowned program he helped create.
” I mean it’s gonna be my 40th year”, Auriemma told supporters at a community breakfast in March. ” It only would have been 39 if ( Bueckers ) was n’t coming back”.
He put aside his public qualms about the emergence of college sports and potential concerns from non-participating programs that UConn might soon fall behind over the summer. That was n’t a simple concern. The Huskies spent the majority of the regular season playing below program standards, dropping to No. 30 after their worst season since. 17 last December.
Nonetheless, Auriemma signed a five-year contract extension, dipped into the same transfer portal he once lambasted to acquire guard Kaitlyn Chen, and added Strong, one of the top high-school recruits in the nation, in a three-month span.
Auriemma did so during a stretch in men’s and women’s sports when many legendary coaches are quitting. Among the notable departures are Stanford’s VanDerveer, Lisa Bluder ( Iowa women’s basketball ), Tony Bennett ( Virginia men’s basketball ), Jay Wright ( Villanova men’s basketball ) and Nick Saban ( Alabama football ). Some, like Bennett last month, explicitly cited new stresses in college sports as a reason for retirement.
At his retirement press conference, Bennett stated to reporters,” I was equipped to do the job the old way.”
Yet in a town where basketball, not football, carries the pressure of being the biggest draw, and where women’s hoops received widespread attention well before it did elsewhere in the country, the 70-year-old Auriemma is still working to preserve UConn as a national power.

Keeping UConn sustainably elite would contrast the devolution of Auriemma’s onetime arch-nemesis, Tennessee, which is onto its third head coach since Pat Summitt retired in 2012.
Under Summitt, the Volunteers regularly competed for titles in the NCAA. They are currently one of the many teams that have n’t made an Elite Eight appearance since 2016.
While UConn committed a total of$ 18.7 million in base pay to Auriemma through 2028-29—equating to about$ 3.7 million annually—Tennessee will only spend$ 750, 000 per year on new head coach Kim Caldwell, significantly less than her predecessor, Kellie Harper.
The university, like most college programs, sees football as its top priority, with basketball in a much lower stratosphere. Its modest spending on women’s basketball in comparison to UConn and South Carolina is arguably a contributing factor to the team’s slump and may continue to do so.
Conversely, UConn is a college sports outlier because of its focus on the hardwood. The only public FBS institution that spends more on its basketball programs than its football team.
After Friday, the Huskies head coach’s record will serve as the benchmark for the team’s all-time wins record. In that case, someone will face the pressure to replace Auriemma at UConn. It does n’t get loftier than that.
A framework may be in place for the Huskies to succeed due to its financial commitment to the athletic department, Auriemma’s commitment to keep UConn relevant in the NIL era, and Bueckers ‘ bankable stardom making the Huskies a must-watch TV institution during her farewell season.