Tampa, Florida-if Geno Auriemma and Dawn Staley did double acceptance when they lead to Amalia Arena on Friday for Final Four, it would be difficult to blame them. The interest followed by the women’s NCAA tournament in the last few seasons – because the games have set record numbers in viewers and participation – had a longer track in its programs in Uconn and South Carolina, but the growth of the overall game cannot be denied. This evidence is everywhere Auriemma and Staley.
Fans are fancied on campuses. They are leonized in women’s basketball circles. Their fingerprints are at every level of sport. This growth cannot imagine without them. Because of their successful career, they will become rare sports champions who can enjoy the fruit of their work … they are still working.
They will play in Final Four against other teams (Uconn against UCLA in South Carolina against Texas), but the collision course for their meetings for the National Championship has been obvious since the holder was released.
It is not just that two of the best teams in the country train this season. Basketball lives Staley and Auriemmy have been interleaved for more than 30 years. Uconn competes in its 24th final four, but during the first trip in the last round of 1991, Auriemma’s Squad came to Seed No. 2 Virginia, led by a hard guide named Dawn Staley. Virginia has won and you prefer to believe that Auriemma and Staley can still break down this game.
Over the years, the rivalry has blossomed to one of the best in female university hoops. In this story about building female basketball, the fibers and growth lines may not be made. Of course, there are a large group of players and coaches who radiated a trail after Auriemma or Staley. But who did more to continue developing a modern game forward than Auriemma and Staley?
In Uconn Auriumma, she built a powerhouse from a school in the middle of cow fields. The program has never experienced success until it got there in 1985. The gym was not shown on its campus during the interview because the administrators feared that he could refuse this position if he saw it. In the early seasons, he needed to persuade students to participate in women’s basketball games. But in its fourth year Huskies performed the NCAA tournament. In the 10th year they won their first (out of 11) national titles.
24. Four Four for Geno Auriemma and Huskies pic.twitter.com/riei1i74dx
– UConn Women’s Basketball (@UConnwbb) April 1 2025
Staley also took a hard way. The program did not inherit or take over the team that has already been grown and has become in national power. She started to train in the temple while still playing in WNBA. The program had only one NCAA tournament in history. She led them five times for eight seasons before she hired her South Carolina. With Gamecocks, like that, there was no prestige or the aura around the program before it arrived. But in its fourth year the team led the NCAA tournament. And at the age of 9. She brought home the first NCAA program title.
See you in Tampa Fams ❤ pic.twitter.com/riz5htsq3u
– Women’s basketball in South Carolina (@gamecockwbb) 31 March 2025
Staley and Auriemma are not coaches who avoid the challenge, but rather run directly to them.
Those tokens sitting on their shoulders were born from childhood in the Philadelphia area (for Staley, North Philly; for Auriemma in the Great Italian immigration community northwest of the city). How robust, as they could be, never caused slowdowns, or avoided platforms that rightfully granted them.
Maybe they’re two loudest coaches in sports. When there is a change or question about the future of the game, everyone wants to hear what Auriemma and Staley have to say. They are requested for their proposals and solutions and voluntarily – often, adamant – share.
Staley publicly advocated for the same reward and opportunities for black coaches across the country, especially and sent pieces of its championship network from 2022 the Black Women’s Division I. (Staley continued the tradition that Carolyn Peck, the first black woman to win the National title in Purdue, did the same for Staley.
Auriemma opened her program to coaches from all over the country to watch and learn from Huskies. Even the coach of UCLA Cori Close, who will face on Friday evening, visited Storrs on more than one occasion. Tennessee coaches came to Uconn for several days at the top of the rivalry of the programs.
“Basketball is basketball,” Auriemma said. “And it is our work to share it if we have something worth it, and if they think we have something worth it.”
Both were consistent voices in terms of trades with the rights of female basketball media, own capital at NCAA tournaments, growing parity and many other topics. Anything that seems important for their cause to increase female basketball.
You don’t get (and don’t hold) the cloak if you don’t know what to do with it. They showed their leadership in both court and beyond it when sport was reigning in this current era of explosive growth.
“You have to respect the level of consistency and perfection they did,” said Texas Vic Vic Schaefer, whose longhorns will face Staley’s Gamecocks on Friday. “You look at both of these programs and see where they are. I’ve been doing it for me for some time, I have great admiration for both because they have done it at an incredible level and are a very consistent year, a year.
Because their attention was carefully focused on their individual programs and players, with national titles as the ultimate goal, it also – excitement, attention, ticket sales, legitimacy, which was finally laid on a female game – was part of their aspiration. The female basketball world, which Auriemma (71) and Staley, 54, entered into decades and the one he sees today is not even close. But that’s because of them.
The architect does not always see a building constructed, but in their cases they also live in it.
Staley and Auriemma are now Final Four Mainstays, their programs prepare a bar for the success of the women’s university basketball. However, their impact is also felt far from Tampa. Five of the last seven WNBA MVPs and six out of nine newcomers of the WNBA of the year have completed Uconn or South Carolina. Auriemma and Staley trained the US team at Golds on three of the last four Olympic Games. (Staley also won gold medals as a player at the three previous Olympic Games.)
“You will look at all players who have come out of these programs, past, present and the future that the standard is high and that the standard for size is growing,” said former UConn Breanna Stewart, a triple champion of WNBA and a triple Olympic gold medalist. “And they ensure that players who go through their programs will leave better than when they came, and make sure they will continue to make a stamp and impact on the next level.”
There are many of those who put the game in Mount Rushmore who have put the game in what is today. But among those who still stimulate the sidelines and the winning championships are the most important Auriemma and Staley.
This weekend in Tampa is for two other opportunities to add to their heritage and go after their 12th and fourth national titles. They will potentially face themselves. This meeting would be a blockbuster that would expand their own stories in sports and also continued to build a game that both dedicated their lives.
“Without coach Auriemma and coach Staley, they continue to uplift and increase female basketball,” Stewart said, “I don’t think we’d be in a position we are today.”
– Athletic Ben Pickman contributed to this report.
(Illustration: Kelsea Petersen/ Athletic;; Photos Geno Auriemma and Dawn Staley: Eakin Howard/ Getty Images, Lance King/ Getty Images
