Luigi "Geno" Auriemma (born March 23, 1954) is an Italian-born American basketball coach who is the head coach of the UConn Huskies women's basketball team. He holds the NCAA basketball records for wins and winning percentage with a minimum of 10 seasons. Auriemma also has the most NCAA Division I basketball championships at 12.
Serving as UConn's head coach since 1985, Auriemma built the team into one of the top women's college basketball programs. In addition to his record 12 championships, he has led UConn to 19 undefeated conference seasons (including eight consecutive) and six perfect seasons. He has also won eight national Naismith College Coach of the Year awards.
Outside of college basketball, Auriemma was the head coach of the United States women's national team from 2009 through 2016, winning the 2010 and 2014 World Championships, and gold medals at the 2012 and 2016 Summer Olympics. He was inducted to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame and the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame in 2006.
Auriemma emigrated with his family from Montella in Southern Italy to Norristown, Pennsylvania, when he was seven years old, and he spent the rest of his childhood there. Auriemma grew up poor, with his parents working low wage factory jobs. Auriemma had to teach himself English after coming to the United States. When he was growing up, his favorite team was the 1970s New York Knicks, then coached by Red Holzman.
Auriemma attended Montgomery County Community College before graduating from West Chester University in 1977.
Auriemma was hired as an assistant coach at Saint Joseph's University, where he worked in 1978 and 1979. Prior to coaching at Saint Joseph's University he began his career coaching women's basketball at Bishop McDevitt High School in Wyncote, Pennsylvania. He then took a two-year absence from college basketball, serving as an assistant coach at his former high school, Bishop Kenrick, before assuming an assistant coaching position with the University of Virginia Cavaliers women's team in 1981. Auriemma became a naturalized United States citizen in 1994 at the age of 40, noting in his autobiography that he finally decided to naturalize when his University of Connecticut team was slated to tour Italy that summer and he was concerned about potential problems, as he had never done any required national service in his birth country.
For many years, Auriemma and his wife, Kathy, maintained a home in Avalon, New Jersey, to be near their respective parents in the Philadelphia area.
Prior to Auriemma's arrival in 1985, the Huskies women's basketball team had posted only one winning season in its history. The decision to hire Auriemma was part of the university's commitment to better fund women's sports. Auriemma's was the final interview scheduled by the search staff. Most of the other candidates were highly qualified, and most were female. One of those included in the interview process was Chris Dailey, who became Auriemma's assistant and is currently the associate head coach. Dailey was identified as the candidate most likely to receive an offer if Auriemma turned down the position.
Connecticut quickly rose to prominence after Auriemma was hired in August 1985. After finishing 12–15 in Auriemma's first season (his only losing season), the Huskies notched their first-ever 20-win season, first conference title and first NCAA Tournament appearance. Connecticut has finished above .500 for 33 consecutive seasons, including six undefeated seasons (1994–95, 2001–02, 2008–09, 2009–10, 2013–14, and 2015–16) and three NCAA record streaks of 111, 90 and 70 consecutive wins. On December 21, 2010, Auriemma led UConn to its 89th consecutive victory, one more than the all-time NCAA men's wins record of 88 held by UCLA; the streak ended at 90 wins. The Huskies subsequently broke their own record with an 111-game winning streak that began in 2014 and ended in 2017. They have also appeared in every NCAA Tournament since 1989–as of the end of the 2025–26 season, the second-longest active consecutive appearances streak in Division I.
At the end of the 2023–24 season, Auriemma's record as a head coach was 1217–162, for an 88.2 winning percentage. That winning percentage is the highest among Division I active coaches. His career at UConn also includes 27 seasons with 30 or more wins. UConn has won twelve national championships under Auriemma (1995, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2009, 2010, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2025) and made the Final Four 24 times (1991, 1995, 1996, 2000–2004, 2008–2019, 2021, 2022, 2024, 2025). Auriemma has also guided UConn to 21 conference regular season titles and 20 conference tournament titles. They lost 17 conference games in the last two decades of play in the Big East Conference, and have never lost a conference game since the old Big East reorganized as the American Athletic Conference in 2013.
With the win in 2016, Auriemma passed UCLA men's coach John Wooden for most college basketball championships, and the Huskies became the first Division I women's basketball team to win four straight national championships.
The team has been especially successful on its home court in the Harry A. Gampel Pavilion on the UConn campus in Storrs, Connecticut, and in the larger PeoplesBank Arena in Hartford; they tied an NCAA women's basketball record with 69 consecutive home wins between 2000 and 2003. That record was broken in 2011. The last home loss was to Villanova in the game that ended their 70-game winning streak. Moreover, between Auriemma's arrival and the close of the 2005 season, UConn won 295 games versus just 31 losses. The team set Big East Conference records for both single-game and season-long attendance.
Auriemma is also known for cultivating individual players, and the 13 multiple-All-America players whom Auriemma has coached —Rebecca Lobo, Jennifer Rizzotti, Kara Wolters, Nykesha Sales, Svetlana Abrosimova, Sue Bird, Swin Cash, Diana Taurasi, Tina Charles, Maya Moore, Stefanie Dolson, Bria Hartley and Breanna Stewart— have combined to win eight Naismith College Player of the Year awards, seven Wade Trophies, and nine NCAA basketball tournament Most Outstanding Player awards. The UConn athletics website also notes that, through 2006–07, every recruited freshman who has finished her eligibility at UConn has graduated with a degree.
Since achieving its first #1 ranking in the 1994–95 season, UConn under Auriemma is 186–10 when playing as the nation's #1 team. At the end of the 2009–10 season, he had a record of 127–52 against top 25 opponents and a 57–35 record against top 10 opponents. He won his 600th game on New Year's Eve 2006, accomplishing the feat in 716 games, tying him with Phillip Kahler for the fastest women's basketball coach to reach that milestone. Auriemma won his 700th game on November 27, 2009, in 822 total games, becoming the fastest head coach to that milestone in the history of college basketball at any level, men or women. He became one of eight active women's college basketball coaches to have 700 or more wins. Auriemma became the sixth coach in women's basketball history to reach 800 career victories on March 6, 2012, also reaching 800 career wins faster than any coach in the history of college basketball men or women at any division level in just 928 career games. On February 3, 2015, Auriemma notched his 900th victory in only 1,034 games, reaching this milestone also faster than any college coach in history. Auriemma was a member of the inaugural class (2006) of inductees to the University of Connecticut women's basketball Huskies of Honor recognition program.
Auriemma's 2013–2018 salary is $10.9 million. Auriemma reached his 1,200th career win against Seton Hall on February 7, 2024.
Auriemma created controversy in 1998 when he arranged with Villanova coach Harry Perretta to orchestrate a shot at the beginning of their scheduled game. University of Connecticut's top player, Nykesha Sales, was two points short of breaking the team record for most points in a career when she ruptured her right Achilles tendon in the second to last game of the season against Notre Dame. When the following game, against Villanova, began, Villanova players allowed Connecticut to win the tip off and then pass the ball down to Sales who was standing underneath the basket. She laid the ball in to break the record. Connecticut players then stood back and allowed Villanova an uncontested layup of their own before beginning regular play.