Geno Auriemma became the fastest coach in NCAA history to earn 1,000 wins after UConn defeated Oklahoma on Tuesday.
Auriemma cemented himself as one of the best coaches the game of basketball has ever seen, and his Huskies don’t appear to be losing their dominance anytime soon.
But the Huskies weren’t always the powerhouse they are today, at least not during Auriemma’s first season.
Auriemma took over the program in 1985, and had high hopes in only his first season with the team. He later found out coaching and developing a successful team wasn’t going to be as easy as he first thought, and admitted that he was a bit cocky upon taking the job. That 1985 season ended up being the Huskies’ only losing season during the Auriemma era — as they finished with a 12-15 record — and he recently opened up about how it unfolded.
“I remember thinking that it was going to be really easy,” Auriemma said of that first season that began with seven wins in a row, via Graham Hays of ESPN.com. “I thought how could it be hard? I was so self-assured, so cocky and so full of myself. Of course it was going to be easy. There was no way I could fail. There was no way I could not live up to the expectations that I had for myself or that people had for me that hired me.
“It wasn’t until the middle of January, maybe early February that it started to dawn on me, ‘Man, you are not as good as you thought you were. You’re only going to be as good as the players you’re going to be able to get here.’”
Auriemma appeared to learn that valuable lesson early in his career, and it wasn’t too long after that the team won its first national championship, which the Huskies did in 1995. He’s now compiled a 1000-135 record since taking over, and it’s safe to say that one losing season is water under the bridge, and hasn’t affected his reputation one bit.
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