Geno Auriemma did not support the WNBA roughing up Caitlin Clark on the court but said that he saw it coming. On a panel about NCAA women’s basketball with Kim Mulkey in June, Auriemma claimed that new women’s basketball fans disrespected the big league when they expected that a rookie would become the MVP of the league.
“The WNBA was disrespected by all those fans saying she’s going to go in there and be MVP of the league,” Auriemma said. “They were delusional… it was disrespectful to all the players that play in that league that are really damn good. So, no, to me, it’s a WNBA problem it’s not a Caitlin Clark problem.”
Geno Auriemma also said that the WNBA’s pride in initiating and welcoming physicality on the court was slowly eating up the global league:
“This idea of, ‘Hey, this is just a physical league and you need to live with it.’ I never heard the NBA take pride in the fact that ‘we’re a physical league and we’re allowed to beat the s**t out of each other.'” (38:55)
“In the WNBA that’s taken as a badge of courage… we can beat the hell out of each other because we want to prove we’re tough. No, all you’re doing is ruining the game by doing that,” Auriemma said.
Geno Auriemma is the winningest coach in college (men’s and women’s)
Currently in his 40th head coaching year with the UConn Huskies, Geno Auriemma clinched the record of the most wins for a coach in college basketball history (men’s and women’s) earlier this year. The record came when the Huskies defeated Fairleigh Dickinson University 85-41 on November 20th for his 1217th career win.
The previous record was held by Stanford’s Tara VanDerveer, who retired from coaching earlier this year. Geno Auriemma is also the record holder in both the men’s and women’s books for the coach with the most NCAA titles.
His 11 championships place him above the legendary John Wooden’s record. It also matched UCLA’s 11 school titles. The Bruins’ program is the winningest program in NCAA Men’s basketball history.
Dawn Staley, Geno Auriemma, or Kim Mulkey – who is NCAAW’s highest-paid coach? Find out here
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Edited by Saishyam Srikanth
