'You used to think that you were invincible': UConn's Geno Auriemma reflective in year 39

CLEVELAND — Geno Auriemma's coached long enough in women's college basketball that his journey has run the gamut.

Auriemma's been the young upstart who wanted to make Connecticut an equal to the sport's powers at the time like Tennessee and Louisiana Tech when he was hired in 1985. He's worn the black hat in the sport by turning the Huskies into a Death Star that has set NCAA records with 11 national championships and 23 Final Four appearances, including a stretch from 2008 through 2022 when they won six national championships — all between 2009-16, including four in a row from 2013-16 — and reach 14 consecutive Final Fours.

Now, just under two weeks after his 70th birthday, Auriemma has almost become the sage elder statesman of the sport as his UConn team prepares for Friday's national semifinal against Iowa at Rocket Mortgage Field House. The fire remains that drove his players to championships and his opponents to disdain, but when asked by the Beacon Journal if he's found himself gaining a bit more introspection as the year go by, he allowed himself a chance to acknowledge the journey.

"I do remember the way it started and what it felt like to try to create something out of nothing and wondering if we would ever be able to do it, and then when we did it wondering can we sustain it," Auriemma said inside the UConn locker room Thursday. "You used to think that you were invincible, that you could do whatever you wanted to do with anybody, that you could take any kid, take any situation and build it to look exactly like you want it to. And then you wake up one morning and you look around and you go, 'No, I can't. I'm just like every other coach, and I was just fortunate to have those kind of players.' And how incredibly difficult it's been to get to where we are, because if it was easy, a lot of other people would've done it.

"So I am more trying to be nicer to myself knowing that we've done that. But if you asked me to go back and start all over, I would tell you you're out of your mind. I don't want any part of it."

Auriemma's 23rd Final Four team didn't arrive at this point anonymously, but to call the journey anything if not a bit rocky would be an understatement. The Huskies (33-5) were down five players because of season-ending injuries, but did also gain the benefit of returning star guard Paige Bueckers from a year-long absence due to an anterior cruciate ligament tear.

UConn entered the tournament as a No. 3 seed in the Portland 4 region. The program that used to routinely roll to double-digit wins in the event has won its way, after an opening-round rout of No. 14-seeded Jackson State, to the Final Four by margins of eight points over Syracuse and Duke and seven over top-seeded USC in the regional final.

That his team is in Cleveland this week didn't come as a surprise to Auriemma. However, he acknowledged his level of confidence in that appearance took its own journey from very high to, at times, very doubtful.

"If you would have talked to me in June this year, I would tell you, yeah, it was going to be us and South Carolina playing for the national championship," Auriemma said. "Then as things started to happen, I started to believe something different. You have to be realistic, and we live in a world at UConn where the expectations are unrealistic. But you have to be realistic.

"You have to look at your team, and you have to say, 'Do we have an answer for everything that happens?' And if the answer's no, then you just have to cross your fingers and hope that thing doesn't happen, or those two things that you know you have no answer for. … And in my mind, I had a lot of plans for this weekend. It didn't include this."

There was one answer that Auriemma knew very well. He knew what the weight of expectation would've accepted from the Huskies.

Those expectations may come from a fanbase that is among the largest in women's college basketball. Those expectations were established by the man whose hair has now gone from the shade of brown it was when he was in legendary battles with the late Tennessee coach Pat Summit to the grayish-white it now is as he tries to figure out a way to slow down Iowa's white-hot Caitlin Clark in Friday's semifinal.

"We don't talk about winning a lot," Auriemma said. "We don't discuss winning a lot at UConn. … But we do talk about you cannot manage people's perception of you who you are, what you are. And the world that these kids live in, that we all live in, is everybody has an opinion of you and they don't know you. They have never met you. They don't know anything about you. So they see you one time and right away they formulate an opinion. Good or bad.

"So there's a lot of people that hope we lose by 100 on Friday. And there's a lot of people that hope we win by 100. So there are some people that are going to watch us for the very first time and say, 'What's the big deal about these people?' … But you know one thing that I've noticed over the years that's happened? When people see us play for the very first time, two things happen. One, they fall in love with all of my players because of the way they play and the way they conduct themselves. And they go, 'Yeah, he really is a s*** head. So those two things will still be true on Friday. And that's just my family."

Chris Easterling can be reached at ceasterling@thebeaconjournal.com. Follow him on X at @ceasterlingABJ.

This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Geno Auriemma reflects as UConn women enter record 23rd Final Four