UConn's Geno Auriemma has officially tied former Stanford coach Tara VanDerveer as the winningest coach in NCAA Division I basketball history. The No. 2 Huskies defeated No. 14 North Carolina 69-58 on Friday, giving Auriemma his 1,216th career victory.
He has a chance to officially break the record at home on Wednesday when UConn hosts Fairleigh Dickinson at 7 p.m. ET.
Auriemma took over the UConn program in 1985, and at that point the Huskies had only one winning season in the program's history. Now, almost four decades later, UConn's women's basketball is known as one of the most powerful dynasties in college sports history with 11 NCAA Championships, 23 Final Fours and six unbeaten seasons.
"Forty years ago, UConn took a chance on me," Auriemma said during his postgame interview with ESPN. "Those players early on took a chance on us -- me and (Chris Dailey). We couldn't process them anything, we didn't have anything. I would tell them, that they should feel incredibly proud because we built it out of nothing. We built it out of nothing in a place they said it couldn't be built."
In February, Auriemma became just the third coach to ever reach the 1,200-win mark, joining VanDerveer and former Duke men's basketball head coach Mike Krzyzewski. Auriemma did it the fastest, as he did it during his 39th season while Krzyzewski did it after 47 years and VanDerveer achieved it during her 45th season. Auriemma is also the only coach to do so with one single program.
When he reached that milestone, VanDerveer had not announced her retirement yet, so Auriemma said that with "a great deal of certainty" he would never catch VanDerveer and be No. 1 in wins. But now Auriemma is just one win away from proving himself wrong.
Auriemma, 70, does not seem to be going anywhere any time soon. This past June, he signed a five-year extension with UConn. He has coached many players who have gone on to become stars at the next level, including Sue Bird, Diana Taurasi, Maya Moore, Tina Charles and Breanna Stewart.
"Not surprised that coach Auriemma is still going to be continuing to do his thing at UConn," Stewart, now a star for the New York Liberty, told CBS Sports ahead of the college basketball season. "It was one of the best experiences of my life. Being able to play for him is something that I definitely miss. For this young kids, these players that are there now, I really hope they just appreciate and enjoy this moment because he is one-of-one."