UConn women’s basketball coach Geno Auriemma led the Huskies to the third undefeated season in team history this season. Now he will have a chance to set his sights on something even more significant.
A source with knowledge of the selection process confirmed today that Auriemma has been named the U.S.A. Basketball Senior National Team coach through 2012 and will serve as the head coach at the 2012 Summer Olympic Games in London. He succeeds Anne Donovan.
A formal announcement will be made during a press conference Wednesday at the UConn Alumni House at 1:30 p.m. Auriemma will be the first active college coach to serve as head coach of the Olympic team since Stanford’s Tara VanDerveer led the 1996 Olympic team to the gold medal in Atlanta.
Auriemma, 55, was an assistant coach on the gold medal-winning U.S. women’s basketball team at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, Australia.
Auriemma’s first responsibility will be to coach at the FIBA 2010 World Championship in the Czech Republic, where Team USA will attempt to qualify for the Olympics.
The newly minted 2009-2012 Senior National Team Committee recently amended the criteria with regards to selecting a head coach. This change instantly made Auriemma eligible for the position.
The criteria to be selected as the head coach of the Senior National Team for the 2008 Olympic Games had been as follows: A candidate must have at least five years of coaching experience as either an assistant or head coach at any level at the time of selection; A candidate must have at least three years of coaching experience as a head coach in the WNBA or any professional league at the time of selection; And a candidate must have coached two of the last three years in the WNBA at the time of selection.
Auriemma led the Huskies to a 39-0 record this season, their sixth national championship and the fifth undefeated season in the history of women’s basketball.
Auriemma, who was enshrined in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame and the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame in 2006, has led UConn to a record of 696-122 (.851) with 10 Final Four appearances and 21 consecutive NCAA tournament appearances in 24 seasons. He has also led the Huskies to 17 Big East regular season championships and 15 Big East tournament championships and is first among active coaches in winning percentage and eighth in wins.
Auriemma has coached nine Olympians, six players who have been named national Player of the Year, 12 first-team All-Americans and named the National Coach of the Year by The Associated Press and the WBCA six and five times, respectively. He swept all of the major national Coach of the Year awards this season.
Rich
