Geno Auriemma inks $18.7 million extension with UConn women's basketball

Geno Auriemma does not have much left to accomplish and nothing to prove after leading the most historically prominent program in women's basketball history. The 2024-25 season will incredibly be his 40th as UConn women's basketball head coach, and apparently it will not be his last.

The 11-time national champion is agreeing to a five-year contract extension worth $18.7 million. He passes LSU's Kim Mulkey as the highest-paid women's HC. There may not be much retirement chatter surrounding Storrs, Connecticut any time soon.

Auriemma needs just three wins to surpass recently-retired Stanford legend Tara VanDerveer as the winningest coach in the sport's history, so another year with the Huskies always seemed inevitable. But many fans will be surprised if he opts to man the sidelines until he is 75 years old.

On the other hand, few will claim that Auriemma is not still one of the best in the game today. Although UConn women's basketball has not won a title since 2016, the team is a perennial fixture in the Final Four, only missing the spectacle once (2023) in the last 16 NCAA Tournaments.

With star guard and former AP Player of the Year Paige Bueckers returning for another season, the Huskies are on the shortlist for national championship favorites in 2024-25. They can prevent the South Carolina Gamecocks from continuing their magnificent reign and reassert themselves as the preeminent power in the land.

Geno Auriemma will earn a base salary of $400,000 per year along with $2.94 million in “speaking, consulting and media obligations,” per Yahoo Sports. While the substantial compensation surely makes remaining on the sidelines a much easier decision, he is surely motivated for one last run on top.

Geno Auriemma, UConn could be poised to reclaim their throne

An eight-year championship drought does not mean the UConn hoops brand is necessarily fading, but after seeing the men cut down the nets in each of the last two seasons, there is probably extra incentive for the women's squad to join its male counterpart at the pinnacle. But both the Huskies and their fervid fan base knows how close they were to climbing back up there this past March.

UConn women's basketball narrowly lost to Caitlin Clark and the Iowa Hawkeyes in the Final Four, 71-69, following a controversial illegal screen call on Aaliyah Edwards with four seconds left in the game. The team's size and physicality arguably made it a tougher matchup for Kamilla Cardoso and South Carolina than Iowa. There is no point in pondering a fictional scenario now, but that final showdown would have been interesting.

Instead, Geno Auriemma remains stuck at 11 titles. Poor guy. He is already cemented as the greatest women's basketball coach of all-time, but perhaps these next few years can give him the chance to put a cherry or two on top of his incomparable résumé.

UConn women's basketball fans will celebrate this big day, while the rest of the Big East Conference sighs in exasperation for still having to deal with this perpetual juggernaut.