Geno Auriemma Asserts Women's Basketball Can't Depend on Caitlin Clark and Paige Bueckers
Nobody can deny that Geno Auriemma knows ball.
The legendary UConn women's basketball head coach has won 11 NCAA National Championships, won 8 Naismith National Coach of the Year Awards, and won three Olympic gold medals for Team USA.
During his 40 seasons coaching at UConn, Auriemma has seen women's basketball go from being an afterthought in the cultural consciousness to becoming a mainstream sport that features global superstars.
He currently coaches one of these superstars in Paige Bueckers. He has also coached against the biggest superstar of them all, former Iowa Hawkeye Caitlin Clark.
There's no question both of these women are major reasons why the WNBA has experienced a recent boom in popularity. However, Auriemma made it clear that he believes women's basketball can't depend on them two if its recent success is to continue in a recent episode of the "Make a Difference With Phil Martelli" podcast.
"Where are we going next?" Auriemma pondered about women's basketball. "If we think that one kid, one Caitlin Clark, is going to be enough to take this where it needs to go, it's not. Or one Paige Bueckers, it's not. What they do is they show you the way. They show you what's possible.
"And then the people that run the operation have to capitalize on it, and then the younger generation, the high school people, have to prepare these kids so that when they get to college, we have something good to work with," Auriemma said. "And then we send them up to the WNBA and then they have something good to work with. And it just keeps on growing and growing and growing."
Auriemma concluded by saying, "So it still comes back to those of us that are in charge of the game. Are we making the game better every day? Are we making our players better every day?"
geno: “if we think that one kid, one caitlin clark, is gonna be enough to take this where it needs to go, it’s not. or one paige bueckers, it’s not. what they do is show you the way.” pic.twitter.com/8UqTip2PQq
— cc akgae (@clrkszn) November 10, 2024
Essentially, he seems to be saying that women's basketball will need more superstars after Clark and Bueckers to keep this momentum — which is much more agreeable than some of his other takes.
Grant Young covers Women’s Basketball, the New York Yankees, and the New York Mets for Sports Illustrated’s ‘On SI’ sites. He holds an MFA degree in creative writing from the University of San Francisco (USF), where he also graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Marketing and played on USF’s Division I baseball team for five years. However, he now prefers Angel Reese to Angels in the Outfield.