USF women's basketball gets second win and can now focus on game with mighty UConn

The USF women’s basketball team defeated Mount St. Mary’s (Md.) Thursday night, as we all knew they would. The 68-51 victory gave the Bulls two wins in two tries to start the season and set the stage for something much bigger.

On Sunday, USF will take on the second-ranked UConn Huskies at the storied Harry A. Gampel Pavilion in Storrs, Conn. It’s the first of a six-game nonconference gauntlet for USF that includes Vanderbilt, Louisville, Mississippi State, top-ranked South Carolina, and Duke.

But for Bulls coach Jose Fernandez, it’s also a chance to match wits with legendary UConn coach Geno Auriemma. You know the impact Auriemma has had on women’s basketball.

The two men are good friends off the court, and that relationship goes back about 25 years when Fernandez took over a USF program wrecked by scandal and spiraling out of control.

“Geno is someone that I hold a deep amount of respect for. He was someone that I met early in my coaching career and was very helpful in giving advice on taking over a program,” Fernandez said. “I met him after my second season when we went from four wins to 14.

“The one thing that that that always stuck to me was when he said, ‘Hey, listen, you got a great opportunity at a young age. It's easy to turn a program around because you're a new guy coming in, and you can bring excitement and passion to the program. You can recruit the type of kids that you want to recruit and play the way that you want to play. And you're gonna see if you do it the right way, you’ll get positives out of it.’ ”

Fernandez certainly has gotten many positives out of his coaching career. He has 13 straight seasons of at least 19 wins and nine NCAA Tournament appearances. He built a program that is respected throughout women’s basketball.

The strong friendship the two men share doesn’t always translate to the court. UConn is 33-0 lifetime against USF, and only a few games have been close. One of those close calls came in their last matchup in 2021.

The Huskies needed overtime to win, 60-53.

“It’s good for us,” Auriemma told Bay News 9 in 2020. “They are a tough team to play. They make you grind it out. They make you play.

“We have become really, really great friends.  He’s done an amazing job here. I make fun of him because he goes over to Europe for months on end. He has a leather briefcase filled with national letters of intent and just hands them out.”

Eleven of USF’s 13 players this year are from foreign countries. Fernandez does a great job of melding players from different lands who come here looking for an opportunity.

The feeling is that this could potentially be Fernandez’s best team. Playing the 2nd-ranked team in the country on the road with a potential player of the year in Paige Bueckers will be a good measuring stick for the Bulls.

This is the first of a home-and-home series between these two schools. UConn will visit Tampa next season. After last season, when the Huskies lost 71-69 to Iowa and Caitlin Clark in the semifinals, there was speculation Auriemma might coach one more season and retire.

Nope.

In June, he signed a five-year extension worth $18.7 million.

It’s a chance to build on his record of 11 national championships, 23 NCAA Final Fours, six perfect seasons, and 59 conference championships. He began this season with 1,213 wins and was a 2006 inductee to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame and the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame.

If a rising tide lifts all boats, Auriemma’s success helped lift women’s college basketball to unprecedented heights. The growth in the game is phenomenal, and Auriemma has had a large role in that.

"Geno has been such a mainstay at UConn that it's impossible to overstate his lasting positive influence on our student-athletes, the women's basketball program, and Connecticut as a whole," UConn President Radenka Maric said when announcing his contract extension. "His leadership and nearly 40 years of commitment to our university have brought immeasurable value and name recognition to both UConn and the entire state.

"We know he has even more to demonstrate and teach all of us in the years ahead – not only about leading a world-class basketball program but also about living a life of conviction, compassion, and service. The university is fortunate to have him continue in this role, and we look forward to the successes ahead under his strong leadership."