"His ladies were outstanding": $45M worth Coach K applauds Geno Auriemma following natty win over Dawn Staley's South Carolina

UConn Huskies Geno Auriemma continued to pad on his GOAT college coach status with his program's successful 2024-25 season. On April 6, the Huskies blitzed through the previous national champions, the South Carolina Gamecocks, winning 82-59, in the NCAA national championship game.

This gives the Huskies their record 12th national title in program history, which is the most for a program and a coach in women's college basketball. With the triumphant win, former Duke Blue Devils coach Mike Krzyzewski praised Auriemma during an interview with College Sports on SiriusXM on Wednesday.

Coach K, who is worth $45 million per Celebrity Net Worth, gave high compliments for Geno Auriemma and his UConn players.

"One of my really good friends Geno Auriemma, his Connecticut team was magnificent," Krzyzewski said. "They were. I texted him after they won, I said, 'You were not only good. You were dominant."

He then explained how Auriemma has become one of the greatest basketball coaches of all time at all levels, including the Olympics, with the consistency of top-level coaching. Coaching his 40th season at UConn, Auriemma turned the program around to be the "Basketball Capital."

"It's been done over four decades. So, the sustained excellence of his program is as good as anybody ever, he said. "He's an outstanding coach. I've watched what he does and his ladies were outstanding. But, the fact that he's done it for that long, over that period at that level, makes him one of the best ever to coach basketball, not just coach women's basketball."

"... They beat a friend of mine, Dawn Staley," Coach K said. "But, that game, they just kind of dominated in that game. And, not just in that game, they beat UCLA by 30. It's got to be one of the best performance by one of his teams has had."

After their huge finals victory over the Dawn Staley-coached program, Auriemma and the rest of the Huskies finished with an impressive 37-3 overall record and an unblemished 18-0 during conference play this year.

Geno Auriemma and the UConn Huskies snapped a nine-year national title drought

Before the 2024-2025 campaign, the last time that coach Geno Auriemma and the UConn Huskies won the national championship was back in 2016, about nine years ago.

Now, they look forward to defending that national title in the 2025-2026 season and going for a repeat, which they did as a four-peat from 2012 to 2016. Incoming sophomore star Sarah Strong is expected to take a leap from her stellar freshman campaign, while veteran Azzi Fudd has committed to playing out her final year of college eligibility.