How did Diana Taurasi perform under Geno Auriemma for Team USA? Stats and accolades explored

Diana Taurasi recently retired from the WNBA with one of the most decorated careers in the history of basketball. UConn was 139-8 during Taurasi's career at Storrs. Taurasi won a pair of Naismith College Player of the Year Awards and after a Final Four loss as a freshman, she won national titles in each of her other three seasons of college basketball.

Her brilliant college career came under the tutelage of legendary UConn coach Geno Auriemma. In her four seasons at UConn, Taurasi totaled 2,156 points, 648 assists and 628 rebounds. Taurasi remains 10th on UConn's all-time scoring list and third on the assist leader list.

She went on to be an 11-time WNBA All-Star and win a whopping six Olympic gold medals as a player with USA Basketball. Diana Taurasi first played major international basketball with the 2000 USA Under 18 team. That coach? Geno Auriemma.

Despite having an appendectomy shortly before the tournament began, Taurasi came up with gold there. Across five games, Taurasi averaged 12.6 points, 4.2 rebounds and 4.6 assists per game, with a .525 field goal percentage.

Flash forward to now, at age 42, Diana Taurasi was one of the most popular players in women's basketball and her retirement, while hardly surprising, was a moment of significance in WNBA history.

When Geno Auriemma reflected on challenging Diana Taurasi with Team USA

As legendary UConn coach Geno Auriemma approaches the back end of a highly successful career, some of his insights resonate even deeper. After all, UConn had only one winning season in program history before hiring Auriemma, who transformed the program.

Of course, Auriemma didn't do it alone and he reflected on challenging Diana Taurasi during her path to greatness in a 2019 interview with "What Drives Winning":

"I could challenge her... because I knew she had it in her. When did I know? When I coached her when she was 18 with USA Basketball. We played all the lead-up games and she averaged 12 points a game, 10 points a game. Now we're getting ready to play Brazil in that series and then Cuba in the finals.

"So I walked up to her the night before the Brazil game. I said, 'D, cut this bullsh*t out.' Now, she hasn't played for me yet, she's coming to Connecticut in September. I said, 'That 12 points ain't going to make it, we need 30 from you tonight.' She had 29.... That's when I knew right then, that's Secretariat. You can ask this kid to do anything and nothing will be too much." (Timestamp 7:07)

UConn had a meager tradition before Auriemma, but his penchant for finding and pushing great players like Diana Taurasi changed that. After taking the job in 1985, Auriemma took UConn to the program's first Final Four in 1991. He won the school's first NCAA title in 1995. By the late 1990s, UConn was ready to bypass Tenessee as the sports' top program.

Geno Auriemma has won 11 national titles and taken the Huskies to 23 Final Fours. Auriemma is a nine-time AP National Coach of the Year. He's also won three Olympic gold medals. With 1,241 career wins, Auriemma has set a record that will be virtually impossible for any other coach to ever match.