Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/233832
WOMEN'S BASKETBALL DREAM BIG Games vs. top-five powers help PSU gauge where it's at, and where it's headed | L isten closely and you can still hear the Philly in Geno Auriemma's voice. He grew up in the Philadelphia suburbs, graduated from West Chester University and began his college coaching career at St. Joseph's. Auriemma may have been born in Italy – he was 7 years old when his parents emigrated to the United States – and may have risen to fame at the University of Connecticut, but he's a Pennsylvania guy. So it doesn't sound farfetched in the least to hear him describe Penn State as his inspiration when he was hired to take over a Connecticut women's basketball program that had enjoyed only one winning season prior to his arrival. "It was 1985, and Penn State was one of the premier teams in the country and certainly on the East Coast, he said. "I always " thought that's who I wanted to compete with. As a school and as an athletic department, as a basketball program, Penn State has a certain image around the country that's pristine when it comes to that kind of stuff – how good they are, how they do things. I always wanted to be part of that." Penn State in the mid-1980s was reaping the benefits of its farsighted approach to women's sports. Unlike Connecticut, which had been slow to launch programs for women, Penn State had started playing varsity women's basketball in 1965 and had steadily made improvements over the years, eventually moving games to Rec Hall, home of the men's program. The Huskies' first three games against PSU ended badly; the Lady Lions won them all – by an average margin of 24 points. But in 1989, Connecticut finally defeated Penn State, 93-84 in overtime, and it has won all eight of the subsequent games in the series, including an 89-67 victory in the NCAA semifinals in 2000. Along the way, the Huskies usurped Penn State's spot as the East's reigning power, and it's