Even so, all of Auriemma’s achievements pertain to women’s basketball — not men’s basketball — and the question looms: Could Auriemma do the same in the men’s game?
The obvious difference between Auriemma and the majority of the greatest women’s hoops coaches of all time is that Auriemma is in fact a man. Many simply discount women as potential candidates for men’s coaching jobs — even legendary women coaches such as Pat Summitt — though Nancy Lieberman does coach the NBDL’s Texas Legends.
Still, Auriemma has been a women’s coach for the past quarter century, and while there are not major differences between the men’s and women’s games, they aren’t identical — neither tactically, nor in how a coach must deal with personalities. While Bob Knight may have been an incredibly successful men’s coach, it’s hard to believe his approach would worked so well with women. Perhaps, Auriemma’s coaching would face the same issues in translation.
His greatness, though, cannot be denied, and unless he shocks the world by departing from the top of the women’s basketball world, we may never find out what would have happened if Geno had coached men.
Would Geno Auriemma be sucessful as a men's basketball coach?online surveys
