Last week we counted down some of our top moments from the 2014-15 basketball seasons. We have worked our way down from 10 to six and this week we will finish our list. Each day we will be bringing you one moment from either the men or women that stood out to us this season.
#3: Coaching Milestones Reached
It was a big season for coaching milestones as five of our women's basketball coaches reached monumental wins in their careers. It was a busy end of January and beginning of March as four of those milestones occured in a two week period.
On January 22nd East Carolina Coach Heather Macy picked up her 200th win in a victory over SMU on the road. Coach Macy has been with the Pirates since 2010 and has ammased 94 wins at East Carolina.
Just a few days later, another American coach reached a career milestone. January 25, USF head coach Jose Fernandez picked up his 250
th career victory with a 64-45 win over Tulane at the Sun Dome. With the win Fernandez, in his 15
th season with USF, set his record at 250-212 and swept the season series with the win over the Green Wave.
Less than a week later, Tulsa coach Matilda Mossman grabbed her 200th win. Ashley Clark scored a game-high 23 points off the bench to lead Tulsa to a 70-61 victory over UCF. Fifty-three of those wins came with the Golden Hurricane while coach Mossman also has 67 wins at Arkansas and 80 wins at Kansas State.
On February 3, UConn's Geno Auriemma reached a huge milestone. Auriemma won his 900th career game with a 96-36 victory over Cincinnati. The victory tied him with former Texas coach Jody Conradt for fifth place on the all-time women's list, 198 wins behind former Tennessee coach Pat Summitt. The 900 wins stemmed from 30 years at UConn. It was a joint effort as Associate Head Coach Chris Dailey was there for every win as well.
It would be a few weeks until we saw our final coach get a big win. In the first round of the American Athletic Conference Tournament, the Green Wave women's basketball team picked up a dominant win over Houston – a victory that would send head coach Lisa Stockton into the record books, as she is now the 32
nd active head coach in all of NCAA Division-I women's basketball to achieve 500 career wins.