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Still, the culture of their programs has been thought to be vastly different.
But both agreed Wednesday at a business breakfast at Mohegan Sun -- sponsored by WFAN-660 and emceed by talk show personality Chris "Mad Dog" Russo -- they now have more in common than people think.
"All the headaches (Calhoun) has had for years, we’re now getting," said Auriemma, who will enter his 19th season at UConn next fall. "It’s starting to swirl in the women’s game."
Usually when the season ended, it was Calhoun dealing with players who were threatening to leave because they were unhappy with playing time. Those issues rarely touched Auriemma’s program, but that changed this spring as the Huskies had two players -- freshman center Liz Sherwood and freshman guard Kiana Robinson -- announce they were transferring on consecutive days the first week of May.
Calhoun, meanwhile, has had a quiet offseason with no transfers and no problems to speak about.
"It’s been nice and quiet," said Calhoun, who soon will head to his summer retreat with family and friends in Hilton Head, S.C.
Calhoun and Auriemma have talked about the changes in personalities in the women’s game and agreed problems start during the Amateur Athletic Union basketball circuit in the summer. Auriemma is coaching the AAU team that his 15-year-old son Michael plays on this summer and has noticed the often-disinterested attitudes of the players, who emulate the stars of the NBA.
Fostering that situation is the number of people that surround the star players at the tournaments. Players are told continuously how great they are and thus get easily discouraged when they get to the college level and don’t get playing time.
More and more, Auriemma is witnessing the same type of attitude in the women’s game -- hence the increase in transfers. But Calhoun and Auriemma still differ on how they treat their star players.
Calhoun, who will enter his 18th season in the fall, said he has always treated his best players a little different, usually reserving his tirades for role players.
"That’s a difference between the men’s and the women’s games," Auriemma joked. "I could say whatever I wanted to Diana (Taurasi) because she wasn’t going anywhere for four years.
"I mean I’m living every guy’s dream. How many guys can tell the women in your life exactly how they feel and get away with it?"
Auriemma’s adjustment to the increasing strong personalities of the women’s game is something Calhoun believes his colleague will handle successfully.
"Geno’s a son of a gun, I’ve seen him practice his team for three to four hours," Calhoun said. "But I have four granddaughters now and I would send them all to Geno. It’s the best place in the world to play basketball."
Both coaches also have a common thread in trying to stay on top of the college basketball world.
"Getting to the top was not that difficult," Auriemma said. "Staying at the top is difficult. Success is so fleeting that people now look for you to fail. It used to be that people rooted for Ted Williams to hit .400, but not anymore."
Said Calhoun: "In 1990 we were ranked 19th in the country and people were absolutely ecstatic here. Now if we’re ranked 19th I may not be sitting here today."
Just another example of how the coaches have more in common than you may think.
Sean O’Rourke can be reached at sorourke@nhregister.com.
