Stanford’s Tara VanDerveer Ties Pat Summitt’s College Basketball Wins Record

Tara VanDerveer tied Pat Summitt for the most career coaching wins in Division I women’s college basketball on Sunday night when top-ranked Stanford trounced its rival California, 83-38, in Berkeley.

The victory was the 1,098th of her career, which began at Idaho, led her to Ohio State for five seasons and then to Stanford, where in the space of four seasons she took a Pacific-10 Conference doormat to the 1990 national championship. It is one of two women’s basketball national championships Stanford has won.

VanDerveer, 67, can move past Summitt, the longtime Tennessee coach who died in 2016, on Tuesday night when the Cardinal plays at Pacific. How long VanDerveer holds on to the record is uncertain. She entered Sunday night’s game with five more wins than Connecticut’s Geno Auriemma.

VanDerveer might have passed Summitt earlier — and been further ahead of Auriemma — had she not spent a year away from Stanford to coach the 1996 United States women’s Olympic team to a gold medal. She may have also reached the milestone last season had the N.C.A.A. tournament not been canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic. The Cardinal finished last season ranked seventh with a 27-6 record, leaving her four wins behind Summitt.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/14/sports/ncaabasketball/stanford-tara-vanderveer-record-pat-summitt.html