USA Today via Reuters

Geno Auriemma is a man on a mission this season. In likely what is the twilight of his coaching career, the UConn head coach has brought home 11 titles to Storrs so far. And the women’s basketball team, lately plagued by injuries, is ready for another go at it in the new season. But just before Auriemma made history as the winningest coach in college basketball, there was something troublesome going on behind the scenes.

ESPN’s Elle Duncan, who interviewed Auriemma after the Huskies won their latest game against Fairleigh Dickinson University 85-41 at home, revealed a tale in a recent YouTube video. Talking about how the team will be looking to capitalize on players returning from injury, Duncan then dived into what happened before she was due to start the game as the ESPN host. “Ten seconds before we go live on air – I’m opening the show by the way – ten seconds before we go live on air, I lose my return.”

Then the anchor goes on to explain, “Return is a monitor that shows you what’s being broadcast. It’s what you guys are seeing at home, it allows us to be able to talk over b-roll, talk over highlights. It’s quite literally our eyes…so I lose that and then I lose my ears, which means I can’t hear anything.” But it was a loud night as Auriemma led college basketball on both the men’s and women’s sides with 1,217 victories.

Luckily, however, “We have contingency plans for these things. We have a field producer who’s out there with me, who’s on the phone in the control room. So he starts hard counting me, he’s having to give me direction from out there,” Duncan revealed. “So it was not a super ideal situation but that’s live TV. We lose communication, my IFB was out there whole time, I could barely hear what was going on. But all things considered, it was an excellent show.”

It indeed was an excellent show as the Paige Bueckers-led team made Gampel Pavilion come alive with cheers. A staggering total of 63 Huskies were present courtside to cheer on their former coach. Stars like Sue Bird, Diana Taurasi, Aaliyah Edwards, Rebecca Lobo, Maya Moore, and Napheesa Collier were out to watch the Hall of Famer coach do something that has never been done before in college hoops history.

While he never sat down and wrote out this plan when he joined the team, Auriemma’s plan from day one has remained the same for 40 years.

Geno Auriemma’s ‘tough’ approach made Diana Taurasi want to skip practice

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Geno Auriemma’s tough love: Is it the secret to UConn’s unmatched success in women’s basketball?

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You don’t get 11 championships and 23 Final Four appearances by sitting on your hands, especially in a game like college basketball. What Geno Auriemma has done, as Rebecca Lobo said in a speech congratulating her former coach yesterday, will probably never be done again, But these 1,217 wins didn’t come easy.

“We never sat down and said, ‘Hey, let’s make a 40-year plan and see if we can make this happen,’” the 70-year-old coach said, per the Associated Press. “It’s about coming here every day and trying to be better than we were yesterday.”

Phoenix Mercury star felt that when she played under Auriemma and told Sports Illustrated in 2003, “He’ll pound away at you. There were times I hated to come to practice because it was so mentally demanding. He’d put you in situations where you couldn’t win. But it’s like he says: ‘You’re going to prove me right. Or prove me wrong.’ And I’m always determined to prove him wrong. You see, you hate him in a way you need to.”