Obviously it's always incredibly difficult to try to identify 12 players from a group of so many great players. The committee had a really difficult job this year, because it's the first time in a long time that a lot more than 12 players could easily have been named to that team, but the 12 that were named are a great combination of Olympic gold-medal experience, multiple gold medal winners and great leaders.

Geno Auriemma

Luigi "Geno" Auriemma is an Italian-born American college basketball coach and the head coach of the University of Connecticut Huskies women's basketball team. He has led UConn to nine NCAA Division I national championships, and has won six national Naismith College Coach of the Year awards. Auriemma was also the head coach of the United States women's national basketball team from 2009 to 2014, during which time his teams won the 2010 and 2014 World Championships, and the gold medal at the 2012 Summer Olympics. He emigrated with his family from Montella in southern Italy to Norristown, Pennsylvania, when he was seven years old, and spent the rest of his childhood there. After graduating from West Chester University of Pennsylvania in 1977, Auriemma was hired as an assistant coach at Saint Joseph's University, where he worked in 1978 and 1979. He then took a two-year absence from college basketball, serving as an assistant coach at his former high school, Bishop Kenrick, before assuming an assistant coaching position with the University of Virginia Cavaliers in 1981.

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