20 Facts about UConn greats Diana Taurasi and Maya Moore on their birthday
June 11 is not only the birthday of one UConn women’s basketball legend, but two — Diana Taurasi and Maya Moore were born on the same day.
Taurasi and Moore, born seven years apart, individually shaped and molded women’s basketball both collegiately and professionally. As players, they helped turn the game into what it is today.
Taurasi, who turned 39 Friday, is currently playing in her 17th season in the WNBA with hopes of winning her fifth gold medal with Team USA in this summer’s Olympics. Most recently, she has helped lead the Phoenix Mercury to a 5-4 record, despite sitting out with a chest injury since May 25 (original reports of her injury said she would miss four to six weeks of the season but remain healthy to compete in Tokyo).
Moore, who turns 32, remains on a leave of absence playing basketball since February 2019 after playing in the WNBA for eight seasons. Since then she has focused her efforts into social justice and reforming the country’s incarceration system.
In honor of their birthdays, here are 20 fact about two of the best players to wear UConn blue:
1. Combined, they have won six Olympic gold medals with Team USA. Taurasi has won four and she is bidding this summer — with her former UConn teammate Sue Bird — to become the first basketball athlete to win five gold medals. In the 2012 and 2016 Olympics, UConn’s Geno Auriemma coached Taurasi and Moore on Team USA.
2. The two share a birthday with Auriemma’s mother, Marsiella.
3. Both Taurasi and Moore were the No. 1 overall pick in their selective drafts (Taurasi in 2004, Moore in 2011).
4. Taurasi is the second-oldest active player in the WNBA. The oldest? Bird at 40.
5. In total, UConn won five national championships during their careers in Storrs (three with Taurasi, two with Moore).
6. Moore remains the only UConn player to surpass 3,000 career points. She finished her collegiate career with 3,036 points. Taurasi finished her UConn career with 2,156 points, and her high school career at Don Antonio Lugo High School in California with 3,047 points.
7. Taurasi was born and raised in Los Angeles and chose to play collegiately at UConn over UCLA.
8. Moore led UConn to a 150-4 overall record during her four years with the program, including four Final Four appearances and two national championships.
9. Taurasi was UConn’s first two-time national player of the year and led the Huskies to three-consecutive national titles. UConn went 139-8 during Taurasi’s career in Storrs.
10. Moore is one of two players to play in every game of UConn’s first 90-game win streak from 2008 to 2010.
11. Taurasi was the first player in UConn history to reach 2,000 points, 600 assists and 600 rebounds in a career.
12. Moore is a four-time WNBA Champion, while Taurasi has three.
13. During her career with the Minnesota Lynx, Moore set the program all-time record for career field goals (464), steals (392) and blocks (164).
14. Taurasi is the all-time WNBA leader in career points (8,994), made field goals, most points scored in a single game without a two-point field goal attempt and the WNBA Playoffs All-Time leading scorer.
15. In September 2020, Moore married Jonathan Irons, the man she helped free from prison through her work in social justice reform. Irons had served in prison for more than 20 years on the charges of burglary to which he pled not guilty.
16. Taurasi is the all-time franchise record for the Mercury in 16 different categories.
17. Moore and Breanna Stewart are UConn’s only players to twice win the John. R. Wooden Award.
18. Taurasi is married to former Mercury player, Penny Taylor. Both joined the team in 2004 and Taylor currently works on the team’s staff.
19. Taurasi is a six-time ESPY award winner and a four-time USA Basketball Female Athlete of the Year.
20. Taurasi is often to referred to as “The Goat,” even credited by Bird for being the best women’s basketball player of all time.
