UConn Women Win Their 91st Straight and Rewrite History Again
By HARVEY ARATONJAN. 14, 2017
All that was missing from the Connecticut women’s basketball team’s shattering of its own N.C.A.A.-record winning streak on Saturday was a sense of drama and amazement.
Ninety-one victories in a row with no end to the winning in sight?
“Honestly, I don’t sit here and figure out how many games we’re going to win in a row,” Coach Geno Auriemma said before the Huskies broke out to a 21-0 lead and obliterated Southern Methodist in Dallas, 88-48, to write the latest chapter in the program’s illustrious history. “We’ve done it before.”
From 2008 to 2010, his team, powered by Maya Moore, chased and overtook the 88-game streak set by the U.C.L.A. men’s team in 1974, peaking at 90 straight before losing to Stanford. Given Connecticut’s dominance of the college women’s game — the Huskies have won the last four national titles and a record 11 in all under Auriemma — the notion of another lengthy streak was never a question.
But when Connecticut finished an unbeaten season last April by routing Syracuse in the national title game for its 75th straight victory, the widespread belief in women’s basketball circles was that the latest streak would quickly end, and that the next edition of the team could lose multiple games.
In the 2016 W.N.B.A. draft, the graduating portion of the UConn roster provided the top three picks, including Breanna Stewart, who was named the most outstanding player all four years she played in the Final Four. Going into this season, the Huskies for once lacked a preseason all-American, and they had an undersized front line, a shallow bench and uncertainty at the all-important point guard position.
But they did begin with a belief in the system generated by so much success and by Auriemma, who seldom lacks in self-assurance.
“Everybody in the whole country has talked about what we’ve lost,” said Kia Nurse, a junior and two-time national champion. “I personally like playing with a chip on our shoulder.”
That chip has turned into a steamrollering boulder. The streak nearly ended on opening night, at Florida State, when the Seminoles had a 3-point shot in the air for the win. The shot fell short, and nobody has pushed the Huskies that hard since.
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It wasn’t as if they took the path of least resistance to victory No. 91. Auriemma had joked that everyone was eager to schedule Connecticut this season, when seven of its first 12 games were against Top 25 teams, including road games against No. 2 Notre Dame and No. 4 Maryland, and a home game against No. 3 Baylor. Only the Baylor game was close in the final minutes.
Along the way, the Huskies have developed a new Big Three, in the sophomores Katie Lou Samuelson and Napheesa Collier and the junior Gabby Williams. They have never lost a game in the American Athletic Conference; their next formidable challenge figures to be a nonconference game at home on Feb. 13 against South Carolina, which is ranked No. 5 in the Associated Press and USA Today Coaches polls.
“Women’s basketball is always a little bit under the radar,” Auriemma said after the new record was secured. “But people that follow the game appreciate what this program has done.”
If the streak lasts until the South Carolina game, the Huskies will be shooting for a mind-boggling No. 100.
“Some things you just can’t really explain,” Auriemma said. “You just have to enjoy it.”
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