LUKE’s LOCKER ROOM
111 games.
111 wins.
How the University of Connecticut women’s basketball team and Head Coach Geno Auriemma won 111 games in a row is an unbelievable feat and marks a streak for most consecutive games won at the college level that very well may never be surpassed.
From what experience I had playing basketball, I cannot imagine winning 111 games in a row. That is an unfathomable amount of times to walk off the court as the victor. There were players on the Huskies’ roster that had never lost a college basketball game until Mississippi State’s Morgan William ended the Huskies season with an overtime buzzer-beater Thursday, March 31.
What is it like to go your entire college career to this point without having lost a game? I wish I could have seen the reactions of the Huskies players in the locker room after the game.
My high school basketball team was not good by any means. The highlight of our basketball program during my time playing was finishing the season at .500 with an 8-8 record my senior year. It did not get better than that.
Yeah, it was bad. Regardless, my friends and I still loved playing.
I did not even play anywhere near 111 games in high school, and the Huskies went and won 111 straight games at the college level.
If my high school team had won every game that we played in those four years, it would have been hard not to become prideful from our accomplishments. At that point, winning is just something that would be expected.
Did the Huskies go into the game against the Lady Bulldogs just expecting to walk over them on their way to their fifth straight title? Were they too prideful in the last 111 games and didn’t take the 112th game as seriously? Winning that much has a tendency to make people take winning for granted — something the Huskies
may have done.
I feel like most of the sports world in America realizes that teams are going to win some games and lose some games. But some of these girls on UCONN’s team had never lost a college game. We as sports fans see losing as just another aspect of sports. One team proves to be better than another. What could it be like after 111 games to be the team bested on the court by another?
The Huskies were the clear favorite to win the national championship again this season, and they would have played the South Carolina Gamecocks in the final — a team they beat by 11 earlier in the season.
But it seems the Huskies lack of adversity during that 111-game streak came back to bite them in the end. According to ESPN, the Huskies had gone 865 days without a loss — their last being to top-10 ranked Stanford Nov. 14, 2014.
Mississippi St. was ahead by 16 points in the second quarter — the largest deficit the Huskies faced in their win streak. If history is any indication, many may have thought the game was already over when the Lady Bulldogs forced overtime, as the Huskies are now 0-4 in overtime games in the NCAA tournament going back to 1996 when the Huskies fell to legendary Coach Pat Summit and the Lady Vols. Take that, Geno. Go Vols.
I firmly believe the Huskies 111-game streak is one of the greatest accomplishments in sports, but I also do not want to overlook what Mississippi State did. Few probably remember that the two teams met in the Sweet 16 of last year’s NCAA tournament, and the Huskies ran the Lady Bulldogs out of the gym, winning by 60 points.
The Lady Bulldogs played like they did not care about their last 111 games, and they ended up pulling off one of the best upsets in recent women’s basketball history.
The Huskies are without a doubt one of the premier college basketball programs in the country — men’s or women’s. Auriemma is annually reeling in the best women’s high school players he can find, and he develops them seamlessly together into a well-oiled machine on the court that blows out almost every opponent it plays.
These girls have always been told they are the best in the country at what they do and always win at every level of basketball they have played. How do they respond?
There is probably some sort of comparison that could be made to the millennial generation here: because the Huskies have always been in first place, they may think they deserve the national championship trophy. What is it like to have that taken away from them this year?
If there is a comparison to be made, you won’t find it in the sports section. Go read the opinion pages or something for that.
Also, I promise never to use the word “millennial” in this column again.
Regardless, Auriemma and the Huskies are a force to be reckoned with on the basketball court. They have been a great program for a while, and there is no doubt they will continue their dominance of women’s basketball in the future. Just not this year.
DILLARD is the sports editor.