100 and Counting

This was supposed to be a down year for UConn.  Breanna Stewart graduated and was the top pick in a WNBA Draft where Huskies went 1-2-3.  So, after four straight National Championships, this was finally going to be the year somebody else rose to the top of women's basketball.  Except somebody forgot to tell UConn that.

On Monday night, they won their 100th consecutive game.  100 wins in a row.  Let that sink in for a second.  Most NCAA programs celebrate when their coach gets to 100 wins.  Gino Auriemma has done that in little more than two years without a loss.  Of course, he's got a lot more wins than that.  But 100 straight.  That's simply remarkable.

Try and discredit the streak all you want.  You won't be able to make a single argument that diminishes their achievement one iota.  "The American Athletic Conference isn't the strongest league."  That's true.  UConn beat South Florida, the second-best team in the conference, by 65 the night they tied their previous NCAA-record winning streak.  But UConn blows out the other top teams, too.  "They get their pick of all the best players every year."  And that's their fault?  So do the Kentucky men and Alabama football.  Does anyone have an issue with that?  "It's women's basketball."  So what?  Women's basketball is suddenly less of a sport, so those wins don't count as much?

And anyone who says UConn is "bad for the game" completely misses the point.  The Patriots win all the time.  Are they "bad" for the NFL?  Is Usain Bolt "bad" for track & field?  Is Michael Phelps "bad" for swimming?  Is Serena Williams "bad" for tennis?  Or, to keep it in women's basketball, is the U.S. Olympic team's dominance (49 straight wins since a loss in the 1992 semifinals) "bad" for the sport?  (Not to mention the U.S. men's team, where every loss is a headline-making event.)  Was UCLA's 88-game streak in the 70s, which was the record until a previous UConn streak hit 90, "bad" for the men's game?

In fact, I'd argue it's exactly the opposite.  They aren't "bad" for the game.  They're raising it.  Everyone needs to raise their level if they have any hope of competing with UConn, let alone beating them.  It's UConn that has its own TV contract.  It's UConn that sells out visiting arenas.  It's UConn that people talk about.  And, as a result, it's women's basketball that people talk about.  Without the Huskies, would anyone even care?

UConn hasn't lost since Nov. 17, 2014, when Stanford snapped their 47-game winning streak with an 88-86 overtime win.  Which means they've won 147 of their last 148 games.  Since the start of the 2013-14 season, they're 141-1.  Of the 12 players on UConn's active roster, seven have never lost a college game.  The other five's only blemish was that loss at Stanford two and a half years ago!

Is this UConn's best team?  Probably not.  That honor still has to go to the 2002 Sue Bird-Diana Taurasi-Swin Cash squad.  But this is the one that got to 100.  And don't think they didn't feel the pressure.  They felt it every game.

Nobody thought they'd get anywhere close to this point when the season began.  They were ranked No. 3 to start the season, and they only won their opener at No. 12 Florida State by two.  Then they played Baylor in a 2 vs. 3 matchup.  And won by 11.  They also won by 11 in a 1 vs. 2 matchup at Notre Dame, the one team that always gave them trouble when they were both in the Big East.  Then they visited No. 4 Maryland...and beat them by six.

So, of course, as the wins kept piling up and 100 was in sight, you looked down the schedule and saw that the team they'd go for the 100th against was none other than No. 5 South Carolina, a team that made the Final Four in 2015 and was the No. 2 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament last year.  But, when they went into that game, at a sold-out Gampel Pavilion, with the streak at 99, was there any doubt what would happen?  They rose to the occasion.  Like they always do.

With only conference games remaining between now and the NCAA Tournament, who knows how many more wins they'll pile up before the streak finally ends?  If they win another national title (their fifth straight), it'll be at 113 entering the 2017-18 season.

Eventually, the streak will end.  UConn is inevitably going to lose again at some point.  We just have no idea when.  But instead of waiting for that day to happen and belittling what they've done, let's celebrate their accomplishment.  Because, for everything UConn has achieved in its illustrious history, this is something we've never seen before and likely never will again.  100 straight wins!  Wow!