HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — Men’s teams. Women’s teams. No. 89 belongs to UConn. It beats them all.
The No. 1-ranked Huskies women’s basketball team topped the 88-game winning streak set by John Wooden’s UCLA men’s team from 1971-74, beating No. 22 Florida State 93-62 on Tuesday night. Playing with the relentlessness that has become its trademark — and would have made Wooden proud — Connecticut blew past the Seminoles as it has so many other teams in the last 2½ years.
Maya Moore had a double-double with a career-high 41 points and 10 rebounds and Bria Hartley added 21 points for the Huskies, who have not lost since April 6, 2008, in the NCAA tournament semifinals. Only twice during the record run has a team come within single digits of UConn — Stanford in the NCAA championship game last season and Baylor in early November.
When the final buzzer sounded, UConn players sprinted across the floor to shake hands with the student section as fans held up signs with “89” and the Huskies logo on them. A couple of other fans raised a banner that read “The Sorcerer of Storrs.” After a brief huddle in front of their bench, UConn players re-emerged wearing “89 and Counting” T-shirts and bounced around at center court before posing for photos.
“I’m not John Wooden and this isn’t UCLA,” coach Geno Auriemma said. “This is Connecticut and that’s good enough.”
It is one more chapter of history for UConn, and perhaps the grandest.
Connecticut long ago established itself as the marquee program in the women’s game, the benchmark by which all others are measured. The Huskies already own seven national titles and four perfect seasons under Auriemma, and they’ve produced a galaxy of stars that includes Rebecca Lobo, Diana Taurasi, Jennifer Rizzotti, Sue Bird and Tina Charles.
The streak, though, takes it to another level, certainly raising the profile of women’s basketball and maybe all of women’s athletics.
Two days after beating No. 11 Ohio State to tie UCLA, UConn toppled the mark in front of a sellout crowd of 16,294 at the XL Center that included Wooden’s grandson, Greg, attending his first women’s game.
John Wooden, the beloved Wizard of Westwood, died June 4 at age 99.
There was a festive atmosphere throughout the city, where building lights gleamed blue and white, and it was as electric as any Final Four inside the arena. Charles and UConn men’s star Kemba Walker sat behind the Huskies’ bench, and football coach Randy Edsall was there, too. Former NFL star Warrick Dunn, meanwhile, was cheering for his alma mater, Florida State.
With the game tied at 6, Moore and UConn (11-0) took command. The senior All-American had seven points during a 15-2 run to give Connecticut its first double-digit lead, and Moore’s fadeaway jumper from the baseline extended the advantage to 34-15. Florida State (9-3) made a quick run to cut the lead to 11, but the Huskies weren’t about to let anyone spoil this night.
UConn ripped off the next 16 points, capped by consecutive 3-pointers from freshman Bria Hartley and a pull-up by Moore. Auriemma gave Hartley a kiss at the next timeout, and the tough-to-please coach was still grinning at halftime.
“She doesn’t feel any of this,” Auriemma said as he left the court. “She’s kind of immune to all of this as a freshman. I love kids like that.”
UConn’s rise to prominence began in 1995, when Lobo led the Huskies to their first national championship and unbeaten season. Since then, the best players in the country have made their way to the rural campus in Storrs, 30 miles outside of Hartford.
The excellence and confidence that defines great teams defines this one because Auriemma won’t have it any other way. Perfection is expected, not simply a goal, and Auriemma goes to extraordinary lengths to get it.
He goads his players with criticisms of their games — sarcastic remarks that may strike outsiders as harsh but somehow trigger just the right response with gusto. He makes them play games of seven-on-five in practice. He rounds up bigger, stronger male students around campus to serve as practice players. He runs endless drills to hone skills the players thought they had mastered in junior high.
It hardly seems to matter who is on the floor because UConn players don’t wear names on the back of their uniforms. The only one that counts is the one on the front.
When UConn — led by Taurasi — won 70 straight games from 2001-03, a record in the women’s game, it seemed unfathomable that it would be toppled, like UCLA’s 88. But what fans have learned over the years is that nothing this team does should be surprising. They have beaten 16 top-10 teams during the latest streak — four more than UCLA did during its run — and five of those wins came against the No. 2 team. It’s been more than 17 years since UConn lost consecutive games.
“We never talked about the streak,” said Charles, last season’s national player of the year. “We were playing for each other, what we did at practice, all the hard work we did, and just trying to do it on the court. There wasn’t anything about the streak.”
The Huskies have won by any average of more than 33 points during the streak and rarely found themselves in trouble. They have trailed for 134 minutes, including only 13 in the second half. They’ve won back-to-back national championships, and are now one short of Tennessee’s record for overall titles by a women’s team.
Even before UConn tied UCLA’s record, the two programs were linked.
Auriemma acknowledges that his team runs the same offense that Wooden perfected 37 years earlier. But it’s not just the Xs and Os. The top block of Wooden’s pyramid of success reads: “Competitive Greatness: Perform at your best when your best is required. Your best is required every day.”
That’s been Auriemma’s mantra all along.
Greg Wooden, who lives in California, said he came East because, “I kind of thought that somebody should come here from the family and show support.”
He also was aware that “certain players have said they’re not really supportive of the streak.”
But he came knowing “my grandfather would have loved to have been here to see this.”
The day Notre Dame broke UCLA’s streak, John Wooden was asked how long it would be before somebody surpassed it.
“I have no idea how long it will be before somebody else wins that many. I know it takes at least three years,” he replied.
Try 36 years, 11 months, and 2 days.