Shannon Stapleton/ReutersHuskies’ Moore, a senior, is one of only two players on the team to have experienced a defeat while at Connecticut, which last lost on April 6, 2008, to Stanford, in the national semifinals.
Suzy Allman for The New York TimesUConn forward Maya Moore, who had 41 points, boxed out against Florida State on Tuesday night.
Suzy Allman for The New York TimesMaya Moore in the final seconds of Connecticut’s record-breaking 89th straight victory. Moore played in every game of the streak.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/22/sports/ncaabasketball/22uconn.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=a27
All,
This is a phenomenal achievement and a revolutionary breakthrough for women's sports in the United States. WHAT A GREAT TEAM AND AN AMAZING RECORD!!
Kofi
UCONN 93, FLORIDA STATE 62
UConn Women Own the Longest Streak
December 21, 2010
By JERÉ LONGMAN
New York Times
HARTFORD — For decades, U.C.L.A.’s winning streak seemed as round and fundamental and permanent as the shape of the ball itself.
And yet, it is the Connecticut women, not the U.C.L.A. men, who now hold the major-college basketball record for invincibility. The Huskies won their 89th consecutive game Tuesday with a 93-62 throttling of Florida State before a sellout crowd of 16,294 at the XL Center, surpassing the 88 straight won by the U.C.L.A. men, coached by John Wooden, from 1971 to 1974.
The top-ranked Huskies (11-0) were bolstered Tuesday by career-high scoring from the senior forward Maya Moore (41 points) and the freshman point guard Bria Hartley (21). UConn has been so dominant during its run that the average victory margin has been 33.3 points. Only four teams have come within 10 points of UConn and only one has shot at least 50 percent from the field. By halftime against Florida State, Moore’s 26 points were one fewer than the Seminoles had scored as a team.
UConn’s last defeat came by 82-73 to Stanford on April 6, 2008, in the national semifinals. Many predict the eighth-ranked Cardinal will bookend the Huskies’ streak when it hosts UConn on Dec. 30. Otherwise, the Huskies may go undefeated through the regular season as momentum snowballs toward a third consecutive national championship.
The overall college record is held by the women’s team at Wayland Baptist University of Plainview, Tex., which won 131 consecutive games from 1953 to 1958. But that was decades before the N.C.A.A. began sponsoring women’s basketball in 1982. It was a different game, played under different rules, at a different speed and a different level of athleticism. And it probably did not involve congratulations from the president of the United States.
During UConn’s postgame news conference on Tuesday, Coach Geno Auriemma received a call from President Obama, an inveterate basketball fan. According to Auriemma, Obama told him, “It’s a great thing for sports; it’s an accomplishment to be celebrated.”
To which Auriemma replied: “We have not lost since you were inaugurated. How about we keep that streak going for a couple more years, huh?”
Greg Wooden, a grandson of the legendary U.C.L.A. coach, who died in June, attended Tuesday’s game and said his grandfather would have been “absolutely thrilled” to see the Bruins’ streak broken by a women’s team, especially one as unselfish as UConn.
Late in his life, Wooden said, his grandfather “thought the best basketball was played at the collegiate level and it wasn’t by the men.”
This UConn team is hardly the best that Auriemma has coached while winning seven national titles since 1995. But the younger UConn players are growing more assured, more deeply initiated into a culture that fosters confidence and unselfish play and demands unwavering effort. In the first half Tuesday, Auriemma grew so elated with Hartley’s performance that he gave her a kiss.
Speaking about the Huskies, Bill Walton, the all-American center on those U.C.L.A. teams of the early 1970s, told The Associated Press: “They play with a great sense of team, great purpose, phenomenal execution of fundamentals, relentless attack. It is what every team should aspire to, regardless of the sport.”
Few players in women’s college basketball have been so reliable in pressured moments as the 6-foot Moore, who has played every game of the streak. She moves elegantly and stealthily without the ball, pogo-sticks for jump shots, swoops in on the fast break, right arm extended with the ball.
“She just reminds me of Kobe Bryant,” said Florida State Coach Sue Semrau. “What player in our game stops and pops like she does?”
This season, Moore has also nurtured her younger teammates to set the proper screens, to make the proper passes. And though she does not possess the same swagger as the former UConn star Diana Taurasi, she does possess the same resolve to perform at her best in the biggest games.
“One thing John Wooden used to say about what competitive greatness is, is having the ability to be your absolute best when your best is absolutely needed,” Auriemma said. “That’s Maya Moore.”
At various times during this torrid streak, UConn has fielded the nation’s top point guard in Renee Montgomery, the top center in Tina Charles and the top forward in Moore. There are two kinds of coaches, Auriemma is fond of saying: “Those who coach great players. And ex-coaches.”
But his own imprint on UConn’s success, his demand for an unyielding commitment to greatness, cannot be overestimated. The Huskies force opponents to submit with a doggedness that is unyielding on both offense and defense, no matter the time, no matter the score.
And Auriemma has had little patience from those — mostly male writers and commentators — who dismiss the UConn streak as somehow unworthy, because women are supposedly less skilled than men, because the competition is supposedly insufficient.
He has called these critics “miserable” and said they were angry because they “don’t want us to break the record.”
Tuesday, Auriemma said, “We’re not going to change their minds and I don’t care.” He added, “Like it or not, we made you pay attention.”
He has not asked for more attention for his team, Auriemma said: “I just asked for everybody to admire what these kids do and how they do and how hard it is to do it.”
What will it take to break UConn’s stranglehold? A concerted effort, Auriemma said the other day, not just one or two or three universities but a collective attempt to elevate the women’s game, just as big-time football universities decided to challenge U.C.L.A. in men’s basketball once administrators saw the possibility of victory and profit.
“Again, it’s women’s sports, so people aren’t going to give it the respect it’s due,” Auriemma said.
He has a gut feeling, Auriemma said, that at some point this season, UConn’s streak will end. That would not be a bad thing for a young team, he said. The most important goal is winning a national championship.
“Then they can start on their own thing,” Auriemma said in a recent interview about the streak’s inevitable end. “Until then, they’re living on someone else’s accomplishment. They’re going to have to live up to that. That’s not why you play basketball. You want to create your own stuff. We want to create something that belongs to this team.”
All,
This is a phenomenal achievement and a revolutionary breakthrough for women's sports in the United States. WHAT A GREAT TEAM AND AN AMAZING RECORD!!
Kofi
UCONN 93, FLORIDA STATE 62
UConn Women Own the Longest Streak
December 21, 2010
By JERÉ LONGMAN
New York Times
HARTFORD — For decades, U.C.L.A.’s winning streak seemed as round and fundamental and permanent as the shape of the ball itself.
And yet, it is the Connecticut women, not the U.C.L.A. men, who now hold the major-college basketball record for invincibility. The Huskies won their 89th consecutive game Tuesday with a 93-62 throttling of Florida State before a sellout crowd of 16,294 at the XL Center, surpassing the 88 straight won by the U.C.L.A. men, coached by John Wooden, from 1971 to 1974.
The top-ranked Huskies (11-0) were bolstered Tuesday by career-high scoring from the senior forward Maya Moore (41 points) and the freshman point guard Bria Hartley (21). UConn has been so dominant during its run that the average victory margin has been 33.3 points. Only four teams have come within 10 points of UConn and only one has shot at least 50 percent from the field. By halftime against Florida State, Moore’s 26 points were one fewer than the Seminoles had scored as a team.
UConn’s last defeat came by 82-73 to Stanford on April 6, 2008, in the national semifinals. Many predict the eighth-ranked Cardinal will bookend the Huskies’ streak when it hosts UConn on Dec. 30. Otherwise, the Huskies may go undefeated through the regular season as momentum snowballs toward a third consecutive national championship.
The overall college record is held by the women’s team at Wayland Baptist University of Plainview, Tex., which won 131 consecutive games from 1953 to 1958. But that was decades before the N.C.A.A. began sponsoring women’s basketball in 1982. It was a different game, played under different rules, at a different speed and a different level of athleticism. And it probably did not involve congratulations from the president of the United States.
During UConn’s postgame news conference on Tuesday, Coach Geno Auriemma received a call from President Obama, an inveterate basketball fan. According to Auriemma, Obama told him, “It’s a great thing for sports; it’s an accomplishment to be celebrated.”
To which Auriemma replied: “We have not lost since you were inaugurated. How about we keep that streak going for a couple more years, huh?”
Greg Wooden, a grandson of the legendary U.C.L.A. coach, who died in June, attended Tuesday’s game and said his grandfather would have been “absolutely thrilled” to see the Bruins’ streak broken by a women’s team, especially one as unselfish as UConn.
Late in his life, Wooden said, his grandfather “thought the best basketball was played at the collegiate level and it wasn’t by the men.”
This UConn team is hardly the best that Auriemma has coached while winning seven national titles since 1995. But the younger UConn players are growing more assured, more deeply initiated into a culture that fosters confidence and unselfish play and demands unwavering effort. In the first half Tuesday, Auriemma grew so elated with Hartley’s performance that he gave her a kiss.
Speaking about the Huskies, Bill Walton, the all-American center on those U.C.L.A. teams of the early 1970s, told The Associated Press: “They play with a great sense of team, great purpose, phenomenal execution of fundamentals, relentless attack. It is what every team should aspire to, regardless of the sport.”
Few players in women’s college basketball have been so reliable in pressured moments as the 6-foot Moore, who has played every game of the streak. She moves elegantly and stealthily without the ball, pogo-sticks for jump shots, swoops in on the fast break, right arm extended with the ball.
“She just reminds me of Kobe Bryant,” said Florida State Coach Sue Semrau. “What player in our game stops and pops like she does?”
This season, Moore has also nurtured her younger teammates to set the proper screens, to make the proper passes. And though she does not possess the same swagger as the former UConn star Diana Taurasi, she does possess the same resolve to perform at her best in the biggest games.
“One thing John Wooden used to say about what competitive greatness is, is having the ability to be your absolute best when your best is absolutely needed,” Auriemma said. “That’s Maya Moore.”
At various times during this torrid streak, UConn has fielded the nation’s top point guard in Renee Montgomery, the top center in Tina Charles and the top forward in Moore. There are two kinds of coaches, Auriemma is fond of saying: “Those who coach great players. And ex-coaches.”
But his own imprint on UConn’s success, his demand for an unyielding commitment to greatness, cannot be overestimated. The Huskies force opponents to submit with a doggedness that is unyielding on both offense and defense, no matter the time, no matter the score.
And Auriemma has had little patience from those — mostly male writers and commentators — who dismiss the UConn streak as somehow unworthy, because women are supposedly less skilled than men, because the competition is supposedly insufficient.
He has called these critics “miserable” and said they were angry because they “don’t want us to break the record.”
Tuesday, Auriemma said, “We’re not going to change their minds and I don’t care.” He added, “Like it or not, we made you pay attention.”
He has not asked for more attention for his team, Auriemma said: “I just asked for everybody to admire what these kids do and how they do and how hard it is to do it.”
What will it take to break UConn’s stranglehold? A concerted effort, Auriemma said the other day, not just one or two or three universities but a collective attempt to elevate the women’s game, just as big-time football universities decided to challenge U.C.L.A. in men’s basketball once administrators saw the possibility of victory and profit.
“Again, it’s women’s sports, so people aren’t going to give it the respect it’s due,” Auriemma said.
He has a gut feeling, Auriemma said, that at some point this season, UConn’s streak will end. That would not be a bad thing for a young team, he said. The most important goal is winning a national championship.
“Then they can start on their own thing,” Auriemma said in a recent interview about the streak’s inevitable end. “Until then, they’re living on someone else’s accomplishment. They’re going to have to live up to that. That’s not why you play basketball. You want to create your own stuff. We want to create something that belongs to this team.”
