The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Huskies can tie record with win tonight
Win over rival USF would be team’s 90th in a row
STORRS >> On that early December day inside the Greer Fieldhouse back in 1985, there was no extra sense of accomplishment as Geno Auriemma and his top assistant coach Chris Dailey piloted the UConn women’s basketball team to a hard-earned win over Marist on the first day of the Connecticut Classic.
While there was little of the media attention that accompanies UConn’s brain trust these days, it is likely Auriemma and Dailey would have downplayed the accomplishment of setting a program record with a fifth consecutive victory.
Over the decades, the wins have come at a fast and furious pace and the winning streaks earned entries into the NCAA record book. But the philosophy of staying true to the process has never waned even as the Huskies are on the verge of tying their own record with their 90th straight win when No. 20 South Florida comes to the XL Center on Tuesday night (7 p.m., CBS College Sports). The Bulls happen to be the only team to lead the Huskies for more than 10 minutes in a game twice during this current streak.
“As long as our players understand that the object of playing basketball at Connecticut is not to set records for winning streaks,” Auriemma said. “Things happen because you come out and work hard every day and you try to get better, play a certain way regardless of who the opponent is and then you look up and realize ‘wow, we won a lot of games.’ That has never been the focal point and it is just a by-product of what we do.”
Auriemma couldn’t believe it was happening in 2010 when
UConn broke the NCAA Division I basketball record for consecutive wins previously held by the legendary John Wooden’s UCLA teams in the 1970s. The fact that his squad is 40 minutes away from a second winning streak of 90 games simply boggles his mind.
Before the UConn schedule was released, a rough draft of it came across Auriemma’s desk. When it was brought to his attention that the game that would be win No. 91 in a row would be on the road, he scoffed at the mere mention that the Huskies would be undefeated this late in the season or any discussion of adjusting the schedule to have a potential win No. 91 in a row be played in Connecticut. With the graduation of All-Americans Moriah Jefferson, Breanna Stewart and Morgan Tuck and a schedule featuring six of the first 10 games against ranked opponents, Auriemma didn’t entertain any thoughts of the Huskies being in position to go after their 90th consecutive win.
Auriemma’s doubts appeared to be well founded when Florida State led by four points at halftime in the season opener. The Hall of Fame coach openly challenged his team’s toughness in the locker room at halftime and when the FSU lead was seven points early in the second half, part of him much have been relieved that at least he wouldn’t need to answer any winning streak questions in the foreseeable future.
Then a funny thing happened, the team that was too inexperienced, that lacked on-court leadership and wasn’t tough enough began to fight their way back. The host Seminoles had two chances to take the lead in the closing seconds, but the Huskies emerged with a two-point win. Victories followed against experienced Baylor, Texas, Ohio State, Notre Dame and Maryland teams pushing the Huskies to the brink of history — again.
“We don’t talk about the streak and as players you aren’t focusing on that, you are focusing on playing each game,” said sophomore Katie Lou Samuelson, UConn’s leading scorer. “I am sure they were the exact same way when they were doing it back then. Coach (Auriemma) does a great job of making us pay attention that this game we are playing is the most important game of the season and the next game as we go is in our minds going to be the most important.
“Each person has taken the challenge of taking a brand new role, embracing it is as much as they have been I think each person has tried our hardest to do what is best for the team.”
That could be the most impressive aspect of the 14-0 start to this season.
When Jefferson, Stewart and Tuck were around Auriemma likes to say players like Samuelson, fellow sophomore Napheesa Collier, juniors Kia Nurse and Gabby Williams and senior Saniya Chong were loving life. If they made some plays, UConn was going to win but if they didn’t have it, the Huskies still would emerge victorious.
There is no such safety net this time around. There were plenty of naysayers and none might have been any louder than their own coaches who understandably expected there to be some bumps in the road just as there were following the graduation of Diana Taurasi and Maya Moore.
“I did not think we would be in the position we are in now,” Dailey said. “I thought looking at our schedule, knowing our inexperience, watching individual (workouts) I thought we had a really tough schedule and are playing a lot of really tough teams. To their credit, we have seen them step up when we need them to. They embrace it, we don’t talk about it a lot. I give them all the credit because it would have been easy in games, the Florida State game we were down by (seven). It could have been 20 and it would have been OK and it would have been understandable but it wasn’t. They fought back. They have shown us that they are willing to fight more than we thought they were. We challenged them early and they fought back and that is what they have been doing ever since.”
The coaches did not lower the expectations, they weren’t asking less of these players than of more refined, experienced squads. Auriemma bellowed to his team shortly before the season tipped off that while the Huskies lost some vitally important players, they did not take the Connecticut name and aura with them. Those words have stuck with the Huskies’ best players this season.
“I think the UConn family is close knit, I have seen it the last couple of years at the Final Four and how many of them come back to support us and it is a kinship,” Nurse said. “We are thankful for what they did to help out with this legacy and hopefully what we are doing it making them proud of that.
“You know that they put so much effort, so much work, put their heart and soul into their four years here and building this into what it is today. Same thing with CD and Coach, it is almost like a respect thing and you want to play the way Connecticut basketball plays because they had done it for so many years, they had gone through the struggles, the transitions like you had. The success they had is encouraging and inspiring for us.”
Dailey admitted to being impressed with the moxie that this group has displayed both in games and during practices.
“They understand that there is a certain way because that is the expectation that we have, we are holding them to a standard every day,” Dailey said. “Every second we are in the gym, you are being held to a certain standard and I think they understand that. I think what they have shown is that they too have embraced the challenge, they have embraced the schedule that we have this year, how tough it is when you are Connecticut and you are ranked No. 1, they have embraced all of that and have taken everybody’s best shot including the coaches every day and have always gotten back up and performed. I think that is a credit to our players, a credit to the types of kids that we get.”