The Connecticut Huskies 88-game winning streak haven't lost since Aug 6, 2008, against the Stanford Cardinal. With a win tonight over the Florida St. Seminoles, they'll eclipse the 88-game winning streak posted by John Wooden's UCLA Bruins from 1971 to 1974. The mark will be the new Division I basketball record for wins in a row, if they can pull it off.
No. 22 Florida State Vs. No. 1 UConn: Huskies Can Top John Wooden’s Winning Streak Tonight
You’d think this would be cause for universal fanfare, but some, such as CBS Sports’ Gregg Doyel, see it as a gloomy sign of the competitive imbalance in women’s college hoops. The UConn Blog, our Huskies community, responds to the notion that we should find a reason not to appreciate rare greatness:
If winning 88 straight games was simply a matter of talent disparity, then Tennesse probably would have done it sometime in the 90's. Or aneven more talented UConn team wouldn't have lost after 70 when Diana Taurasi was around. Or that Candace Parker's Tennessee teams would have come close. If it was simply a talent issue, the top teams in women's basketball would be pushing 50-game win streaks all the time. But they don't, they don't even come close.
Doyel makes the same argument tossed around by SEC football stans [/points at self] about Boise State football, though the obvious counter is that if it’s so easy to win against this level of competition, why doesn’t everybody do it?
But what about the matchup itself? The only time the Huskies have been tested during a game all season came when they had to rally from eight down to beat Baylor, while FSU’s only two losses were to Michigan State and Yale.
The Huskies are more than 10 points better on both offense and defense, rank among the top three in both offensive and defensive shooting percentages, have a towering home court advantage, and are led by Maya Moore, the nation’s best player. I’ve tried to find a major stat at which the Noles have an advantage, and would be delighted if you could point out even a minor stat that favors FSU.
FSU is a good team, but it would take one of the biggest upsets in women’s basketball history for Moore and company to not break Wooden’s record tonight.
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