47, 56, 81, 297, 2,632 and 88. All streaks that were not meant to be broken.
From 1971 to 1974, the John Wooden-led UCLA Bruins men’s basketball team won 88 straight games. And now from 2008 to 2010, the Geno Auriemma-led UConn Huskies women’s basketball team has won 88 straight games. What makes the UConn winning streak even more remarkable is the fact that only two players, Maya Moore and Tiffany Hayes have played in all 88 games of the streak.
So it shouldn’t surprise you in the least that it was Moore and Hayes who led the way for UConn in their streak-tying 88th win by beating The Ohio State Buckeyes 81-50 in front of 15,232 at Madison Square Garden on Sunday afternoon in the Maggie Dixon Classic.
Staying with the present, the No. 1/1 UConn women improve to 10-0 on the season. The No. 11/10 Buckeyes fall to 8-2.
Hayes led the way for the Huskies with 26 points and added six rebounds, four assists and four steals. Moore chipped in with 22 points, seven rebounds, five assists and four steals. Bria Hartley was the only other Husky in double figures with 13 points and had five assists
Stefanie Dolson, who did a great job of shutting down Jantel Lavender, led all players with 15 rebounds to go along with four points. Kelly Faris also had a nice game with eight points and 10 rebounds.
Lavender never really got going in the game as she was 7-of-21 from the floor to finish with 14 points and seven rebounds. She also committed six turnovers. Tayler Hill also had 14 points and six rebounds while Samantha Prahalis had seven points but also had seven turnovers. Sarah Schulze led the Buckeyes with nine rebounds.
Ohio State got things going quickly by starting out on a 6-0 run. But as they always do, the Huskies responded big as they went on a 13-0 run including nine straight points from Hayes to put themselves out front 13-6.
A Moore three pointer put the Huskies up 19-10 but the Buckeyes responded with a 5-0 run to cut it to four. An 8-0 run by the Huskies followed that to push the lead to 12 points and the closest the Buckeyes would get was eight points at 29-21 with 5:29 to go in the half. As basketball is usually a game of runs, over the next four minutes, the Huskies went on a 9-0 run to push the lead to 17 and had to settle for a 14 point lead at 40-26 at the half.
As we’ve seen all season long and almost all streak long, the Huskies defense clamped down to start the second half. And when they do that, their tough defense leads to points.
Over the course of the first five minutes of the second half, they pushed their lead to 20 points and never looked back from there.
When you look at the box score, you’ll see the Huskies shot 50% (32-of-64) from the floor. But won’t you don’t see is how many of those missed shots were layups. If they had converted even half of their missed layups, the final result could have been a lot uglier.
What impressed me the most of was the play of Dolson and Samarie Walker when Dolson needed a breather on Lavender. This was one of the main areas of concern for Auriemma and the Huskies going in but Lavender was never a factor. Sure she had a few moments but she was held to just four first half points because she was always guarded tightly by Dolson and Walker when she was in.
This game should be a great learning experience for Dolson and we can only hope she grows from it. She helped hold the nation’s leading scorer to just 14 points. Lavender had come in averaging 26.6 points a game over Ohio State’s first nine games.
Obviously there’s no comparison between what the UCLA men did and the UConn women have done so far. No men’s team will probably ever touch UCLA’s record because of the number of one-and-done players. And, UConn won’t break UCLA’s record of 88 games in their next game, they’ll only break their streak. They are two different things entirely.
But what UConn is doing is making women’s basketball more relevant than it ever has been. 88 is remarkable in itself but trust me 89 will look so much better.
It will be a quick turnaround for the Huskies as they look to go for the streak record of 89 straight games on Tuesday night at the XL Center when the Florida State Seminoles come to town. The game will start at 7 p.m. and will be broadcast nationally on ESPN2. The game had been originally scheduled to be broadcast on ESPNU but ESPN has decided to move it.
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Notes and musings:
The Ohio State Buckeyes @ UConn Huskies 12.19.10 Maggie Dixon Classic box score
47 is the number of wins by the Oklahoma Sooners football team from 1953-57.
56 is the number of consecutive games that Joe DiMaggio had a hit in.
81 is the number of consecutive wins by the Division III Washington University women’s basketball team from 1988-2001.
297 is the number of consecutive starts that Brett Favre made.
2,632 is the number of consecutive games that Cal Ripken played in.
The starters for the Huskies were Bria Hartley, Tiffany Hayes, Kelly Faris, Maya Moore and Stefanie Dolson.
The crowd of 15,232 is the most ever for a women’s basketball game at Madison Square Garden.
Maya Moore and Lorin Dixon are 124-2 in their careers at UConn while Tiffany Hayes and Caroline Doty are 88-0. Doty is out for the season after tearing her ACL again over the summer.
The Huskies shot 50% (32-of-64) from the floor while the Buckeyes shot 26.5% (18-of-68).
UConn had 18 assists on their 32 made baskets.
The Huskies were 5-of-15 (33.3%) on three-pointers while the Buckeyes were 5-of-18 (27.8%).
UConn shot 75% (12-of-16) from the free throw line. Ohio State was 9-of-14 (64.3%).
The Huskies dominated the glass holding a 49-35 advantage.
UConn outscored Ohio State 48-22 in the paint and 21-7 on the fast break.
Both the Buckeyes and Huskies had 21 turnovers. UConn had 19 points and Ohio State had 13 points off of those turnovers.
The rest of the notes are courtesy of the UConn Women’s Sports Information Department:
– Tiffany Hayes put together a personal 9-0 run early in the first half as the Huskies seized an 11-6 lead at the 16:10 mark after trailing by as many as six points
– UConn improves to 3-0 all-time at Madison Square Garden and 2-0 in Maggie Dixon Classic play
– Today’s win is UConn’s 78th consecutive regular-season victory, which the breaks old record of 77 set by the Huskies from 2001-04. UConn’s last regular-season loss came on Feb. 5, 2008
– The Huskies are now 105-18 all-time when playing on national television
– Stefanie Dolson set a career high with 15 rebounds. Her previous career best was eight, which she established on November 16 against Baylor
– Connecticut improves to a perfect 30-0 against ranked teams during its current 88-game winning streak, including 17-0 against teams ranked in the top-10.
Photo credits: AP Photo, Hartford Courant (No. 3)
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