San Francisco (Obama.net)- Most Americans would be hard pressed to remember the last time that the Connecticut Huskies women’s basketball team lost a game. For a record 90 games, the UCONN women went undefeated against every team that challenged them. The winning streak is the longest ever in Division 1 NCAA basketball. Just a matter of days ago, the Huskies broke the previous record of 88 consecutive victories held by the UCLA Bruins men’s teams of 1971 through 1974, led by the late John Wooden.
But on Thursday, the new record was officially set at 90 as the Stanford women shut down the Huskies by defeating them by twelve points for a final score of 71-59. Fittingly, the last time the UCONN women lost to anyone was in April of 2008 when they fell to Stanford in the NCAA tournament.
The Stanford women were led by Jeanette Pohlen. Pohlen scored 31 points, including five important three-point shots.
On the other side, Maya Moore of UCONN did not record her first point until just moments before the first half came to a close. Moore is the current reigning player of the year. She also won the award the previous year.
The Huskies’ loss in Palo Alto, California also marked the first time since before the streak began that the team did not lead at any point in the game.
The UCONN women shot a disappointing 32.8 percent, making only 20 of their 61 shot attempts.
After the game, coach Geno Auriemma told reporters, “I think disappointment is the right word, but not disappointment that we lost. There’s a sense of disappointment that we didn’t play well. There’s been other times we didn’t play well, it’s just that we haven’t faced anybody as good as Stanford was tonight.”
The UCONN coach went on to praise the excellent play of the Stanford Cardinals Thursday night. Auriemma said that simply put, his team was outplayed by Stanford and just could not match the performance put up by the Cardinals. He also touted the play of Jeanette Pohlen, calling her “spectacular.”
The Huskies defeated their opponents by thirty-three points on average throughout the streak and won 88 of the games by at least ten points.
Despite losing their winning streak, the loss might actually be a blessing in disguise. Without a winning streak to worry about now, there is less pressure on the UCONN women, which might allow them to play more relaxed by not being concerned with chasing a record.
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