The last time the UConn women’s basketball team lost in the NCAA tournament, President Barack Obama was just a few months into his second term in office.
That feels like a forever ago, but it points out how dominant the Huskies have been over the past few years before Friday night’s stunning buzzer-beater loss at the hands of Mississippi State in the Final Four.
Winners of four consecutive national championships and 111 games in a row overall, UConn losing to the Bulldogs is one of the most stunning upsets in recent sports history. During the last five NCAA tournaments, the Huskies won every single game by at least double digits until Morgan William’s buzzer-beater changed everything.
Even just last year, UConn beat Mississippi State by 60 in the Sweet 16 and it sparked a debate about the state of women’s basketball.
It’s easy to overlook everything that UConn has accomplished because we’ve become so accustomed to Geno Auriemma’s teams dominating the entire landscape of women’s college basketball. Everyone just expects the Huskies to never make any mistakes.
But losing in the Final Four was a bigger national story for UConn than winning another national title. If the Huskies had just blown through the Final Four with two more wins we might not be paying that much attention.
We should be paying attention to UConn’s greatness because what they accomplished with this winning streak is completely absurd. It seemed like nobody would ever surpass the Huskies’ previous record-breaking winning streak of 91 games that was snapped in 2010. A couple of years later, UConn topped that with another ridiculous winning streak.
It’s going to be fascinating to see where UConn women’s basketball goes from here. The Huskies have already made 10 consecutive Final Four appearances and won numerous national championships. People are just going to assume that UConn women’s basketball will return to its dominant ways once next season tips off.
We’ll just have to see if it is the start of another memorable multi-year run for UConn women’s basketball.