APGeno Auriemma The UConn women won its 88th consecutive basketball game on Sunday when UConn beat Ohio State. The team celebrated, the fans celebrated and for some reason the streak has been compared to UCLA's men's streak of 88 straight victories. Same sport, but different genders, and that's the difference. Until men and women compete together on the same basketball floor,...
Geno AuriemmaThe UConn women won its 88th consecutive basketball game on Sunday when UConn beat Ohio State.
The team celebrated, the fans celebrated and for some reason the streak has been compared to UCLA's men's streak of 88 straight victories.
Same sport, but different genders, and that's the difference.
Until men and women compete together on the same basketball floor, all sports records when it comes to women and men's sports, should be separate, and some time not equal.
Do we now include the WNBA records with the NBA records?
Sun-Times reporter Mark Potash puts some sense to all of this when he writes how Connecticut coach Geno Auriemma made the streak more than it really is.
Here’s a news flash for Auriemma: You’re not chasing UCLA’s record of 88 consecutive victories under John Wooden. You didn’t tie it and you’re not going to break it. That’s a men’s basketball record. You coach a women’s team. A women’s team can’t break a men’s record any more than a men’s team can break a women’s record.
Nobody’s having a heart attack over your perceived ‘‘threat’’ to UCLA’s record. The only reason people are writing about it, if they are at all, is in response to others who are trying to convince themselves that you’re breaking it.
You’ve got the best women’s basketball program in the country, and Tennessee’s Pat Summitt has lost 16 times since you last got beat. Why can’t you be happy with that?
Potash doesn't have an issue with some basketball fans, and media. His issue is with Auriemma.
Auriemma should be happy that established media are buying the idea that UConn is breaking UCLA’s record and giving him a soapbox to whine about the lack of respect women’s basketball receives in the sporting world.