A funny thing happened to me the other day. I was watching the replay of the UConn-Hartford game, and I suddenly couldn’t remember if UConn had won the national championship last year. My team, the school of which I am an alum, won a national championship, and it had such a lasting impact on me that I couldn’t remember if it had happened 7 months later.
And here we are, #1 again, the favorites to win our 9th national championship, and it couldn’t feel more routine. In the first four games of the young season, these girls already boast a 19-point win at home against #3 Stanford, an 18-point win at #8 Maryland, and a 19-point win at #15 Penn State. That’s without mentioning the 55-point drubbing against local non-rival Hartford, or that the last two wins came without Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis and Morgan Tuck.
How does this keep happening? How does Geno Auriemma continue to consistently recruit the very best players, and then consistently turn them into a dominant team, every season? Is it just good coaching and scouting? How come UConn is so much better at it than anyone else?
Not that I’m complaining, but it does produce some very peculiar coverage. With the men and women playing concurrently, I was watching at my computer, with one game on each screen (because we live in the future and the future is amazing). So while I’m sitting and wondering if there’s ever been a team to make the Final Four with a point guard as its leading rebounder (excluding ones whose nicknames were “Magic”), I’m also treated to the B1G Network’s coverage of UConn-Penn State. Thanks to some timely three-point shooting and some questionable refereeing, Penn State had gone on a bit of a run. At the timeout, the crowd is going crazy, screaming excitedly. The very objective and measured announcers are discussing all of the ways in which UConn appears to be struggling at the moment.
It was an 11-point game. Admittedly, there was a moment where the difference briefly went to nine points, but it was short-lived and it went away quickly.
So here’s Penn State, the #15 team in the country, a team who should, ostensibly, feel like they have the potential to reach a Final Four this season, celebrating being down double digits – at home – to a team that is without its leading scorer AND her backup, both of whom were high school All-Americans. When did merely not being embarrassed at home by UConn become a moral victory for good teams?
So here we are. We’ve created such a culture of dominance that people don’t even understand how to react to it. I’m not even sure what the answer is here. Should UConn play in the WNBA?
First, well done. You need to write more.
Second, I will say, as much as I have poked fun at the Women’s game in the past, it is enjoyable to watch them. Geno is a great X’s and O’s coach, and it’s nice to see how good their fundamentals are.