UCONN's Streak Ends..But Was it a Set Up?

Pretty much every sports fan knows that the UCONN women's basketball team broke the late, great John Wooden's consecutive college basketball winning streak of 88 straight games last week against Florida State. They then beat Pacific to make it 90 in a row. There most recent stop was Stanford in Stanford. Stanford gave UCONN a taste of its own medicine, routing the Husky girls by 12, 71-59, and that was the end of the streak. My question is: was the UCONN schedule set up to break the streak by 2 and then lose to Stanford away? You'd be surprised to see how it looks to be that way.

If you look at UCONN's schedule, only 1 one of the 12 teams they played before facing Stanford had a shot at beating them, and that was Baylor. Baylor almost did beat them too, but UCONN made a huge comeback in the 2nd half and edged out a 65-64 victory. The game against Baylor was the second game of the season. One could say that the streak was supposed to end their, without UCONN making history, and that their victory was kind of a surprise 'hey look what we did' type thing. They squashed a big lead in that game and then came back from an 8-point deficit with about 7 minutes to go to win it. Even Coach Geno Auriemma seemed surprised after that victory as he was quoted saying: "...The improbable happened, people other than Maya (Moore) began scoring."

Stanford had a streak of their own going into their match up against UCONN. They hadn't lost a game on their home floor since March 2007, a span of 52 games, and it stayed that way once their game against UCONN ended. In fact, UCONN has never beaten Stanford in Stanford, losing all three career meetings there. Throw in the facts that in their last three meetings Stanford has led at halftime, that UCONN was down 13 early in the game and never led, which was the first time in 5 years that happened, and that Moore only had 14 points while going shooting only 33% from the field, and this game looks a little fishy.

No one will ever be able to prove if the streak was supposed to end in Stanford, but there are quite the facts to make it seem that way. Not to mention it only seems logical to lose early in the season against one of the best teams in the nation on their home court where they haven't lost in over three and a half years. I mean once they broke the streak, what was the sense in keeping it going much longer? Everybody already knows they are a dominant force. Plus it only places more pressure on the girls the longer the streak continues. In any case, the streak has ended...and I believe it did so just as planned.

References

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncw/recap?gameId=303640024
http://espn.go.com/womens-college-basketball/team/_/id/41/connecticut-huskies
http://espn.go.com/womens-college-basketball/team/_/id/41/connecticut-huskies