Madness? No. This is MARCH!

Maybe it's just me, but do you feel like you already have 53 errors on your March Madness bracket?  I literally have no confidence in any of my picks this year, and it isn't even selection Sunday yet.  Yes, the Big East is clearly the strongest division I conference, but they're also beating the living shit out of each other. 

Being a Syracuse fan that watches/attends nearly every game, I wouldn''t bet money on them moving on the orange moving past the sweet 16.  But with the loss tonight in the Big East Conference Tournament they save themselves a lot of energy for the Big Dance.  Taking UCONN into overtime will prove to work against the Huskies fatigue potentially as soon as tomorrow in the championship game, but will definitely take it's toll during the NCAA Tournament.  For this reason, I think that even though the Big East may have 11 teams in the tournament, there won't be one Big East team in the National Championship game.

Now looking on to other top teams; Ohio State, Kansas, Duke, Notre Dame, BYU, San Diego State.  Over the past few games for each team, Ohio State and Kansas have both been lucky to pull out tight wins, peaking at the wrong time.  Duke, who was on the rise to become a #1 seed in the tourney instead of Pittsburgh, just lost Nolan Smith for an unknown time period to what looks to be a lower leg injury.  The defending champs do have depth, but the bench is young.  My favorite team entering the conference tournaments was BYU, one because they came out of nowhere, and two because I'm a big Jimmer Fredette fan.  They're chances were good, that was until big man Brandon Davies was suspended for having sex with his girlfriend.  This has left the Cougars with an open gap that cannot, and will not be filled this year, meaning BYU's national championship hopes look grim at best. 

That leaves the big question mark within this list as San Diego State.  I honestly don't know anything about the Aztecs besides that fact that they lost to a full-force BYU team.  Being the only team that hasn't compiled any true disadvantages within the past week, San Diego State may be this year's Butler of last year.  With the madness already ensuing, this year's tournament seems to have more parity than recent years, and may make it a tournament for the ages.

Good Morning, Good Afternoon, & Good Night

 

To be honest, I thought the Connecticut Huskies were going to win out and continue the streak into next year.  I guess that shows me how much I know about Women's College Basketball. 

After 90 games, the UCONN winning streak has finally been ended by the Cardinal of Stanford.  I also learned that the streak wasn't actually the longest in Division I NCAA sports as the Penn State Women's Volleyball team won 109 consecutive games.  So the UCONN Women's basketball team did not in fact have the longest winning streak in Division I history, which is claimed by the Nittany Lions. 

So i guess this means UCONN owns the longest Women's basketball streak.  Clearly its quite an honor in a sport with so many tight games, and the spotlight always shining on women's sports.  Any publicity the Huskies had is now nonexistent.

At least this means the ESPN network can take UCONN off ESPN 2 and maybe play a flashbacks of old college football games, which is guaranteed to generate more excitement and a larger viewing audience than any 5 women's basketball games.

BREAKING NEWS: No One Cares About Women's Sports

 
First of all, Congratulations to the Connecticut Huskies Women's Basketball team for claiming the longest winning streak in NCAA sports history, a truly amazing feat.  The Lady Huskies have won each game by an astonishing average of  a 33.3 point differential.  Prior to last night's game, Head Coach Geno Auriemma made many ill-timed, unneccessary statements.  "I just know there wouldn't be this many people in the room if we were chasing a woman's record," he said. "The reason everybody is having a heart attack the last four or five days is a bunch of women are threatening to break a men's record, and everybody is all up in arms about it.

Well honestly Geno, no one is "up in arms about it" because it is in fact women's basketball.  Tonight I watched the Orlando Magic versus the Dallas Mavericks on NBA TV, instead of your girls break the record.  Why?  At the end of the day you are still coaching women's basketball.  Although it is considered the purest form of basketball in the world due to the lack of player size, jumping ability, and increased utilization of mid-range jump shots, it's not entertaining.  For such an important game I barely hesitated to change the channel from a game between two NBA teams I don't care about to the 89th consecutive win game for the UCONN ladies (Plus the Maverick-Magic game actually turned out to be pretty good). 

I guarantee no men's team will ever break the UCONN Women's basketball team win streak if it ever ends, let alone John Wooden's UCLA Men's basketball win streak.  The reason is parity, or lack there of I should say.  The Lady Huskies defeated the number 11 ranked Ohio State Women's basketball team by 31 points on Sunday.  Only 3 times in the past 3 years worth of games has a team come within 10 or fewer points of Connecticut.  That's absurd.  What would make Geno Auriemma think that anyone cares about his Women's basketball games when everyone knows they are going to win.  There was not the slightest chance that number 20 Florida State knocked them off tonight.

Auriemma also says, "Because we're breaking a men's record, we've got a lot of people paying attention. If we were breaking a women's record, everybody would go, 'Aren't those girls nice, let's give them two paragraphs in USA Today, give them one line on the bottom of ESPN and then let's send them back where they belong, in the kitchen.' "  Yes, there are a lot of people paying attention to the streak now, but not because it is a men's basketball streak, but because of how legendary the UCLA teams were that earned it to begin with.  Maybe Geno did this as a stunt to attract more attention to the struggling sport of women's basketball, maybe he really believes what he said, either way, Geno should probably head to the kitchen before anyone else should so he can cook up some better educated statements and ask himself, "Am I in it for my ego, or the good of my team". If he is looking for comparisons to John Wooden, this doesn't help his case. This whiny tantrum is something that would never come from the beloved John Wooden (a longtime supporter of the Lady Huskies).

The streak is obviously a significant, important day in the sports world which signifies the reason that people watch, play, and show admiration in all sports: the jaunt for excellence.  The NCAA sports winning streak has been broken, and the NCAA Women's basketball winning streak has most certainly been shattered, but the NCAA Men's basketball winning streak has not, and never will be overcome by another Men's team.  John Wooden's UCLA basketball teams stand alone in not only the talent they possessed, but the talent they faced.  For this reason, Geno Auriemma's legacy will never truly stand close to the Great John Wooden's.

 
 

P.S. - The Lingerie Football League's very own Los Angeles Temptation face the San Diego Seduction on New Years day at 9 PM.  I recommend tuning in, it might be the only women's sports I watch for the entire new year.  That and the Lingerie Bowl February 6th...