DALLAS — Top-ranked UConn broke its own NCAA record with its 91st consecutive victory, scoring the first 21 points Saturday and romping past Southern Methodist, 88-48.
Coach Geno Auriemma and the Huskies (16-0, 4-0 American Athletic) broke the record of 90 straight wins his team first accomplished more than six years ago. They matched that mark with a 65-point rout of No. 20 South Florida last Tuesday.
“This team is pretty good at just keeping everything on an even keel,” Auriemma said. “Even afterward, there’s a feeling of accomplishment, they feel like they’ve done something significant. But there isn’t this over-the-top screaming and yelling as if we just won a national championship.”
But he told his team that the streak maybe is more significant than winning a national championship.
The four-time defending national champion Huskies haven’t lost since falling in overtime at sixth-ranked Stanford on Nov. 17, 2014.
“I’m not taking for granted at all, this is one of the coolest things I’ve ever been a part of,” Katie Lou Samuelson said. “Now we can really just focus each game at a time, and not have to worry anything if we’re keeping it up or not.”
Their first 90-game winning streak broke the Division I record of 88 straight wins by the UCLA men’s basketball team and famed coach John Wooden. That UConn streak also started after a loss to Stanford, in a 2008 national semifinal, and ended with another loss at Stanford on Dec. 30, 2010.
While the only way UConn will play Stanford this season will be in the NCAA tournament, the Huskies do have wins this season over second-ranked Baylor, third-ranked Maryland and sixth-ranked Notre Dame – the last two on the road.
Samuelson scored 28 points, and Naphessa Collier added 19 points and a career-high 16 rebounds for UConn. Gabby Williams also had a double-double with 19 points and 10 rebounds, with six assists.
Alicia Froling led SMU (10-7, 1-3) with 16 points and 12 rebounds. The junior from Australia entered the game as the AAC’s top rebounder at 10.6 per game.
UConn is 58-0 in American Athletic games in its four seasons since joining the league, plus nine more wins while sweeping through the conference tournament each of the past three seasons.
The Mustangs are 0-7 against UConn and lost the first six by an average margin of 51 points.
Samuelson was 11-of-21 shooting and had five 3-pointers while finishing one point short of matching her career high. She had 10 points in the first quarter, when Collier had nine points and seven rebounds, as UConn jumped out to a 26-2 lead.
“What a good team, what a very, very good team,” first-year SMU coach Travis Mays said. “I hear people say at the beginning of the year UConn was supposed to have a down year. That’s not a down year. That’s a program that has championship pedigree, and the culture is there. You go there, they just plug you in and they keep on winning.”
The real focus for the Huskies is getting back to Dallas in about 21/2 months for the Final Four.
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