All the Miserable Bastards

"I just know there wouldn't be this many people in the room if we were chasing a woman's record. 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. All the women are happy as hell and they can't wait to come in here and ask questions. All the guys that loved women's basketball are all excited, and all the miserable bastards that follow men's basketball and don't want us to break the record are all here because they're pissed. That's just the way it is." -- Geno Auriemma, coach of UCONN's women's basketball team at a press conference.

Now, I don't follow sports, really. I had no idea UCONN women's team was about to break a UCLA men's streak record until I started seeing rumblings about it on teh internetz. Can we guess who was rumbling? If you said "all the miserable bastards", give yourself eight meeeellion liberty dollars. These grumblings I've seen have had to do with the apparent differences between men's and women's basketball. Apparently, according to these detractors, since the women play with a ball that is about an inch smaller (to compensate for women generally having smaller hand sizes--also, the weight difference in the ball is minute) and that in the women's game, if the defender is within three feet of the player a five-second-rule is applied (as compared to the men's game, the defender has to be within six feet), that the women aren't playing real basketball. They're playing ladyball or some such thing and cannot possibly beat a real basketball record. Here enters Mark Potash, candidate for Misogynist Douchcanoe of the Year, waxing assholish on Monday:

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.

[...]

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.

Women’s basketball gets what it deserves. Probably more than it deserves if you include a professional league that is attached to the NBA like an oxygen machine.

It’s not as popular as men’s basketball because it’s neither as good nor as entertaining. All you have to do is watch five minutes of a women’s game to know that. It’s basic physiology, Geno. Basketball is a game that emphasizes jumping ability and quickness. Women — no offense, of course — can’t match the jumping ability or the quickness of elite men’s players.

[...]

But if Geno wants to continue the charade of breaking the men’s record, he’s going to have to start playing some men’s teams. I think he knows how ugly that would get. There are probably 10 high school teams in the city that could beat the Connecticut women. [...]

Hostile much? Way to prove Coach Auriemma right there, Mark. Miserable bastard indeed. Pro tip for you Mark: try not to trip over all that bitter misogyny you're standing in up to your knees.

UCONN by the way, did in fact win. From ABC Sports:

No. 89 came and went as effortlessly as nearly all their previous games. This season. Last season. And the season before.

UConn women's basketball coach Geno Auriemma, never at a loss for words, was close Tuesday night.

"It's pretty amazing. It really is," he said.

No exaggeration there.

His No. 1-ranked Huskies topped the 88-game winning streak set by John Wooden's UCLA men's team from 1971-74, beating No. 22 Florida State 93-62. Playing with the relentlessness that has become its trademark — and would have made Wooden proud — UConn blew past the Seminoles as it has so many other teams in the last 2½ years.

[...]

Maya Moore had a career-high 41 points and 10 rebounds and freshman Bria Hartley added 21 points for the Huskies, who have not lost since April 6, 2008, in the NCAA tournament semifinals. Only twice during the record run has a team come within single digits of UConn — Stanford in the NCAA championship game last season and Baylor in early November.

When the final buzzer sounded, UConn players sprinted across the floor to shake hands with the student section as fans held up "89" signs and "89" balloons bobbed in the stands behind center court. Two other fans raised a banner that read "The Sorcerer of Storrs" — a play on Wooden's nickname, "The Wizard of Westwood."

[...]

It is one more chapter of history for UConn, and perhaps the grandest.

Asked what he would recall from the incredible run, Auriemma mentioned a pair of experienced stars on this team: "I'll probably remember Maya Moore and Tiffany Hayes. And how incredibly difficult it is to play that many games in a row and win 'em all."

Connecticut long ago established itself as the marquee program in the women's game, the benchmark by which all others are measured. The Huskies already own seven national titles and four perfect seasons under Auriemma, and they've produced a galaxy of stars that includes Rebecca Lobo, Diana Taurasi, Jennifer Rizzotti, Sue Bird and Tina Charles.

The streak, though, takes it to another level, certainly raising the profile of women's basketball and maybe all of women's athletics.

Two days after beating No. 11 Ohio State to tie UCLA, UConn toppled the mark in front of a sellout crowd of 16,294 at the XL Center that included Wooden's grandson, Greg, attending his first women's game.

"My grandfather would have been thrilled. He would have been absolutely thrilled to see his streak broken by a women's basketball team," the 47-year-old Wooden said. "He thought, especially in the last 10 years, that the best basketball was played at the collegiate level — and it wasn't by the men."

[...]

There was a festive atmosphere throughout the city, where building lights gleamed blue and white, and it was as electric as any Final Four inside the arena. Charles and UConn men's star Kemba Walker sat behind the Huskies' bench, and football coach Randy Edsall was there, too. Former NFL star Warrick Dunn, meanwhile, was cheering for his alma mater, Florida State.

[...]

The Huskies have beaten 16 top-10 teams during the latest streak — four more than UCLA did during its run — and five of those wins came against the No. 2 team. It's been more than 17 years since UConn lost consecutive games.

The Huskies have won by any average of more than 33 points during the streak and rarely found themselves in trouble. They have trailed for 134 minutes, including only 13 in the second half. They've won back-to-back national championships, and are now one short of Tennessee's record for overall titles by a women's team.

Even before UConn tied UCLA's record, the two programs were linked.

Auriemma acknowledges that his team runs the same offense that Wooden perfected 37 years earlier. But it's not just the Xs and Os. The top block of Wooden's pyramid of success reads: "Competitive Greatness: Perform at your best when your best is required. Your best is required every day."

That's been Auriemma's mantra all along.

Greg Wooden, who lives in California, said he came East because, "I kind of thought that somebody should come here from the family and show support."

He also was aware that "certain players have said they're not really supportive of the streak."

But he came knowing "my grandfather would have loved to have been here to see this."

The day Notre Dame broke UCLA's streak, John Wooden was asked how long it would be before somebody surpassed it.

"I have no idea how long it will be before somebody else wins that many. I know it takes at least three years," he replied.

Try 36 years, 11 months, and 2 days.

Sounds rather like Mark Potash and his ilk need to pull some heads from dark crevices.

Good work, Lady Huskies!