Terps are last big test as Huskies' win streak nears record

ByMECHELLE VOEPEL
December 29, 2016, 8:51 AM

— -- Generally, there's nothing people dislike much more than being taken for granted. Yet we're about to do just that with the UConn women's basketball team. Sorry, but ...

The Huskies are 11-0, the winning streak they don't want to think about is at 86 in a row, and they're soon to face their last likely obstacle before a new benchmark is set. The No. 1 Huskies play at No. 4 Maryland on Thursday (ESPN2, 6 p.m. ET). And if their streak doesn't end there, it's difficult not to expect the record-breaker -- their 91st consecutive victory -- to come Jan. 14 at SMU in Dallas.

UConn starts the American Athletic Conference season Jan. 1 at Central Florida. The Huskies essentially have torched the league since its formation in 2013-14. (It's not as if they lost much in the Big East, either, before that.)

The Huskies are 63-0 against American foes, counting league tournament games. So, yeah, we're pretty much taking for granted another unbeaten conference season for UConn. At least, that's what the odds are. And the Huskies' only other nonconference game after Thursday is Feb. 13 at Storrs, Connecticut, against South Carolina, currently ranked No. 6.

Thus, UConn's contest at Maryland (12-0) takes on a much greater weight than the average late-December fare. Coach Geno Auriemma will say it doesn't, and the Huskies players will repeat that. In terms of how they approach each practice and game, that's probably true.

But potentially breaking the program's 90-game winning streak that was set in 2008-10 is indeed a big deal to all outside of the UConn coaches/players bubble. If it happens, it will result in the standard mix of media coverage that's both positive-based (how great are Auriemma and his players?) and negative-based (what's wrong with everyone else that no one can stop UConn?).

The first 75 games of this current streak, begun in 2014, came with Breanna Stewart -- a four-time Final Four Most Outstanding Player -- leading the way. She was the No. 1 pick in the 2016 WNBA draft, followed by teammates Moriah Jefferson and Morgan Tuck.

Yet the games that were thought to be possible losses this season for a younger UConn team haven't turned out that way. The first test, the opener at Florida State, was the closest: a 78-76 UConn victory. Baylor visited UConn three days later, and the Lady Bears' size advantage didn't hurt the Huskies, who won 72-61.

Texas, which saw last season end in the Elite Eight against UConn, fell to the Huskies 72-54 at the Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Connecticut, on Dec. 4. Then the heavily hyped matchup with former Big East rival Notre Dame fizzled, with UConn taking that one 72-61 on Dec. 7 in South Bend, Indiana.

Ohio State, led by scoring sensation Kelsey Mitchell, came to Hartford on Dec. 19 and left with an 82-63 loss. And UConn's last game before the holiday break was a predictable 84-41 blowout at Nebraska against a struggling Huskers program.

The idea that it could be different against Maryland lies in part with the fact that the Terps at least have a recent memory of playing well against the Huskies. They did so at this same time last season, competing at a neutral site: Madison Square Garden in New York City.

The Huskies won 83-73 on Dec. 28, 2015, but it was the rare UConn game in which the Huskies were pushed to the final minute. The big three of Stewart, Jefferson and Tuck combined for 57 points, 19 assists and 17 rebounds, yet it was reserve guard Saniya Chong's 3-pointer with 40 seconds left that effectively slammed the door on the Terps.

"We were right there," Maryland guard Shatori Walker-Kimbrough said after that game, but the Terps didn't get another shot at UConn in the NCAA tournament. They lost to a different group of Huskies, falling to Washington at home in the second round.

Brionna Jones currently leads the Terps in scoring (17.5 PPG) and rebounding (9.5 RPG), while fellow senior Walker-Kimbrough is averaging 16.5 points. Maryland, which has virtually always been a great rebounding team under coach Brenda Frese, is doing it again this season. The Terps have outrebounded their foes 47.2 to 29.2 per game.

"They're not going to change what they do just because of us," Auriemma said. "They didn't have any problem going right at Stewie and Tuck [last season.]"

But while the current Huskies are, by their standards, undersized in the post, it hasn't hurt them. They have a smaller rebounding margin than the Terps do; UConn is plus-4.7 on the boards, while Maryland is plus-18.0. But when you're outscoring your opponents by an average of 23.5 points and holding them to 36 percent shooting from the field -- compared to your 49.0 percent -- you can get by without clobbering people on the boards.

Plus, Gabby Williams (8.2 RPG) and Napheesa Collier (8.1 RPG) are capable of rising to the occasion even against an outstanding rebounding team like Maryland.

Collier (19.6 PPG) and fellow sophomore Katie Lou Samuelson (20.6 PPG) continue to be a one-two scoring punch that features two difficult but very different matchup problems.

Maryland is expecting a sellout crowd at the Xfinity Center, which is a nice thing for the Terps. But it's not going to impact UConn in a negative way; prompting full houses on the road is what the Huskies are used to.

And while they say the streak is at the forefront of everyone's mind but theirs, it would be impossible for them not to think just a little about it -- how close they're getting to eclipsing what seemed then to be a mark that might stand a long time.

Instead, six years later, they're on the verge of doing it again -- and then some.