Like the all-female baseball team in the classic 1992 film, the University of Connecticut Huskies are in a league of their own.
The unanimous No. 1 team in the nation, the Huskies have bulldozed through a brutal non-conference schedule and sit atop the Big East standings with a perfect 13-0 conference mark (27-0 overall) and look poised to continue their impressive run deep into March. With just three games remaining on its schedule, UConn holds a two-game lead over the Louisville Cardinals in the Big East and, barring straight losses to end the season, have all but solidified a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament.
The earliest statement made by the Huskies came on Nov. 30, when they steamrolled the current No. 2 Oklahoma Sooners at home, 106-78. In that game, junior Renee Montgomery exploded for a career-high 30 points and matched the Connecticut all-time record with 13 assists. As impressive, though, was the way the Huskies flawlessly dominated every facet of the game, making the Sooners, who will most likely be a fellow No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament, look foolish.
Junior Maya Moore added 27 points and 12 rebounds in that game, as Connecticut held Oklahoma, the fifth-highest-scoring offense in the country, to 38.8 percent shooting. The ease with which the Huskies defeated the Sooners has been a constant theme for coach Geno Auriemma's squad, which is ranked first in scoring margin, distancing itself from its opponents by an average of 32.0 points per game.
In a year when five different men's teams have held the nation's No. 1 spot, the Connecticut women have remained atop both the AP and ESPN polls for 15 weeks. By avoiding the pitfalls that have plagued their male counterparts, the Huskies have rolled over the country's elite. The gap between them and the rest of the nation seems to be widening by the day.
On Jan. 19, UConn beat the then-No. 2 North Carolina Tar Heels in Chapel Hill by 30, ending UNC's 31-game home winning streak. Just when keying on one particular player seems like a good idea for opposing defenses, another player seemingly steps up to carry the Huskies to victory. Such was the case against North Carolina, which focused on shutting down Moore, who was coming off a 40-point performance against the Syracuse Orange. Instead, Montgomery led the attack with 21 points.
On the season, three Huskies -- Moore, Montgomery and junior Tina Charles -- rank in the top 100 in the country in scoring, while both Moore and Montgomery are in the top 11 in assist-turnover ratio. Their prowess carries over to the defensive end, as Connecticut has allowed an opponent to score over 70 points just three times and boasts the second-best scoring defense in the country.
The win over the Tar Heels was also a great indicator of how the Huskies should play come tournament time. Connecticut is now 4-0 in No. 1 versus No. 2 matchups on the road and is 9-2 all-time in those games.
An in-depth look into any potential team that could challenge the Huskies in March yields few results. The Sooners were recently upset by the Texas A&M Aggies, bumping them further down in the rankings after Connecticut handled them back in November.
The new No. 2, the Stanford Cardinal, is 22-4 on the year and boasts a big win over the California Golden Bears, a top-five team. Likewise, the Golden Bears are tied for first in the Pac-10 with Stanford, but they have also suffered an 11-point loss to Oklahoma in December. The Maryland Terrapins, led by the hot-shooting Kristi Toliver, could be a dark horse in the tournament, but again, their résumé is tainted by a 29-point loss to the Pittsburgh Panthers, a team that UConn smacked by 53 points just last week.
With just three cupcake conference games left on its schedule, Connecticut should easily waltz into the Big East Tournament still undefeated. There, as has been the case all year, the Huskies will be relatively unchallenged, as they hold a 29.8-point average margin of victory in conference play thus far.
With the way Auriemma has his team playing right now and with a roster loaded top to bottom with quality talent, the Husky faithful can confidently compare this team to that of 2002, when a Diana Taurasi-led squad went 39-0 to win the national championship. All indications this season, thus far, point to the replication of such a feat.
