UConn is back to a familiar place: Number one in the Women's Basketball AP poll. The Huskies beat the previously ranked number one Notre Dame Fighting Irish in front of sell out crowd full of Notre Dame fans inside Purcell Pavilion on Sunday. Notre Dame was handed their first loss of the season, and it was a quality game to say the least. In a high scoring battle, UConn outlasted the Irish and pulled away late in the fourth quarter to win 89-71.
The super-fast pace that has benefited Notre Dame thus far this season proved effective for the Huskies too, especially for the competitive freshman stand-out Christyn Williams. In a program like UConn, you don't see freshman taking over a game the way Williams did last week. She scored, a career-high 28 points for the Huskies, 16 of which came in the first quarter. When UConn head coach Geno Auriemma was asked the difference between this season's game and UConn's heartbreaking loss to end last season short of a championship, his response was quite clever as usual. He said, "We threw the ball to Christyn Williams, but she was in high school last year. I would have thrown it to her last year but she wasn't around. I would have gotten a recruiting violation." The impressive game by Williams shouldn't cover up the show that Napheesa Collier put on, nor the work Katie Lou Samuelson put in as shots didn't fall for her, but she still impacted the game.
Auriemma was proud of his team and the way they played. He's happy to be back at number one, but considering all of his experience, he knows the rankings don't really mean much. But he also knows that they mean something to his players. He said, "I think it maybe makes our players feel like we're No. 1 because we did earn it… We're not No. 1 because somebody voted it, we're No. 1 because we earned it. And I hope that's a good feeling for them." The Huskies take the top spot, Notre Dame drops to two, and Oregon, Baylor, and Louisville cap off the top five respectively.
Williams proved to be another star on the Huskies roster for the future. But the Huskies have more challenges to face coming up. They will face two more teams in the top five: Louisville and Baylor. So, it should be interesting to see if the ladies can keep themselves atop the rankings as the season continues.
UConn being back in the spotlight is bound to bring criticism that their dominance is bad for the game. I think it's all good for the game, and everyone is better for it. Their dominance lit a fire in the rest of women's college basketball to work to compete with them. After a few years of complete dominance, we're beginning to reach a point where teams are ready to compete with UConn. The dominance where they performed at a way higher level than everyone else in the country brought other teams up to their level. They set the bar high, and other teams were ready for the challenge and are beginning to reach the bar. I think that UConn will continue to raise this bar, but other teams like Notre Dame, Oregon, Louisville, and others will set bars as well.
It is so much fun to watch this high level of competition. Considering UConn has gone two years without a championship, most people have stopped claiming their dominance is bad because at the end of the day they haven't had what it takes to be completely dominant. So now we find that people just don't talk about women's college basketball. As time goes on, more and more teams will raise themselves to that level and you'll continue to see high level basketball day in and day out. Stay tuned through the rest of this season and in the future for some quality basketball.
