By: Kylan Watson
The University of Connecticut’s Women’s Basketball team has not lost a college basketball game in three years. The UConn Women just won their 94th straight game. This type of dominance in the sport of college basketball has not been seen since Wooden’s UCLA Bruins; who won 98 straight games at home. Coach Geno Auriemma has done a great job, making the UConn Women’s basketball team one of the most dominant teams in the world of sports. However, is this dominance hurting the game of college basketball?
UConn’s women’s basketball is one of the most dominant brands in all of college basketball. Auriemma recruits the best players and gets a seat at the table for what he has done for women’s college sports. It takes a lot of hard work to keep a team this dominant and not lose a game in three years. While also winning the program’s 11th national title tying John Wooden and matching the number of title’s won by the UCLA Bruin’s men’s basketball program.
This dominance has gone largely unnoticed because many of UConn’s critics argue that it is women’s sports so it is not that interesting to begin with. Thinking like this allows critics to not see the amount of work and motivation it takes to not only keep your team focused, but continue to win championships while balancing academics, practices, and regular life.
Many fans of college basketball and fans of the sport of basketball in general, may love the dominance of UConn. However, it is clear that most people do not like to watch the games. Last year’s national title game was only seen by 2.972 million people, this was a 4.1% decrease from the previous amount of viewers in 2015. The numbers may say that the dominance of the UConn women is bad for the sport.
If you are one of those people who believe a dominant team is bad for the sport, then maybe you were not a fan of previous dominant team’s in sports, like the 2000 Yankees, Duke Blue Devils, the New England Patriots, Jordan’s Bulls, the Showtime Lakers, Bird’s Celtics, etc. All of these were dominant teams in their respective sports and it was exciting to see a team knock off either one of these teams. Dominant teams are great for their respective sport because beating a dominant team for a championship or just for a regular season game adds prestige to the team that beats them. That is what sports is all about, any team can be beaten, fans just have to be patient and wait for it. The UConn women are great for women’s college basketball.
