DALLAS — Top-ranked UConn broke its own NCAA record with its 91st consecutive victory, scoring the first 21 points and romping past SMU 88-48 on Saturday.
Coach Geno Auriemma and the Huskies (16-0, 4-0 AAC) broke the record of 90 wins in a row that his team first accomplished more than six years ago. They matched that mark with a 65-point rout of No. 20 South Florida last Tuesday.
The four-time defending national champion Huskies haven’t lost a game since falling in overtime at sixth-ranked Stanford on Nov. 17, 2014.
Their first 90-game winning streak broke the Division I record of 88 straight wins by the UCLA men’s basketball team and famed coach John Wooden. That UConn streak also started after a loss to Stanford, in the 2008 national semifinal game, and ended with another loss at Stanford on Dec. 30, 2010.
While the only way UConn will play Stanford this season will be in the NCAA Tournament, the Huskies do have wins this season over second-ranked Baylor, third-ranked Maryland and sixth-ranked Notre Dame — the latter two on the road.
Katie Lou Samuelson scored 28 points, Naphessa Collier added 19 points and a career-high 16 rebounds for UConn, while Gabby Williams also had a double-double with 19 points and 10 rebounds, along with six assists.
Alicia Froling led SMU (10-7, 1-3) with 16 points and 12 rebounds. The junior from Australia entered the game as the AAC’s top rebound at 10.6 per game.
UConn is 58-0 in American Athletic games in its four seasons since joining that league, plus nine more wins while sweeping through the conference tournament each of the past three seasons.
Samuelson was 11-of-21 shooting and had five 3-pointers while finishing one point short of her matching her career high. She had 10 points in the first quarter, when Collier had nine points and seven rebounds as UConn jumped out to a 26-2 lead.
The Mustangs are 0-7 against UConn, and had lost the first six by an average margin of 51 points.
BIG PICTURE
UConn: With another NCAA record in hand, the real focus for the Huskies is getting back to Dallas in about 2 1/2 months for the Final Four and going for their 12th national championship — and fifth in a row. The national semifinal games are March 31 at the American Airlines Center, the home of the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks, which is about 5 miles from the SMU campus. The national title game is April 2.
SMU: The Lady Mustangs clearly were overwhelmed by UConn, but so are most other teams. But this game is no measure of the progress being made under new coach Travis Mays, who worked under three Hall of Fame coaches before his first head coaching job. SMU went into the game with the league’s best field goal defense (35.6 percent) while allowing 58 points a game, third among the 11 AAC teams.
