Geno Auriemma: UConn Women Will Lose in 2010-11 Season

It's usually not such a big deal when a coach publicly professes that his team will lose heading into a season. After all, coaches are, by nature, a pessimistic lot, and nobody's perfect.

Nobody, that is, except for the Connecticut women's basketball team which has not lost a game since George W. Bush was still president, a streak of 78 straight victories that encompasses two national titles.

Well, UConn coach Geno Auriemma is getting his players and HuskyNation ready for the notion that there will be at least a number one in the right hand column of the win-loss ledger this season.

Auriemma's message, delivered at Wednesday's Media Day, was particularly aimed at the five freshmen who will enter the program, perhaps to take some of the weight of the streak off their shoulders before the season even begins.

"When that (the loss) happens, that's when you can say, 'This is what it meant. This is what it was, and now you guys can start your own streak,' " Auriemma said. "Because they've got nothing to do with this streak."

While the Huskies start with a talented recruiting class as well as senior forward Maya Moore, the consensus pick to be the first player chosen in next April's WNBA Draft, what they won't have is center Tina Charles, last year's National Player of the Year and point guard Caroline Doty, who will miss this year recuperating from a knee injury.

And say this for Auriemma: He is not padding the schedule to try to keep the streak going. The Huskies will need to win their first 11 games to surpass UCLA's 88-game streak from the 1970s. After their opener against Holy Cross Nov. 14,, Connecticut will host Baylor, a Final Four team from last season and a likely national title pick for many observers in their second game. Later, the Huskies will meet Ohio State, Stanford (the team they beat in last year's national championship match) , Duke and North Carolina.

For the first time in years, Connecticut may be an underdog in a few games, but that may not be such a bad thing.

"We're going to take that (underdog status) as an advantage and just come in and I guess be the underdogs to whatever teams are looking down on us, thinking we're lacking whatever," junior guard Tiffany Hayes said.
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