Gone Streaking (Team Edition)

Don’t worry, there is no nudity in the course of this blog post.

Last Tuesday, the 20th ranked Seminoles of Florida State went on the road to battle the top ranked Huskies of Connecticut. Instead of a good game, the crowd was treated to a laugher as the Huskies won going away, 93-62. However, the crowd of 16,294 did see history that night as the UConn women set the record for the longest winning streak in Division 1 basketball history (men’s or women’s), surpassing the 88 game winning streak reeled off by the men of UCLA from 1971-1974.

It seemed like it took mere minutes after the Huskies won their 89th straight game for the comparisons to start coming in. Was UCLA’s streak more impressive than UConn’s? As was noted, in their 90 games, UConn played 16 teams ranked in the top 25 (UCLA played 12) and five times, they played and defeated the #2 team in the country.

At this point I could go deep into the numbers, examining the star players of both teams and how well their offenses and defenses performed and try (somehow) to create a formula to accurately depict the difference between men’s and women’s college basketball. However, I didn’t. Just to be clear, it wasn’t because I looked into it and determined it was too hard. It was because in all my years of following basketball, I have come to the conclusion that while they are playing by basically the same rules, men and women at the same age level (high school, college, or pros) are very nearly playing two different sports.

How many seven footers either played for UCLA or against UCLA during that streak? Now, same question but this time for UConn instead of UCLA?

No, I didn’t just come to the conclusion that men are, on average, taller than women. However, it changes the way that the game is played. Over the last 36 years, several rule changes have come about which again changed the way the game is played. For instance, when UCLA was on their run of dominance, the lane was much narrower than it is today, favoring the first few seven footers the sport saw. Along with making it much wider (due mostly to the contributions of Wilt Chamberlain and UCLA alum Lew Alcindor), in 1986 the NCAA universally incorporated the three point field goal. These differences, along with the most basic difference of gender, make this question a classic case of comparing apples to oranges.

In my opinion, UCLA’s streak of 88 straight wins is incredibly impressive and so is UConn’s streak of 90 straight wins. However, one does not diminish the other and I don’t think that they can be directly compared with one another.

The purpose of this post is not to compare or contrast, but rather to celebrate various streaks performed by both teams and individuals and near the end, if you’re lucky, I might just take a stand and say what I think is the most impressive sporting streak amongst these select few.

It should be noted that I limited myself mostly to sports that I have a knowledge base about. I apologize to all of you hockey fans out there but I have a very difficult time speaking intelligently about hockey. When I list these streaks within their respective headings, please bear in mind that my listing is random and has nothing to do with what I think might be more impressive.

Without further adieu…

BASKETBALL

Connecticut
90 games
11/18/08 to 12/30/10

UCLA
88 games
1/30/71 to 1/19/74

Honestly the only reason that I can possibly say that the Bruins streak is more impressive is that it lasted longer. In the 70’s, the Bruins played 30 games pretty much every year and that included the NCAA tournament. In each of the last two years, UConn has played 33 games in the regular season and then another 6 in the tournament. All this means is that UCLA’s streak lasted a total of 1,085 days over 4 different seasons (against 768 and 3 for UConn). What this means is that in the world of college sports, John Wooden had to turn over a quarter of his roster one more time that Auriemma did in Connecticut.

I know, it’s flimsy. Honestly, at this point that is all that separates these streaks in my mind. Both are outstanding accomplishments although if push came to shove and they were ever able to play each other, I doubt Auriemma’s Huskies would have an answer for the all-time leading scorer in NBA history.

Los Angeles Lakers
33 games
11/5/71 to 1/7/72

What makes this one amazing is where it stands compared to other winning streaks in NBA history. The season before this one, the Milwaukee Bucks had tied the longest ever winning streak by winning 20 in a row. The Lakers won 33 and since then, only the 07-08 Rockets have come close and they still fell 11 short.

To put that in perspective, the Lakers record for wins in a season, set that season (with a 69-13 record) was broken by the 95-96 Chicago Bulls. Those Bulls started the season 41-3, they went 33-8 on the road and 39-2 at home. They also finished a streak of 44 consecutive wins at home and won their first 37 home games of the year.

The Bulls longest winning streak that season? 18 games.

FOOTBALL

New England Patriots
21 games
10/5/03 to 10/31/04

Starting in Week 5 of the 2003 season, the Patriots won each of their final 12 games, then all three games in the playoffs (capturing their second Super Bowl title along the way), and their first 6 games of the 2004 season.

University of Oklahoma
47 games
10/10/53 to 11/16/57

In this day and age of the BCS, this number seems truly ludicrous and that’s mostly because it is. The remarkable part of this streak is guys who played as freshmen when the streak started in 1953 would have graduated by the time the streak ended in 1957. This becomes more impressive when you take into account that most freshmen didn’t play either football or basketball and were thus only three year players. Therefore, if you assume no freshmen played for Bud Wilkinson’s teams, he would have had to turn over his roster entirely. Even if freshmen played for him, they could not possibly have played through the entire streak because it spanned across five seasons.

In the past ten years, we’ve seen two teams with identical 34 game winning streaks, Miami (FL) and USC. Both had a late season run in year number one, an undefeated national title team in year two, and a team that lost in the national championship game in year three. And yet, both of them would have had to go undefeated their next season just to match Oklahoma.

BASEBALL

New York Giants
26 games
9/7/16 to 9/30/16

The thing that is impressive about the Giants streak and indeed about baseball streaks in general that no other sport can match is in Major League Baseball, there are virtually no practice days. Every day is a game day. I understand that physically you have to be much tougher to play in the NFL than to play Major League Baseball but riddle me this: If an NFL quarterback has a really bad day on a Tuesday, what happens? Well, he struggles through practice and goes to bed early instead of going out on the town and by the time he plays his next game, that bad day is a memory. If a big league pitcher has a bad Tuesday, what happens? He gives up seven runs in the first inning and gets sent to the minor leagues and with diminished confidence, never makes it back to the majors. You have to be very physically tough to play professional football but you have to be very mentally tough to play professional baseball.

People probably should have seen the handwriting on the wall with this team because from May 9th to May 29th, the Giants played the first 17 games of a 21 game road trip… and won 17 straight. In the interest of full disclosure it should be mentioned that their winning streak in September was played entirely on their home field but that’s the way things were done in 1916.

The Giants streak encompassed 24 days, only five of which were off days. More remarkable, the Giants swept 8 doubleheaders (including three in a four day stretch) on their way to 26 straight wins.


OTHER

Byron Nelson
11 PGA Tour events
1945

This is one of those streaks that will probably never be broken because there is too much competition on the PGA Tour. Tiger Woods is the best golfer of his generation by a long shot and he couldn’t even come within a month of tying Nelson’s streak.

Cael Sanderson
159 straight matches
1998-2002

I don’t know too much about wrestling but I do know that a record of 159-0 and four national championships speaks for itself.

Edwin Moses
122 straight races won
9/2/77 to 6/4/87

What makes this streak so remarkable is the fact that it spanned nearly 10 years. How many individual athletes can stay at the top of their field for ten years? Also, it wasn’t just that he was the best, he didn’t lose.


LAST BUT NOT LEAST

Every winning streak is impressive in its own way. College streaks are impressive (for team sports) because the personnel and sometimes the coaching staff are changing on an annual basis. Professional streaks are impressive because they are done against the best that sport has to offer, usually worldwide. However, the most impressive winning streak in my humble opinion lasted 132 years.

No, you didn’t misread that; 132 years. Any of you who are familiar with this streak already know what I’m talking about. For the rest of you, I give you; The America’s Cup.

It was actually a common misconception that the sailing race was named after the country that seemed unable to lose this trophy but actually, it was named after the America, the first yacht to win the Cup. Over the subsequent 132 years and 24 defenses, the United States always brought home the Cup until Australia ended the run of dominance in 1983.

Since losing it, the Cup has come back to the US only once before legal wrangling allowed the Golden Gate Yacht Club to challenge for the cup earlier this year, winning it back 2-0.

To give you an idea about how lengthy this run has been, the first skipper ever to lose the Cup for the US (Dennis Connor) was born 91 years after the America first won the Cup.




Am I right? Maybe, maybe not. Part of the fun in sports is the debate and that is one of my favorite parts. Check back later (maybe this weekend) for another edition of Gone Streaking (Player Edition).