Blue Devils Look for Redemption

You might think that being the standard for every other women’s Division I basketball program would be getting old for Connecticut.

Then again, when your team is a two-time defending NCAA champion, as the Huskies are, and has won four titles in the last nine years, well, there are worse problems.

Which explains why the Huskies’ coach, Geno Auriemma, isn’t panting over today’s nationally televised meeting between No. 1 Connecticut (9-0) and No. 4 Duke (9-1).

“What did last year’s game down there prove, other than we were a little better than I thought we were?” Auriemma said. “At the end of the year, Duke was still one of the teams you had to beat on the final weekend to win the national championship. We beat Tennessee at home, and what did that prove? We were a little better than they were and they were still the team you had to beat to win the national championship.

“At this time of the year, these kinds of games have to be handled in the right context. The outcome is not that important to me, [except] in terms of how we play. If you win and there are a lot of flaws, then you go home thinking it’s not good. If you win and feel you’ve tightened up a lot of things, you just keep building on it. If you lose and you’ve done 99% of the things you wanted to do right, and they just did 99.9% things right, you can say you’re on the right track.

“Let’s see then if they can beat us again in March [during the NCAA tournament] when it really counts.”

The Blue Devils can’t wait until March. This may be Duke’s last shot at Connecticut for a while, unless the teams play again in the tournament. The contract for the home-and-home series expires with this game, and these teams aren’t scheduled to meet in the regular season in 2004-05. So today’s game means a lot to the visitors, especially guard Alana Beard, who is competing with Connecticut’s Diana Taurasi for national player-of-the-year honors.

Beard felt embarrassed by last year’s 77-65 loss to Connecticut on her home court. The most painful part of the memory was the Huskies’ building a 28-point lead before the first sellout crowd for women’s basketball in Duke’s history.

“We were caught up in the moment,” Beard said. “It was a new experience for us, being in front of a packed house at Cameron. But I’m not making excuses; they beat us.

“They’ll have a packed house today, but we’ll be ready for it.”

Indeed, today’s game at the Hartford Civic Center will be the 102nd consecutive home sellout for the Huskies. There are other numbers.

Connecticut has won 76 consecutive regular-season games and has won 69 consecutive home games, which ties the Huskies with Tennessee for the most consecutive home wins in NCAA history. The Huskies also have won their last eight games against top-five opponents.