When the Associated Press released its women’s college basketball rankings earlier this week, the top 10 was comprised of a familiar crowd: No 1 South Carolina, No 5 Texas, No 9 Stanford. Much further down, in 17th place, was Connecticut. Oh how the mighty have fallen.
The last time the Huskies were this far down in the rankings Bill Clinton was ratifying Nafta, Princess Di was withdrawing from public life and Schindler’s List was on its way to sweeping the Oscars. By dropping to 17th in the AP poll, UConn snapped a 357-week stretch of being ranked in the top 15 – a streak that trails only Tennessee’s 428 straight appearances. This comes five weeks after UConn opened the season behind top-ranked LSU. Back then the idea of setting the most successful women’s basketball program in history on a collision course with the defending national champion hardly seemed far-fetched.
