UConn and Rutgers have combined to win the last eight Big East regular season championships, with the Huskies twice winning three straight titles from 2002-04 and 2007-09. They have also combined to win the last five conference tournament championships, with UConn winning back-to-back titles in 2005 and 2006 and 2008 and 2009.
The Huskies and Scarlet Knights also met in the NCAA Greensboro regional final in 2007. UConn leads the series 10-5 since the teams began playing twice during the regular season in 2003-04. But there was stretch where Rutgers won four of six in what has blossomed into a rivalry.
This season, though, with the Scarlet Knights down a notch and Notre Dame rising the Big East opted to pit UConn and the third-ranked Irish in a home-and-home series. Rutgers will play Syracuse twice.
“It’ll feel weird at the end of the year when you’re not going down there,’’ Huskies coach Geno Auriemma said. “You’re so used to playing in that building. You look forward to that. You kind of write that on your calendar every year. You know you’re in for a treat. And this year it’s not going to happen.
“It seems like it’s been a pretty intense rivalry from the beginning. I shouldn’t say from the beginning. I think it took them a couple years, but I would say once my good friend Linda Miles arrived I think that kind of spiced things up a little bit. I told her that when I saw her at the referee camp.’’
Miles was a freshman when Rutgers defeated UConn for the first time – in the sixth game of the series – at the RAC Feb. 10, 1998 (74-70). Late in the game she ran past the UConn bench and told Auriemma that he had three more years of losses coming. That bold statement carried little weight moving forward as the Huskies went on to win the next 12 games in the series.
Rutgers coach C. Vivian Stringer offered her opinion on the Huskies this week. She sounded a lot like many other coaches that have come in contact with UConn this season – extremely impressed.
“There is a whole lot of distance between them and everybody else,’’ Stringer said. “They’re functioning on another planet. They measure themselves by themselves, not by others. The vast majority of players always measure themselves by others and as a result they never realize how good they can be. We all know that. … They don’t see the other opponent. They play within themselves and they test themselves against themselves. And that’s the greatest of all, but it requires a tremendous amount of mental disciple. That’s probably what allows them to keep their edge.’’
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