The University of Connecticut women's basketball team will try for its 71st straight win Monday night when the top-ranked Huskies face sixth-ranked Notre Dame in the Big East conference semifinals. UConn tied the record the program set from Nov. 9, 2001, to March 11, 2003, with its 77-41 rout of Syracuse on Sunday.
Moreover, UConn is 18 wins from the overall NCAA Division I record, which was by set by John Wooden and UCLA from 1971 to 1974.
And while there is usually a great deal of pressure that comes along with an undefeated streak, UConn coach Geno Auriemma and the players 
insist they don’t talk about it. The Huskies are so good, that they are constantly bombarded by questions about their pursuit of the national record for consecutive victories.
They could easily get caught up in the debate over where they stand in the history of the game and such a distraction could shackle their ability to play freely.
Instead UConn keeps winning, because the Huskies keep the same approach, free from thoughts of grandeur and full of focus on playing the perfect game. It's a good lesson.
They don’t use the streak as motivation every day in practice or during every timeout. Instead, they talk about not giving up threes, not fouling, not giving up offensive rebounds. They can’t let an obsession over a record consume them by trying to figure out where it fits into the cosmic world of sports.
“When you get an obsession that kind of gives you some tunnel vision, and tunnel vision is not good,” Auriemma said. “You need to be able to take the blinders off and be able to see everything that’s going on in front of you. You can’t just obsess about one thing. And that’s why I don’t talk about it. I don’t think about it..."
Tonight the Huskies face Notre Dame (27-4) - which rallied to beat St. John's, 75-67, Sunday - for a chance to break the wins record and a chance to win their 16th conference tournament title.
Lindsey Vonn lived up to expectations and won the Olympic downhill Wednesday.
The accomplishment came d
espite a bruised shin that almost took her out of the running and threatened to sideline her Olympic games.
Hurt Feb. 2 during pre-Olympic practice in Austria, Vonn had hardly skied over the past two weeks.
The injury even made her question whether Olympic gold was meant to be...
"...It's been a really tough couple of weeks, pretty much having your Olympic dreams crushed. I felt things weren't going my way, that my whole world was kind of tumbling down. I was really depressed, sad and really just hoping that my Olympic dream was still alive. It definitely wasn't the place I wanted to be."
Yet before Wednesday's race, former U.S. Olympic skier Billy Kidd told FanHouse he could think of no athlete better prepared mentally and physically to block the excruciating pain that accompanies ski boot shin bruises and contusions -- known as "boot bang" to skiers everywhere.
Kidd said Vonn, whom he has known since she was a young racer in Vail, Colo., is accustomed to performing through extreme pain like any elite athlete. Kidd talked about how he has always been impressed with Vonn's focus during her races and he says that ability to block out everything but the run will help her overcome the discomfort she is certain to experience.
"On one hand, it makes it very difficult to perform under pressure, unlike the Super Bowl, where you can make a mistake and you've got two or three hours to make up for that mistake. In ski racing, with that one chance, you make a mistake and it's over – come back in four more years."
"But absolutely, it is a lot of work. With Michael Phelps, swimming back and forth through the pain, or long-distance runners or Mount Everest climbers – all of that is painful. But you push through the pain. Lindsey is just so good at doing that."
Now on this day, she is celebrated for her courage AND her brilliance, for producing under intense pressure, for overcoming pain that lasted three weeks and continued perilously into the downhill -- and for delivering even when so many thought she would fail.
"Americans perform well under pressure," Vonn said. "We're game-day athletes, and we don't hold anything back. I always feel like Americans come out on top. We're free-spirited and really determined people."
insist they don’t talk about it. The Huskies are so good, that they are constantly bombarded by questions about their pursuit of the national record for consecutive victories.
