I want to let you know that this blog is not about the Connecticut women's basketball team. Their streak of 90 straight wins is outstanding, but with all of the media talking about the streak coming to an end on Thursday at Stanford, things just got monotonous.
So let's talk about what happened New Year's Day. While everybody -- I had to admit, including myself -- was watching more than 12 hours of college football, a total of 15 women's college basketball teams celebrated New Year's Day with a victory..
One of them is in the same conference as Connecticut and that's Syracuse. The Orange cruised to a 91-56 win over Arkansas-Pine Bluff at home on Saturday. It was Syracuse's 39th straight non-Big East conference win. Sophomore Kayla Alexander, who was named Big East Player of the Week, finished with 21 points, 14 rebounds and five blocks against the Golden Lions, who are 0-11.
The Orange, who are playing at Georgetown on Tuesday to open their Big East season, are off to a 12-1 start for the fourth time in program history. One of those wins included a big, 75-66 victory over Ohio State at home.
Syracuse wasn't the only team that scored 91 points on New Year's Day. Miami finished its non-Atlantic Coast Conference schedule with a 91-52 victory over Lipscomb, bumping the Hurricanes' record to 14-1. Morgan Stroman (20 points, 10 rebounds), Riquna Williams (24 points, 11 rebounds) and Shenise Johnson (25 points, 10 rebounds) each had a double-double for Miami, which only loss was to Nebraska.
Miami won its 13th straight game and will look to extend it on Thursday in its ACC opener at Virginia. The Hurricanes are off to their best start in 19 years.
Delaware State came close to matching Syracuse's and Miami's offensive output on Saturday. The Hornets had five players in double figures and cruised to a 90-58 win over Wesley, a Division III team.
The Hornets (3-8) have two of their last three games after losing five straight. They'll play at North Carolina Central for their final non-conference game. Delaware State begins MEAC play against South Carolina State on Jan. 10.
Also in the East Coast on Saturday, Cornell coach Dayna Smith reached a milestone. She became the school's winningest coach after her team beat cross-town rival Ithaca 58-55. Smith now has 81 victories in her eight seasons as Cornell coach.
The Big Red improved to 2-9 with the victory over Ithaca. They have three non-conference games remaining -- including Monday's contest at Binghamton -- before starting their Ivy League season on Jan. 15 against Columbia.
New Hampshire beat Rhode Island 88-74 in triple overtime in a non-conference matchup between New England schools. Denise Beliveau scored a career-high 25 points -- including seven free throws in the third overtime period -- and grabbed 10 rebounds to help the Wildcats improve to 3-9.
New Hampshire was coming off back-to-back one-point losses to St. Joseph's and Quinnipac last week in the St. Joseph's Hawk Classic at Philadelphia.
"It's so refreshing to see how the girls came back and rose to the occasion," first-year New Hampshire coach Maureen Magarity said in unhwildcats.com. "This (Rhode Island) is a very good Atlantic-10 team."
Cari Reed hit five 3-pointers, including one with 1:40 left in the third overtime that extended New Hampshire's lead to 78-72.
The Missouri Valley Conference had a pair of games. Northern Iowa, which competed in last year's NCAA tournament, lost to Illinois State 69-69 and Indiana State beat Bradley 84-68.
Five players scored in double figures for Indiana State, which began its Missouri Valley Conference season on Dec. 30 with a 71-46 loss to Northern Iowa. The Sycamores improved to 7-6 overall and 1-1 in conference play.
"This was a terrific win for our program, coming back from such a miserable start in Valley play," Indiana State coach Teri Moren said in the Terre Haute Tribune-Star on Sunday. (The Sycamores) bounced back in a big way."
Indiana State's next game will be Saturday against Illinois State, which improved to 9-3 overall and 2-0 in conference play with the win over Northern Iowa. The Redbirds won their fourth straight game.
"Throughout the whole game, I thought our pressure was there," Illinois State senior Emily Hanley said in the Bloomington-Normal (Ill.) Pantagraph on Sunday. "I felt like we were the aggressors. We had an attack mentality offensively and defensively. That helped us get stops and being aggressive on offense was very helpful."
Hanley was named the MVC Player of the Week after helping the Redbirds win three games last week. She averaged 18 points in those three games.
Illinois State will play a non-conference game at Northern Illinois before returning to MVC action on Saturday against Indiana State.
Staying in the Midwest, Toledo beat North Dakota 71-55 at home to wrap up its non-conference season. The Rockets improved to 8-5.
Senior Melissa Goodall finished with a career-high 25 points, along with five assists, eight rebounds and two blocked shots for Toledo, which opens its Mid-American Conference play on Wednesday against Ball State.
"We haven't had a very good start to any of our games this season," Goodall said in the Toledo Blade on Sunday. "It was good to kind of get things going early. If it was somebody else getting the six points, that would have been just fine. I'm glad we started off well."
Heading south, Central Arkansas and Louisiana-Lafayette celebrated New Year's Day with victories. Central Arkansas blew past Oklahoma Wesleyan 87-40 and Louisiana-Lafayette beat North Texas 65-54.
Central Arkansas forced Oklahoma Wesleyan to score the fewest points out of the 30 teams that played on New Year's Day. The Bears, who will play Ecclesia College on Tuesday, improved to 7-5 and have won five of their last six games.
Louisiana-Lafayette celebrated its first win in Sun Belt Conference play with the win over North Texas. The Rajun' Cajuns (8-7) started league play last week with a loss to Denver.
Out west, Utah improved to 7-7 and extended its winning streak to three games with a 73-61 win over in-state rival Utah State. The Utes played their last non-conference game before starting their Mountain West Conference season on Thursday against Air Force.
"The big thing is that we're getting better every day," Utah coach Anthony Leverets said in the Salt Lake City Tribune on Sunday. "Having time to actually practice is huge. We've had some great practices in the past few weeks, and you can see the improvement on the court."
Another Mountain West Conference team also played on New Year's Day, but didn't get the win. BYU lost to Nevada 57-53. Nevada extended its best-ever start to 11-2 and begins its Western Athletic Conference play on Thursday against Idaho. Wolfpack senior Johnna Ward scored a season-high 17 points, including five 3-pointers.
"I'm really proud of my team because they've found a lot of different ways to win all year," Nevada coach Jane Albright said in the Reno Gazette-Journal on Sunday. "Tonight, it was just grinding it out."
A pair of Big Sky Conference teams -- Idaho State and Montana State -- picked up wins on Saturday. Idaho State improved to 9-4 with an 84-51 win over Montana Tech, and Montana State beat Utah Valley 79-70 to extend its winning streak to four games and improve to 6-8.
In the final game on New Year's Day, Seattle University snapped a four-game losing streak with a 62-50 win over Navy at home. The Redhawks (5-11) were led by senior Salena Dickerson with 22 points.
"Confidence is really contagious and it passed around to a lot of people," Seattle U coach Joan Bonvicini said in the Seattle Times on Sunday. "We didn't start real good in the second half, but we showed poise down the stretch and got to the free-throw line. It just made us much more aggressive."
Seattle University, an independent team, will play Cal State Bakersfield, another independent, on Sunday.
Big jump: Stanford and DePaul tied for the biggest jump among the top 25 teams this week. The two teams moved up five spots from last week's polls.
Stanford, which beat Xavier, Connecticut and rival Cal last week, moved up to No. 4 with a 10-2 record. DePaul, which didn't play last week, jumped to No. 16. Ironically, the two teams met earlier this season, with DePaul pulling off a 91-71 over Stanford.
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