Lady Vols’ top 10 streak ends but will be hard to beat

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Not unexpectedly, the highly rated Texas Longhorns women’s basketball team on Sunday overpowered defending NCAA champions Tennessee, 73-59. That helped end a mind-bending streak for the Lady Vols, who had not been out of the top 10 for 211 weeks.

The Lady Vols today moved from No. 7 to No. 11 with the loss, and Texas moved up one notch to No. 5. The mighty fall harder when it comes to rankings.

But that streak will stand for quite a while, maybe forever. It also can serve as a reminder that Coach Pat Summitt can never be counted out, even though at the end of last season she lost Candace Parker (one of the greatest women’s players) and Shannon Bobbitt to the WNBA’s Sparks and Alexis Hornbuckle to the Detroit Shock.

That streak of 211, by the way, surpasses the men’s NCAA hoops streak set by the UCLA Bruins by a whopping 56 weeks. And the closest active streak on the women’s side? North Carolina, which has been in the top 10 for 70 weeks.

-- Debbie Goffa