Which UConn women's basketball team is the greatest in program history? That's a really tough question that's probably impossible to answer, but no matter what metric you use, the 2008-09 team deserves to be in the conversation.
Led by Maya Moore, Tina Charles and Renee Montgomery, the Huskies went a perfect 39-0 to capture the program's sixth national championship, absolutely demolishing everyone in their path. UConn won every game by double digits, smashing just about every ranked opponent they faced, and in the past decade since this season all of the Huskies' starters have gone on to enjoy successful pro careers.
More importantly, the players on this team have become social justice pioneers who are now at the forefront of the ongoing Black Lives Matter movement. Moore recently helped get an innocent man out of jail, sacrificing some of the prime years of her career in the process, and Montgomery and Tiffany Hayes recently announced they'll be opting out of the upcoming WNBA season to focus on activism. In terms of their accomplishments on and off the court, you'd be hard pressed to find a group of winners like this 2008-09 team.
Alexa Philippou from the Hartford Courant joins us for this episode, where we break down this team, their legacy and their crowning achievement in the 2009 NCAA Championship game against Louisville, which was actually a much better and more competitive game than you probably remember!
Like what you hear? Want to offer feedback? Feel free to reach out at [email protected]. You can also find me on Twitter at @MacCerullo.
Podcast artwork courtesy of Jon Kulakofsky/The Daily Campus 2014.
Subscribe on Apple Podcasts and listen on Spotify, Stitcher, Google Play and RadioPublic.