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Correction Published January 19, 2001 - One of the photos of the Washington University women's basketball team is from a game on Jan. 9 against MacMurray College. The opponent was misidentified.
Done at 81
* Above all, Washington U. appears eager to get back on the court and back to winning.
The 10 dozen red roses near the Field House hardwood stood to celebrate a sensational feat and mourn a loss.
More than 20 long-stemmed buds also crowded Washington University coach Nancy Fahey's office, and the sticky air was sweet with roses and sweat at Wednesday night's women's basketball practice.
It was a typical basketball practice that followed a rare loss on Tuesday night. At Fontbonne College, WU was beaten 79-68 for the first time in almost three years, ending college basketball's longest current streak and the chance to break one of the oldest records in the game.
Wednesday was more ordinary than historic. The Bears were starting over in a way, but everything remained the same: a meeting, followed by stretching, scrimmaging and running suicide drills. The chant of "Go Bears" could be heard by each player randomly.
The Bears' 81 wins are the longest streak in women's college basketball, regardless of division. Washington U. was seven games short of tying college basketball's all-time mark of 88 games set by John Wooden's UCLA teams from 1971 to 1974.
Washington U. owns the NCAA women's record (in all divisions) for consecutive victories and the longest current home win streak regardless of division at 50 straight games. Rust College, a Division III women's program in Holly Springs, Miss., holds the record of 88. Rust set the mark from 1982 to 1989.
Wooden said he expects that someday, some team will break college basketball's longest winning streak. Just after breakfast on Monday, he talked from his Encino, Calif., home, about his record and the women who were closing in on it.
"It's an old saying that records are made to be broken," Wooden, 90, said. "And definitely some things will take a lot longer, but you expect it."
Although Washington U. has won the past three Division III national titles and its dominance in the NCAA's smallest division is unrivaled, some question whether it's valid to...