Pressure? What pressure? No. 3 Cornhuskers not dwelling on 28-0 record _ or so they say

No. 3 Huskers still perfect at 28-0; 1 game left

LINCOLN, Neb. — Nebraska coach Connie Yori and her players will say that they’re not dwelling on their perfect, 28-0 record and the pressure of keeping it intact.

A couple of players who have been there don’t believe them.

“Yes, you do think of it. You try not to, but as you get closer to the end of the season, you realize that it really can happen,” Renee Montgomery, who played on Connecticut’s 39-0 team a year ago, said in an e-mail.

Tamika Catchings, who played on Tennessee’s 1997-98 team that went 39-0, said the pressure is unavoidable.

“I think you try not to think about it, but of course it’s there because that’s all people talk about,” Catchings said in an e-mail. “Each game becomes that much more important because everyone wants to be that team to knock you off the top.”

The Cornhuskers can go 29-0 if they win at Kansas State on Saturday, which would make them the first team in the 13-year history of the Big 12 to go unbeaten through a regular season. Oklahoma was 16-0 in league play but lost four nonconference games in 2005-06.

Top-ranked UConn hasn’t lost since Montgomery left. The Huskies need one win to tie their own NCAA record of 70 consecutive victories from 2001-03.

If UConn’s players feel any pressure, they’re not saying. Coach Geno Auriemma doesn’t allow them to do interviews on the subject.

This, of course, is all new for Nebraska, which has had a largely undistinguished history in basketball before this season.

At the start of the week, senior guard Yvonne Turner said she didn’t know how many games in a row the Huskers had won. She toed the party line, saying she and her teammates go about their business as if their record is 0-0 and the score is always 0-0.

At the same time, Turner is taking no chances.

An hour before each game, she eats half a bag of strawberry Twizzlers. She downs the rest at halftime. Turner also wears the same socks every game.

“But I have them washed,” she said, laughing.

As long as Nebraska’s winning, Turner’s sticking with the routine.

Other players are superstitious, too. Star forward Kelsey Griffin must drink a can of Diet Coke before each game. A group of other players stop at a Sonic fast-food restaurant for a specialty drink on their way to home games.

Montgomery, the top pick in the WNBA last year who plays for the Connecticut Sun, said she and her former teammates didn’t need to talk about their record because they were reminded of it so often.

“The media and fans talk about going undefeated way more than we did,” she said. “I wouldn’t call it pressure. I like to call it support. They didn’t say we better win. They were encouraging, saying they believe in us.”

Asked what, if anything, the Huskers discuss when it comes to their record, Yori answers with a question of her own.

“What are you going to say? It’s there,” she said before Wednesday’s 77-52 win over Kansas. “We don’t run around and chant ‘27-0,’ that’s for sure. The players might in their apartments or dorms, but it’s not happening in the locker room.

“We’re not hiding from it. We have a perfect record, but we’re far from perfect. If you’re spending your time thinking about the what-ifs, you’re not taking care of your tasks.”

Catchings, an All-Star for the Indiana Fever, said that’s the same approach Tennessee coach Pat Summitt took when the Lady Vols were steamrolling the competition.

“You just focus on making your team better and not focus on losing,” Catchings wrote. “You focus on playing your best each and every day. In my case, Pat wouldn’t let us dwell on it. Of course, it was right there in our faces, but we didn’t let it control us.”

As for the thought that losing a game before the NCAA tournament could be a good thing to alleviate some of that pressure, forget about it, Yori said.

“There isn’t any athlete or coach who wants to lose, so we’re competitive and we would like to continue to try to win,” Yori said. “We’ve continued to play to win as opposed to play not to lose. Our players have maintained a great maturity about what we have going on, and none of us get too worried about the streak.”

There are, after all, more important things in life than winning basketball games, she said.

“There are a lot of people who have pressure in their jobs and a lot of people who have pressure in their daily lives — and a lot greater pressure than what we’re going through,” Yori said. “People who are unemployed and are trying to put food on the table for their family — that’s more pressure than what we’re dealing with right now.”