NYU now leads the Division III women’s basketball record book alone with 82 consecutive wins.
The Violets (20-0) beat Carnegie Mellon 69-58 on Sunday to tie with rival Washington University of St. Louis for winning 81 consecutive games from 1998-2001.
“We beat Wash. U. to get that record, it’s pretty thrilling,” NYU coach Meg Barber said in a phone interview after the win. “I’m a competitive person and respect this league immensely and to have any kind of streak is incredible.”
Barber knows firsthand about the records her team broke, having been a player at NYU when the team’s rival was winning.
“I’ll take a sigh of relief,” Barber said of setting the record. “Hopefully this will quiet down the outside noise, let’s get back to our main goals [of winning another national championship]”
Yukon Holds the overall NCAA record for consecutive wins with a 111-game streak. The Huskies also have the second-longest streak, a 90-game run.
Caroline Pepper scored 27 points to lead the two-time defending national champions, who had to work hard for Sunday’s win.
Pepper said, “For us, it was very important that we were representing NYU to beat our opponent’s record.”
The two teams went back-and-forth throughout the first half, and NYU led 32–29 at the break on Brooke Batchelor’s 3-pointer seconds before the end of the second quarter.
Peppers and Batchelor hit consecutive 3-pointers early in the third quarter to start a 17-6 run and reach double figures. The Tartans closed to within 56–51 midway through the fourth quarter, but Zahra Alexander, who scored all seven of her points in the final quarter, responded with consecutive layups to increase the cushion and make it 60–53 with 3:19 remaining.
Peppers then hit a 3-pointer just before the shot clock buzzer with just over two minutes left to seal the win.
Sunday’s game was a rematch from a week earlier. NYU topped Carnegie Mellon (12–7) by just one point in that game. The closest any team came to defeating the Violets was during this run. No team had come within 12 points earlier this season.
During the historic streak, only three other teams have come within single digits of the Violets: the University of Chicago lost by six, Whittier by eight and Case Western Reserve lost by eight two days earlier.
Now with the record in hand, the Violets are focused on attempting to win their fifth consecutive UAA conference title and third consecutive national championship. Only the University of Washington has done so, when the school won four consecutive titles from 1998 to 2001.
“I guess it hasn’t been a priority, but it’s something that we’re really excited about in a big way to represent the D-III record,” said Barber, who was showered with water by her team in the locker room after the win. “We didn’t win the national championship today. We won a game and are focused on going 1-0 again on Friday. That’s been the main priority the whole time.”
Peppers is the only player on the roster to lose a game in college at NYU. She was a freshman member of the team that was defeated by Transylvania in the Elite Eight of the Division III NCAA Tournament.
