Long winning streaks are hard to achieve. Some are legendary. Here are our ten favorite win streaks in team sports history.
On January 19, 1971, the UCLA Bruins lost a basketball game to Notre Dame. For the next three years, they went undefeated, amassing 88 straight victories and two national championships. The streak ended January 19, 1974, when Notre Dame beat the Bruins in South Bend, 71-70.
De La Salle High School won 151 straight football games. From 1992 to 2004, this Bay-area powerhouse did not lose, collecting seven mythical national titles during the streak.
After losing to Notre Dame and tying Pitt to start the 1953 football season, the Oklahoma Sooners went on to win a then-record 47 consecutive games. The streak helped OU capture national titles in 1955 and 1956. Oklahoma went undefeated in conference play from 1949 to 1959.
North Carolina’s women’s soccer team won 103 consecutive matches from 1986-1990. After losing to UConn in September 1990, UNC then won 101 in a row. From 1982 to 1997, the Lady Tar Heels won nine straight NCAA titles and 14 in 16 seasons.
The New England Patriots won 21 consecutive games. Starting in Week 5 of the 2003 season, the streak spanned through the first of back-to-back Super Bowl titles the following year. In 2007, the Pats were undefeated when the New York Giants wrecked their perfect season in the Super Bowl.
The Miami Hurricanes men’s tennis team won 137 matches in a row from 1957 to 1964. The longest streak in all of college sports began with a win over Presbyterian [S.C.] in the third match of the 1957 season and ended with the final match of the 1964 campaign.
In 1971-72, the Los Angeles Lakers won 33 straight. It was Wilt Chamberlain’s second-to-last season in the NBA, and the Big Dipper led the Lakers to a 69-13 mark and the NBA title. It was the franchise’s first championship since moving from Minneapolis.
The UConn women went nearly three full basketball seasons without a loss, winning 111 games in a row. The streak began with a win over Creighton in December 2014. It ended at the 2017 Final Four with a loss to Mississippi State at the buzzer. Connecticut’s is the longest streak in college basketball history. The second-longest also belongs to the Lady Huskies, who won 90 straight from April 2006 to December 2010.
The University of Mount Union is a Division III football juggernaut located in Alliance, Ohio. The Purple Raiders won 54 games in a row from 1996 to 1999. After losing in the 1999 title game, Mount Union bettered its own mark by stringing together 55 more from 2000 to 2003. The Purple Raiders own the two longest winning streaks in college football history.
From May 2003 to October 2004, Arsenal played 49 top flight European soccer matches without a loss. Arsenal outscored its opponents 112-35 during the stretch, which ended with a controversial loss to Manchester United in 2004.
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