Put your hands together for the Nebraska men’s tennis, women’s basketball, wrestling, softball, men’s basketball, women’s gymnastics, soccer, women’s tennis and baseball teams for a perfect week.  Husker teams went 22-0 in team scored competition sports for the week ending March 8th.

It got me thinking, what’s more impressive, nine teams combining for one perfect week or one team going perfect for an entire season?

The last men’s college basketball team to go undefeated was the 1976 Indiana Hoosiers (32-0).  As team captain Quinn Buckner likes to remind people, it’s tough going an entire season not only undefeated, but also being ranked No. 1 from the first ball being thrown up until a pair of scissors cut the nets down.

The Hoosiers’ men’s team might be the most impressive unbeaten in this blog.  Led by senior forward and college player of the year Scott May, Indiana tore through a non-conference schedule consisting of defending national champion UCLA (Bruin apologists need not remind us this was the first post-Wooden season), Kentucky at Freedom Hall, unbeaten St. John’s in front of a full house at Madison Square Garden and a Digger Phelps coached Notre Dame.

The games didn’t get any easier in conference play, only one other Big Ten team had gone through the road conference schedule with an unblemished record.  It’s a good thing the only other team to do it before or since was armed with the same players from the 1975-1976 team, the 1974-1975 Hoosier ballers.

Should I end the argument right here, right now? Is my question answered before it can even be asked properly? I don’t think so. While the ’76 Hoosiers weathered the college basketball storm (including the Disco Decade; maybe this team was the inspiration behind the Bee Gees 1977 hit Stayin’ Alive), the Huskers Wrestling team (our first member of the Magnificent Nine) trailed Big XII powerhouse Iowa State by nine points with only one session left at the conference tournament last week.

It took four individual championships by Jordan Burroughs (157), Brandon Browne (174), Vince Jones (184) and Craig Brester (197)  to make up the difference on their team’s way to earning a split of the Big 12 Championship.  A few more nuggets to nibble on:

1. •The four individual titles tied for the most in one conference meet in school history
   

2. •Brester, who entered the conference tourney with a pair of losses earlier in the season against Iowa State’s Jake Varner (the country’s No. 1 ranked grappler), beat the Cyclone 4-3 to complete the team comeback
   

3. •Big 12 conference meet’s Outstanding Wrestler award: Brester
   

If any of these matmen don’t come through in the clutch, the perfect storm that was a perfect week doesn’t happen.

Bob Knight never coached in the star city, but another excitable coach led his men’s basketball team to a perfect 2-0 record to close out the regular season last week. Doc Sadler’s Husker hoops team honored the seniors with a 77-61 win over Iowa State in the final home game of the year. Although senior guard Ade Dagunduro led the way with 24 points, it was truly a team effort as everyone chipped in to shoot 52-percent from the field. 

Playing in their second senior night in as many games, the Huskers spoiled Baylor’s last-year-men night in beating the Bears 66-62. Ironically a Big Red freshman, Toney McCray, scored the most points (18) as the Huskers got a sneak preview of their first-round Big XII conference tournament opponent. 

Nothing surprising here, after all, the University of Nebraska men’s basketball program is supposed to beat teams that combine to go 32-29 (.524 winning percentage) during the regular season right? Probably, but that brings me to the last college football team to wikipedia their football season and see a zero in the loss column, the 2008 Utah Utes.

Not taking anything away from winning 13 games in a college football season, but the combined records of the Utes opponents was 88-77 (.533 winning percentage), equally as unimpressive as beating the ninth and tenth worst men’s basketball teams in your own conference.

Giving them the props they didn’t get from a crystal trophy (despite being the only unbeaten team last year), Utah did beat three ranked teams in 2008.  No. 12 TCU, No. 14 BYU and No. 4 Alabama respectively. And they beat Alabama on a neutral field in the South, but how motivated were the Crimson Tide for a runners up bowl game after such a downer of an SEC championship.

Another point that tips the scales back into favor for the perfect week: since the 1870 Princeton Tigers went 1-0, exactly 279 teams have won every game in which they appeared during a season.  With comparatively fewer games in college football than other team sports, the chances of winning ‘em all increases.  Utah’s 13 wins were very impressive, but they were also nine shy of Nebraska’s team win totals last week (22).

Speaking of those teams, the women basket-ballers won their way into post-season eligibility with a pair of wins over Colorado (75-64) and Oklahoma State (82-74).  The perfect  2-0 record last week also earned Nebraska the seven seed in the conference tournament this week in Oklahoma City.

Zero-point-four-five, visually speaking: 0.45. That’s how close the perfect week came from being just another week in Big Red land as the women’s gymnastics team barely held off Iowa State (a.k.a. perfect week enablers) 196.150 to 195.70.

It took a season-best team effort of 49.40 on the floor in addition to four individual titles (beam, vault, bars) for NU to pull off the nail-biter.

The men’s and women’s tennis teams combined for four of the 22 wins last week.  Recapping the ladies first, Nebraska beat Northern Iowa 6-1 to improve to 9-0 on the season. Five of the six singles matches were won in straight sets.

On the men’s court, NU bested UMKC, Bradley and Wichita State.  Nebraska used no discrimination in beating all three teams by a score of 7-0.

The soccer team added three wins to the total by beating Washington State, Arizona State and Southern Utah in spring exhibition.

Back to the perfect seasons, only one team in the history of collegiate hockey has ever left the ice of every game with a “W.”  Husker fans are going to love the name of that lone, unscathed champion, Cornell Big Red.

The 1970 hockey team went 29-0-0 through teams like Western Ontario, Guelph, RPI, Brown, St. Lawrence, Colgate and Clarkson.  Like the 1972 Dolphins, they are the only team to ever go unbeaten in their sport (college level), which is very impressive.

A couple of caveats, an NCAA hockey schedule with only 29 games is on the light side to say the least.  For comparison sake, the 2009 UNO hockey team will have played in 41 games when the regular season ends on March 15th. Secondly, college hockey historians question the skill level of Cornell’s 1970 opponents (making what Indiana’s men’s basketball team did in 1975/1976 that much more impressive).

Rounding out the magnificent nine, Big Red Softball needed a broom to clean house at the 2009 Shocker Invitational as NU swept past the tournament field.  The Huskers posted 9-1 and 12-4 wins over North Dakota and Wichita State respectively on Saturday, March 7th.  Then came back the next day to complete the four-game sweep in winning 9-1 over the Fighting Sioux and 8-1 over the Shockers.

The final piece of the perfect week, a five-win, no-loss effort by the baseball team at Haymarket Park. 

While Cyclone grapplers, basket-ballers and gymnasts couldn’t stop the Huskers from completing the week-long perfection, mother nature gave it one last shot with the perfect storm in Lincoln: rain, wind, cold temperatures.

After knocking off South Dakota State 11-2 on Wednesday, March 4th and Cal St. Northridge 9-3 on Friday, March 6th in great weather conditions, Nebraska’s baseball team was faced with the challenge of sub-freezing temps (with the wind-chill factored in)  during their scheduled doubleheader Saturday.

The bats stayed hot for the Huskers all weekend as they took games two, three and four from the Matadors 11-5, 12-6 and 8-2.

So which is better, a perfect week or a perfect season?  The answer might be subjective, but no one can deny the perfect dynasty: the Trinity squash team.

I leave you with these stats: the Bantams have won 11 straight titles and 202 consecutive matches, the longest winning streak in the history of college varsity sports.