Top-ranked South Carolina 70, No. 5 UConn 52. In Columbia The Gamecocks were 0-8 versus Geno and the Huskies before last night.

If you’re scoring at home, UConn has lost twice in the past eight days. If you’re scoring closely at home, UConn has lost twice by 18 points in each game in the past eight days. The Huskies have lost by at least 16 points, and granted, to the top three programs in the country— Baylor, Oregon and South Carolina— three times this season. They have three regular-season losses.

For comparison’s sake, UConn has only lost three times in the regular season twice since the 2007-2008 season. And in those two years, seven of the eight pre-NCAA tournament defeats were in the single-digit margins (two by a single point). I don’t know how far you’d have to go back before you found three UConn defeats in one season all by 16 or more points. My guesses are 1) before the landmark 1994-95 season or 2) before Geno arrived.

Even more astounding, last night was likely the first night in more than a decade that the opposing team had more players with NCAA championship rings (2) than UConn (0). The current crop of Huskies have never cut down the nets, as UConn has been bounced from the last three Final Fours. And this team is in danger of not making it that far for a simple reason: they simply don’t play together that well. Geno has a few former high school players of the year on his roster, just one of which most coaches would kill for, but there is no standout. And they don’t seem to have the chemistry his better teams have had.

Only twice since UConn won its first title, in 1995 and led by Rebecca Lobo and Jen Rizzotti, have the Huskies gone an entire four-year cycle without winning a national championship: 1996-1999 and 2005-2008. They’ve never gone five years without a title since 1995. This could mark their fourth straight season without one. We’ll see. Geno’s still by far the best coach in women’s hoops.

Paige Bueckers, a whiz kid from the Twin Cities who is seen as the nation’s top prep player, is set to arrive next season in Storrs. She can’t make it there soon enough.

We speculated last week that by Wednesday of this week the coronavirus death toll would top 1,000, which would bring another new and stronger wave of attention. As of this morning, and this is the official number out of China and there’s no real reason to take it as credible— it’s hardly in China’s best interests to do anything but downplay the virulence and deadliness of this pandemic; did you see Chernobyl?—the death toll is at 1,016.

On Monday, for the first time, more than 100 people died of coronavirus in China in a single day. Again, the official count was 108. Chinese officials reacted by urging countries not to cut ties for the sake of the global economy. Meanwhile, more than 43,000 people worldwide are known to have been infected, but with an incubation period of up to 24 days, who knows exactly how many humans have been infected?

The death rate of coronavirus (those who contract it as compared to those who die of having contracted it) is not yet known, but it seems to be less deadly than SARS or MERS. But it has killed more people than either of those known viruses.

China will probably see a peak of deaths and then, due to quarantine and other steps being taken, their rate of cases should slow. The next question will be to see where else it has spread and how quickly a country that does not have a totalitarian government, or even a well-run one, will be able to curb the spread of it.

1. The Great Beauty: This Best Foreign Film winner out of Italy is set in Rome. It’s modern and involves a successful but lonely film director, I think. It stuck with me. “You know why I eat roots? Because roots matter.”
2. Gravity: There are worse things that can happen to a girl than being lost in space with George Clooney… but being George Clooney, of course he drifted away. Stay for the heavily symbolic final scene.
3. Inside Llewyn Davis: Yes, that’s Oscar Isaac, Justin Timberlake and Adam Driver recording a hit record. My favorite scene in this Coen Brothers film.
4. 20 Feet From Stardom: Yes, a documentary about backup singers is actually pretty good. If for no other reason than to learn the backstory of how Merry Clayton came to sing backup on “Gimme Shelter.” Oscar winner, Best Documentary.
5. Rush: Before there was Ford V Ferrari, there was this other real-life auto racing tale of tragedy and redemption (or at least near tragedy). This one from the 1970s, focusing on the Formula One rivalry between Austrian introvert Niki Lauda and British extrovert and playboy James Hunt.

Never saw Before Midnight or 12 Years A Slave or Frances Ha. Liked The Way, Way Back and Frozen.

by John Walters

Five quickie notes for the post-lunch procrastinators. Go easy on the indigestion… especially if you had Chipotle.

1. Rah-Rah Rebounds: The top rebounder at any level in the NCAA, male or female, this season is Rah-Rah Thompson. The senior at Division III Albertus Magnus College in New Haven, Conn., averages 15.8 boards per game. She stands 6’0″ and grew up in Bridgeport, which is nearby. The Falcons are 15-6.

2. No Luke: Pass: Cincinnati’s Luke Fickell listens to Michigan State’s pitch to become Sparty’s next head coach, then says, “Smell ya’ later.” The new leader in the clubhouse is Bret Bielema.

3. Rivers Run Dry: The San Diego Lost Angeles Chargers and Philip Rivers are going their separate freeways. After 16 seasons and zero Super Bowl appearances. Rivers had a very good, if not superior, run in the 619. He’ll be a free agent. Ol’ man Rivers, 38, is SIXTH all-time in NFL passing yardage and the only quarterback among the top 10 not to have played in a Super Bowl.

4. Picking Up The Slack: The stock of the day thus far has been Slack (WORK), which is up more than 14% ($3.32) since the market opened.

5. Head Games: Remember when Iran’s missile attack on a U.S. military base, al Assad in Iraq, produced no casualties? Then it was thought to be a dozen or so concussions. Or, as the president said, “A few headaches.” Then up to 50 traumatic brain injuries. Well, the latest word is that more than 100 troops were diagnosed with traumatic brain injuries. This according to an official source close to CNN, as opposed to a Pentagon statement (officially, the Pentagon went as high as 64 cases last month). What this all means is that there’s another military official whose own head Donald Trump will look to be putting on a pike.

*****

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Tonight Turner Classic Movies (TCM) airs a John Wayne doubleheader with two classics that bookend his iconic career. First up, at 8 p.m., it’s Stagecoach, from 1939. Then at 10 p.m. Wayne stars in the film that, 30 years later, at last brought him his first Oscar: True Grit, from 1969.

The former film, directed by John Ford, was the first of numerous Ford-Wayne collaborations. It was also their first film shot in Monument Valley. This is Wayne’s breakout role. The film would win two Oscars, including Thomas Mitchell for Best Supporting Actor. It was nominated for Best Picture in a year that many consider Hollywood’s all-time best.

As for the latter, here’s Wayne as one-eyed Rooster Cogburn in 1969. Upon winning the Oscar after having appeared in more than 140 films, most of them Westerns, but here for the first time as a one-eyed law man, Wayne crowed, “Wow! If I’d known that, I’d have put that patch on 35 years earlier.”