If you would have told me, in January of 1974, that UCLA’s basketball team needed to have its 88-game winning streak broken, as well as its run of seven consecutive NCAA championships … I might have punched you.

UCLA winning seemingly “forever” was good because … well, because I was pulling for them. And so were lots and lots of UCLA fans; back then, they were as big as any of Los Angeles’s professional sports team. As big as the Dodgers, Lakers and Rams.

But, back then, college basketball had become too predictable. John Wooden’s UCLA would win every game, and every season’s NCAA Tournament (nine of 10, through 1973) … and what sports fan wants to see the inevitable?

It was a good thing, then, that Notre Dame ended UCLA’s 88-game winning streak in January of 1974 and that North Carolina State ended the championship run in March of that year with an 80-77 double-overtime semifinal victory over the Bruins in the NCAA Tournament.

Since then? Twenty schools have won an NCAA title. And only one, Indiana in 1975, has managed to post an unbeaten record.

The game is without question bigger, grander and far more popular then it was when UCLA went close to smothering the game with their success.

Which brings us to the University of Connecticut women’s team.

UConn’s women are getting boring. Very, very boring because they have shown that the idea of competitive balance is a phantasm in the women’s game.

UConn and coach Geno Auriemma have won 111 consecutive games since a defeat to Stanford in 2014 … which was so crushing that UConn went on and won the NCAA title anyway.

That 111-game streak is the longest in college basketball history, by the way.

Meanwhile, UConn is about to win its fifth consecutive NCAA championship — and seventh out of nine and 10th out of 16.

Their 111-game winning streak includes 60 games decided by 40 or more points. In the East Regional final, they nuked Oregon 90-52 tonight. An Elite Eight game, decided by 38 points. Compelling viewing, no doubt.

What is scary for women’s basketball is that this was supposed to be a rebuilding season for UConn. Auriemma lost three seniors off the 2016 champions, and that trio went 1-2-3 at the top of the WNBA draft … and here they are, still kicking butt.

Their best three players — Gabby Williams, Katie Lou Samuelson and Nepheesa Collier — are underclassmen. So the winning streak very possibly could be in the mid 140s, a year from now.

Meanwhile, UConn is very, very close to succeeding in sucking the air out of NCAA women’s basketball. Notre Dame and Stanford beat them every half-decade or so, and Tennessee did them down three times a decade ago, back when it was a real rivalry. But right now … nobody.

How is this happening? We would have to start by assuming Auriemma is the best coach in women’s basketball, and that he is recruiting the best players. (A rare combination. See: Calipari, John.)

Twenty UConn players have been chosen in the first round of the WNBA draft (some WNBA matchups must seem like UConn intrasquad games) and five have been the No. 1 overall pick. So, yes, Gino is not winning with someone else’s rejects.

I don’t know what to do about this, but I do know it will throttle interest in the women’s game until it ends. It is no way to run a competition, when only one team’s results matter. When everyone else is playing for second place.

Maybe some college men’s team will offer Auriemma a job. Maybe he will retire soon — he is 63, after all.

Maybe the NCAA will make a rule allowing players to turn pro after one season in college, as is now the case in the men’s game, perhaps breaking up UConn’s four-year hold on elite players.

Meantime, I do not watch the women’s game.

If I were a fan of UConn, I would be pleased to watch, as was the case for millions of UCLA fans 40-plus years ago.

But UCLA being pushed down into the chasing pack was good for the men’s game. I am convinced that UConn falling from its perch would have a similar beneficial impact on the women’s game.