The Streak Is Over: Huskies Lose Again

The Story: The No. 4 UConn women lost consecutive games for the first time since the end of the 1992-93 season when they fell 59-52 last night at Marquette in one of their more dispirited, sloppy performances in recent memory.

ALL GOOD THINGS … : Cal Ripken playing 2,632 consecutive games. Edwin Moses winning the 400-meter hurdles in 122 consecutive races over 10 years. The Undertaker winning 21 consecutive matches at WrestleMania. They’re all impressive streaks in their own ways, yet nothing will compare to UConn winning 74 times after a loss for nearly three decades — a span of 1,083 games.

REMEMBER WHEN? The last time the Huskies lost consecutive games was on March 17, 1993, when they followed a loss to Providence in the Big East tournament semifinals with a loss to Louisville in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

• Geno Auriemma wrapped up his eighth season with the defeats but had the Huskies well on the path toward success. It was the fifth consecutive season they made the NCAA Tournament, and two years later, he’d cut down the nets for the first time when they beat Tennessee in Minneapolis to claim the national championship and cap the season 35-0.

HOW DID IT HAPPEN? The Huskies (21-4, 13-1 Big East) looked out of sorts from the start, with the emotion of Sunday’s close loss to No. 1 South Carolina and the exhaustion of playing so few players so many minutes finally catching up with them.

• The Huskies scored a season-low 10 points in the first quarter and fell behind 21-10 early in the second before chipping away at the deficit. They found their greatest success when pounding the ball into the low post, but Marquette quickly answered by using its size and length to clog the lane and push UConn away from the basket. UConn’s 19 turnovers and inability to push the ball in transition were death knells.

• Dorka Juhasz had a team-high 15 points and 11 rebounds and Aubrey Griffin and Lou Lopez Senechal each scored 12 points. Aaliyah Edwards had eight points and led the Huskies with 12 rebounds, and Nika Muhl, who played all 40 minutes, had five points and seven assists.

• Chloe Marotta had 19 points and Jordan King had 18 for the Golden Eagles (16-8, 9-6 Big East), who beat the Huskies for the first time in the teams’ 17 meetings.

TOO LITTLE, TOO LATE: UConn last led with 3:24 remaining in the first quarter and trailed 27-22 at halftime. Lopez Senechal had a chance to tie the score at 37 with 2:02 left in the third quarter but missed a second free throw and Marquette was able to hang on.

• It was a comedy of errors late in the fourth quarter for the Huskies, who several times found themselves within two points but couldn’t get over the hump. They had six turnovers in the final 10 minutes, including one when Muhl passed the ball directly to a defender and Edwards threw the ball into the stanchion from the top of the key.

• Juhasz made a 3-pointer with 1:20 remaining to draw the Huskies within 51-47, but it wasn’t to be. Marquette immediately responded when play resumed following a timeout and a turnover by Griffin sucked whatever hope remained among the visiting contingent at the Al McGuire Center.

WHAT DID GENO SAY? “That one stretch in the first quarter, I think, where we had maybe four or five straight turnovers, I think that just completely, totally deflated us — like, we can’t. After the week that we’ve had, after the 10 days, two weeks, whatever, we just, I think, mentally, all of us, no one in particular, I think we just checked out, and it was a major struggle because they were so locked in, their team. …

“Quite frankly, I’m surprised — and I told the team that — I’m surprised that it’s taken this long for us to have that kind of mental check out. That’s the first time all year in 20-something games that it happened.”

THE BOTTOM LINE: It’s easy to say that we’ll never see another streak like this in sports. UConn has had quite a few come to the end of the years — its 111-game winning streak that ended in 2017; its 90-game winning streak that ended in 2010; its 145-game regular-season conference win streak that ended last season — and every time one ends, it shows just how much the game has evolved since it began.

• Sure, the nostalgia makes the winning streaks fun. Heck, where were you the last time UConn lost consecutive games? A large number of fans hadn’t yet been born; even Lopez Senechal wouldn’t be born for another five years. It’s a mighty accomplishment, but as they say, streaks are made to be broken.

• “When people read that stat and they look back, that is a fairy-tale stat,” Geno said. “And all fairy tales — they don’t always come true — but everything has an end. So, this ended here at Marquette.”

UP NEXT: We wait and see whether the Huskies will lose three in a row for the first time since that same season. Thankfully, they head to Washington to face Georgetown on Saturday, though the Hoyas uncharacteristically gave the Huskies a bit of a challenge in the first meeting on Jan. 15.

— Zac Boyer

Morning Reads

• Nahiem Alleyne‘s performance for the men’s basketball team in its win against Marquette on Tuesday has Dan Hurley excited about the future. (Hearst Connecticut Media)

• Diana Taurasi memorably shouted “See you in Paris!” after winning a gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics, and yesterday, she reiterated her plans to play in the event next year, when she’ll be 42. (Hearst Connecticut Media)

• Terrel Williams ran the 60-meter hurdles in a school record 7.71 seconds at Harvard over the weekend and was in turn recognized as the Big East Men’s Track Athlete of the Week. (UConnHuskies.com)

• A documentary on the life of men’s basketball legend Worthy Patterson will premiere tonight at the Greenwich Historical Society. (Hearst Connecticut Media)

Top photo: Geno Auriemma yells to his players during the exhibition against Kutztown. (Courtesy of UConn athletics)