University of Connecticut head women’s basketball coach Geno Auriemma was almost speechless for the first time in his prosperous college coaching career. The face of one of sports’ great dynasties was more stunned than irate after such an improbable loss.

“I’m seeing things that I haven’t seen in…” Auriemma said before trailing off in a post game press conference. His Huskies suffered their sixth regular season loss in the history of the Hartford Civic Center Wednesday, dropping a 67-51 crusher to the Michigan State Spartans.

The 16-point deficit was the largest home since the 1991-1992 season, the last season that UConn has dropped three games this quickly. Their third loss that season also fell on December 29.

The Huskies, who recently dropped from the top-10 for the first time in 196 weeks, fell to 6-3 as the Spartans improved to a program-best 11-1. The last time the Spartans were ranked ahead of the Huskies was in 1977, the first year of the Associated Press poll.

It was all senior leadership as the same Spartan team that won on Minnesota’s home court last year and Notre Dame’s home court this year plowed over a UConn team that may have gotten spoiled by winning the last two national championships.

“They’ve got good players and they’re a veteran group,” Auriemma said. “They were confident in what they wanted to do.”

What they did was cement themselves as a national power and a threat in March while recording their third win over a ranked Big East opponent this season. Junior Lindsay Bowen contributed nearly one-third of the team’s offense, leading all scorers with 21 points as her team held UConn to a stifled 33% shooting clip from the field.

The story of the first half was Ann Strother. She was the answer for the Spartans’ size down low. Strother was on fire with nine points on 3-4 shooting behind the arc. However the Huskies second half woes continued as the team shot 2-12 from three-point range. On the flipside, MSU shot 8-15 from long range and 13-16 from the charity stripe.

“When it rains, it pours,” Auriemma said, alluding to the sharp shooting of the Spartans. When asked about preparing for the ensuing league play, he grimaced in pain. The Huskies are winless against ranked teams this season, and the Big East is a loaded conference with six teams either ranked or receiving votes in the national polls.

Leading the way for the Huskies was Barbara Turner who turned in 16 points in a game in which the Huskies trailed at the half, 30-26, for the first time this season. It was back and forth in the first half with the lead never eclipsing seven points. The Spartans turned on the jets in the second half with runs of 7-0 and 13-2. They never looked back in a game that saw only three lead changes and one tie.

“What’s in store for the next week or so,” Auriemma asked himself aloud. “I don’t know.” The Huskies have a two-week stretch in which they face an undefeated upstart St. John’s team on the road, an annual match-up at home against Tennessee (who also dropped a game Wednesday night to Rutgers), and a road trip to South Bend to play Notre Dame.

“Maybe we’re not ready,” Auriemma said, after pointing out that holding a team near 60 points is usually the recipe of a win, but not in this case. “That’s where the intangibles come in. We tried a little bit of everything.”

You can’t point any fingers on defense. This Husky team did everything under the sun to stop MSU. Auriemma threw different zones and man to man coverage, as each individual player kept their collective ground in the paint and played excellent help defense. Despite the fact that MSU pulled away in the second half, UConn held the Spartans to just 31 percent shooting in the second half.

The Huskies just couldn’t seem to put the ball into the basket even if it had been the size of a swimming pool. Even the free throw shooting was horrendous at 30 percent.

Auriemma said he hasn’t been this frustrated with his team’s play since his first season as a coach. The thing to do now is bandage up the wounds and move on.

“We are going to have to go about it one thing at a time,” Auriemma said.

Many coaches tell their players that at the beginning of every game they play they are 0-0. No baggage from losses and no false sense of confidence from wins. The only way for this Husky team to get back on track is to take it one game at a time.

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