How Sabrina Ionescu and Oregon gave UConn their worst home loss since 2005

Nobody quiets a crowd like Sabrina Ionescu, who silenced 10,167 fans with a blasé pull-up two-point shot late in the second quarter of a game that would wind up feeling more like a blowout than it ever looked on paper.

A healthy portion of those fans were there rooting for her Ducks, and even those in the majority — sporting Huskies garb to Storrs, Connecticut’s storied Gampel Pavilion — had offered more-than-polite applause for the best player in women’s college basketball when she was introduced pregame. But, still, her answer to Christyn Williams’ only three of the game — which brought UConn within six points — was so swift and decisive the crowd was left agape. After Ionescu’s bucket (which was immediately followed by an assist to game MVP Ruthy Hebard, and then another bucket), the Huskies trailed by double-digits the rest of the game en route to an 18-point, 74-56 rout. It marks their worst loss ever at Gampel, and their worst home loss since 2005.

“I think we kind of took control early and then maintained it,” Oregon coach Kelly Graves said, which was true as the Huskies scored first and never led again.

Perhaps most important was despite Ionescu ending up a tantalizing one rebound and one assist away from her 24th triple-double, she was not the game’s most important player. Hebard (known as “the Hammer,” according to Graves) had an astounding 22-12, shooting above her already absurd average of 66.5 percent from the field. Satou Sabally had a double-double, as well, with four assists. Erin Boley got things going early with three three-pointers (for some reason, mostly taken without any coverage at all) and Minyon Moore was everywhere at once, challenging the Huskies from all corners of the floor.

In essence, this is the Oregon team we were promised. This is the team that will make you want to hang up your jersey and call your mom. We haven’t necessarily seen them all year: there was that loss to Louisville (now ranked No. 5) and Arizona State (now No. 19). But the Ducks picked-and-rolled their way to a decisive win over the team that is still, fairly or not, the standard-bearer of women’s college basketball.

“This is hallowed ground,” Graves added of the banner-filled arena. “They’ve been so good for so long.”

Decades of dominance didn’t keep junior Megan Walker from going 3 for 16 from the floor, or the Huskies from a season-worst 28.6 percent from the free-throw line.

“During that first quarter, it was evident that physically we couldn’t match up with them,” UConn coach Geno Auriemma said after the game. “They took advantage of every mistake we made.” The Ducks got 17 points off turnovers and UConn got four.

Crystal Dangerfield made four threes en route to 19 points, but the team looked so out of sorts on the defensive end that they weren’t able to get the stops needed to support her hot shooting — at one point, the 5’5 senior was under the basket trying to contest 6’4 Hebard.

“That was probably the most frustrating part: they got a lot of uncontested shots,” Dangerfield said. “We pride ourselves on making teams miss, and we didn’t do that tonight.”

“I mean, it’s devastating,” said UConn forward Olivia Nelson-Ododa of the loss. “It’s an awful feeling for that to happen.”

In the postgame, there was almost nothing to discuss: it was a holistic beatdown with no glimmer of hope or vindicating bad call. Auriemma could only praise his opponents. “She’s just smart,” he said of Ionescu. “She waits for you to make a mistake. A lot of guards, they go so fast they don’t give you a chance to make a mistake. She goes at a pace where she waits and waits and waits, and when you screw up [he snaps] she takes advantage of it. She doesn’t run by you or jump over you. She does it more old-school basketball-wise: she beats you with her head, her eyes, and how relentless she is.”

As for his own team, which hasn’t made it to the NCAA finals in three years (for them, a disappointment) and is facing another marquee match-up against current No. 1 South Carolina in Columbia next week, Auriemma wasn’t interested in pulling any punches. “It’s not my job to make them feel better right now,” he said. “My job is to be realistic with them and say pick up the paper, go on social media, see what happened here tonight and then deal with it. Plain and simple. You were part of it, can’t pretend you weren’t.”

He’s generally not one to mince words, something his players will inevitably have to confront even more in the coming days. “It’s hard,” Nelson-Ododa said of his sometimes- biting frankness. “I’m still struggling with it. That’s something that I’m just going to have to continue to adapt to.”

For those on the outside looking in, the question of just how much trouble the Huskies are in heading into the NCAA tournament — and how much their soft conference schedule, in comparison to Oregon who is facing three ranked teams in the next two weeks, is hindering them — provides great fodder for debate. For those on the team, it hopefully supplies a much needed chip for their collective shoulder.

“There was just a lot of frustration around the room,” Dangerfield said of the locker room. “We have a day off, but I would bet money that we’re not going to have a day off. As a team, we’re going to get together, we’re going to figure something out. The way this one feels for everybody, I think we’re going to need something different.”