HARTFORD, Conn. _ Baylor was undoubtedly the toughest test to date UConn would see, and while the Huskies hung around to keep it a one-possession game going into the fourth quarter, they couldn't have anticipated the breakdown that would ultimately hand them their first loss of the season.
No. 1 UConn was outscored 19-6 in the fourth quarter and only made two of their 18 shot attempts in the final frame on their way to a 74-58 loss to No. 6 Baylor, the defending national champions. With the loss, UConn's 98-game home winning streak is snapped.
Crystal Dangerfield, Megan Walker and Christyn Williams scored all but three of UConn's points. Olivia Nelson-Ododa went 0 for 8 and sat the entire fourth quarter.
Te'a Cooper led all scorers with 27 points, including eight 3s. NaLyssa Smith and Lauren Cox chipped in 20 and 16, respectively.
UConn got out to a five-point lead by the end of the first quarter behind a combined 15 points from Walker and Williams, but Baylor settled in on both ends of the floor to start the second period. The Lady Bears regained the lead off a layup from Smith and eventually saw their lead increase to eight off an 8-0 spurt.
Anna Makurat broke a nearly four-minute scoreless streak for UConn with a corner 3 before Walker took over. The junior drilled another 3 before converting a three-point play off a steal and score that regained the lead for UConn.
Williams was two rebounds shy of a double-double in the first half alone. She and Walker accounted for 28 of UConn's 34 first-half points.
Midway through the third, Dangerfield responded to a layup from Smith that put Baylor up by three with a trey to knot the game, but Baylor used a 9-2 run to gain a seven-point advantage. A Williams free throw, layup from Walker, and 3 from Dangerfield got UConn back within three, and a missed layup from Walker off the backdoor with under 10 seconds left would have made it a one-point game.
A jumper in the paint from Williams made it a one-point game at the 6:36 mark of the fourth, but Baylor responded with a quick 6-0 run to go up by seven. UConn went scoreless for a six-minute stretch in the fourth in which Baylor scored 17 unanswered points. The dagger seemingly came when Smith rebounded her own miss off a free throw and then converted a three-point play after Walker fouled her on the shot, putting Baylor up by double digits.
