Mighty UConn women too much for Temple

History trails Geno Auriemma's Connecticut Huskies into every arena. Not Lobo and Bird, Taurasi and Moore - this group led by Breanna Stewart and Moriah Jefferson already has taken care of those past UConn ghosts.

This group of Huskies has its own history to deal with. The UConn seniors are 24-0 this season and 137-5 in these jerseys, chasing their fourth straight national title. They keep adding to these insane feats of dominance - up to 61 straight victories, and 108 of 109. Big upsets? Forget it. The Huskies have won 101 straight against unranked teams, and 278 of 279, by itself one of the craziest things in sports.

Sunday at noon, Temple got to host all that, packing in McGonigle Hall. Let the record show that some funny things happened.

Like the time Auriemma called a timeout. Along press row, there was brief discussion, at least among non-UConn press, about how if Auriemma felt the need for a second one, stat sheets might need to be checked, although there is no category for most timeouts called against an unranked team.

Playing against UConn, you look for sub-units, numbers that show better than the final ones on the scoreboard - which in this case read 85-60 - that an interesting basketball game had taken place.

If you took the first four minutes of each quarter, Temple actually won those cumulative 16 minutes by nine points. It wasn't just one Temple run.

Other than the fact that each quarter is 10 minutes, Auriemma was asked what he made of that stat. He's seen it before, he said.

"I think the cumulative effect - you have to keep scoring against us because if you have a three-minute drought or a four-minute drought then you're going to look at from being down four to being down 16," Auriemma said. "It changes quickly, and sometimes it only takes one really bad quarter and you're out of it."

This time, UConn would pull out and Temple scrapped back. Auriemma remembered looking up at one point and calculating that his team had scored 16 points so far in the third quarter. Pretty good.

"And I looked over at their score," Auriemma said. "So did they."

The difference - the only difference - was that he had all-Americans to turn to, he said. Stewart, the best the college game has, finished with 24 points, seven assists, and eight rebounds while Jefferson, arguably the nation's second best player, had 25 points and eight assists, plus eight steals.

Stewart keeps making her own case for best college player ever, playing inside and out. That's how she's most dangerous, Auriemma said. When substitution matters cause the Huskies to keep her inside, it doesn't have the same impact, despite Stewart's ability to establish herself on the low block.

Temple is legit, second in the AAC, now 17-8 overall. The Owls had won six straight coming in.

But legit doesn't make life easy against this team. In Storrs last month, UConn had six players in double figures, three starters and three subs. Point guard Alliya Butts led Temple with 12 points. UConn had almost as many rebounds (48) as Temple had points (49). The final margin that day was 55 points.

"When they're open, they make open shots," said Temple coach Tonya Cardozo, a former Auriemma assistant. In Storrs, the idea had been to pack it in The shots were open and the Huskies kept making them.

This time the plan was to play like Temple, which meant essentially playing five guards, scrapping and trapping and trying to forget the jerseys on the other women. The Owls conceded the opening tip, letting Stewart tap it back to Jefferson without a Temple player in the UConn backcourt. The Owls conceded nothing else. Loose balls were true 50-50s and Auriemma was dismayed by the 14 Temple steals, a season high against UConn, as well as the second-chance and fastbreak points, basically even.

In the second quarter, Donnaizha Fountain blocked a Stewart shot and did a passable imitation of a Cam Newton celebration. Fountain wasn't even sure what the celebration move was - "I was just in the moment."

Butts, the smallest player on the court, hit a couple of threes in a row and the building got excited. Cardoza noted that UConn's fans started cheering once and Temple's students shouted them down.

Asked about what she had picked up from Auriemma during her time on UConn's staff, Cardozo, talked about "never being OK with anything," how it didn't matter if the Huskies won a game by 40 points - Auriemma, one of Norristown's finest sons, could be unhappy with the whole endeavor.

Did she think this might be one of those unhappy days?

"I think it might be," Cardozo said.

Yes, it says something about what Auriemma has built that a single timeout goes down as an accomplishment.

"Honestly, he never calls a timeout," Cardoza said. "We went to the huddle, I was like, 'Guys, you just did something impressive.' "

mjensen@phillynews.com

@jensenoffcampus