Top-ranked South Carolina 70, No. 5 UConn 52. In Columbia The Gamecocks were 0-8 versus Geno and the Huskies before last night.

If you’re scoring at home, UConn has lost twice in the past eight days. If you’re scoring closely at home, UConn has lost twice by 18 points in each game in the past eight days. The Huskies have lost by at least 16 points, and granted, to the top three programs in the country— Baylor, Oregon and South Carolina— three times this season. They have three regular-season losses.

For comparison’s sake, UConn has only lost three times in the regular season twice since the 2007-2008 season. And in those two years, seven of the eight pre-NCAA tournament defeats were in the single-digit margins (two by a single point). I don’t know how far you’d have to go back before you found three UConn defeats in one season all by 16 or more points. My guesses are 1) before the landmark 1994-95 season or 2) before Geno arrived.

Even more astounding, last night was likely the first night in more than a decade that the opposing team had more players with NCAA championship rings (2) than UConn (0). The current crop of Huskies have never cut down the nets, as UConn has been bounced from the last three Final Fours. And this team is in danger of not making it that far for a simple reason: they simply don’t play together that well. Geno has a few former high school players of the year on his roster, just one of which most coaches would kill for, but there is no standout. And they don’t seem to have the chemistry his better teams have had.

Only twice since UConn won its first title, in 1995 and led by Rebecca Lobo and Jen Rizzotti, have the Huskies gone an entire four-year cycle without winning a national championship: 1996-1999 and 2005-2008. They’ve never gone five years without a title since 1995. This could mark their fourth straight season without one. We’ll see. Geno’s still by far the best coach in women’s hoops.

Paige Bueckers, a whiz kid from the Twin Cities who is seen as the nation’s top prep player, is set to arrive next season in Storrs. She can’t make it there soon enough.