Coming into Tuesday night’s road game against the reigning titans of women’s college basketball, the University of Connecticut Huskies, the SMU women’s team (14-8, 5-6 in AAC) was the winner of three straight games and was looking to make an emphatic statement in the American Athletic Conference.

Sadly for the Mustangs, that chance never came about.

SMU went into Storrs, Conn. and lost its sixth AAC contest by the widest margin of the season, 102-41.

The top-ranked Huskies got off to a 19-0 lead before six minutes had passed in the first half and never looked back as SMU was only able to score 19 points in the first 20 minutes of play.

In the second half, it was just as miserable for SMU, as the team was held to 22 points while UConn ran away with ease thanks to a smothering defense and a balanced offense.

Led by Keena Mays’ 20 points on eight of 24 shots, the Mustangs scoring attack was held down throughout, as the senior guard was the only player for SMU to score more than five points. No bench player was even able to convert a field goal, as the entire team shot a paltry 20 percent overall and made only three of their 19 attempts from beyond the arc.

Connecticut did not face the same issues however, as the NCAA title favorites and winners of 30-straight games made nearly three times the amount of baskets as SMU, and lit up the Mustangs’ defense with 12 converted three-pointers. Each Huskie starter scored in the double-digits, led by one of the frontrunners in the nation for the Naismith award, senior Bria Hartley’s 21.

It was a crushing loss for head coach Rhonda Rompola’s squad, who haven’t given up more than 90 points in a defeat since December of 2010, but the team will have to press on in order to not fall into a trap this late in the season.

AAC play will continue for SMU on Saturday at 2 p.m. when the Mustangs return to Moody Coliseum to square off with Rutgers University.