Well, at least UConn won’t have the specter of an undefeated season hanging over its head for a second straight year. On Thursday, No. 5 Michigan knocked off the Huskies in Ann Arbor, 77-66.

It’s not all that difficult to diagnose what went wrong. The Wolverines clearly treated this game as their Super Bowl and UConn didn’t match that intensity. After looking ahead of schedule and fairly put together through three exhibitions and the season opener, the Huskies were out of sync and rattled throughout the night.

“Michigan was way more ready from the opening tip for this game than we were. They were better organized. They were more disciplined,” Geno Auriemma said postgame. “More than anything, I’m disappointed — not at the loss… We wouldn’t have scheduled the schedule we have if we didn’t anticipate that there would be losses. So it’s not about the loss. It’s just disappointing to see how some of our players reacted when it was time to step up and make plays.”

“We don’t have the ability to respond right now,” he added later.

Sarah Strong put it more succinctly.

“We just didn't play UConn basketball at all and I think we just let Michigan do whatever they wanted to do the whole time,” she said.

But Jovana Popovic summed it up best.

“We play very bad,” she said.

Beyond that, plenty from this defeat had cropped up previously. Strong didn’t have a great preseason and dealt with foul trouble at times. Auriemma has raised concerns about his defense at every opportunity. Blanca Quiñonez showed obvious signs of rust on Monday against Cornell after sitting out the entire offseason while recovering from shoulder surgery. The quality of UConn’s depth evaporated against better competition.

There’s plenty for the Huskies to fix, but the good news is that it’s plenty fixable. They didn’t lose because Michigan exposed some fundamental flaws. They just didn’t execute well in a 40-minute sample. The sky isn’t falling. It’s only the second game of the season. UConn will improve.

If anything, it’ll be better because of this result. Last season, the Huskies were so good from the jump that it created the illusion that they were infallible. That meant they didn’t progress as the season wore on. In fact, they regressed and eventually came crashing back to Earth in the Final Four.

This UConn team will have no such illusions. The more scars it picks up over the next two months, the better off it’ll be come March.

“I told the team this when we got here. I said, ‘We could be home playing somebody that we're going to win 90-30, or we could be here where even if we play well, we could lose,’” Auriemma said “I think they'd rather do that — play here — and we found out right away what some of the things that we have to address. If we played somebody really bad at home, we would have to wait a lot longer to find out what the issues are.”

Collectively, the Huskies had no shortage of issues on Thursday night. But the loss falls squarely at the feet of one individual: Sarah Strong.