UConn women’s basketball coach Geno Auriemma sees a fourth-quarter pattern emerging and he doesn’t like it

If you had told Huskies fans in early December that the UConn women’s basketball team, playing without reigning national player of the year Paige Bueckers and three other key rotation pieces, would suffer a five-point loss to a top 10 Louisville team, most would call that a respectable outcome given the circumstances.

Yet that 69-64 loss Dec. 19 at Mohegan Sun Arena felt more painful than that for the Huskies — largely because a quality victory over a team now ranked No. 3 in the Associated Press poll was well within reach.

UConn led for 26:33 of the game, compared to Louisville’s 12:22, and maintained a three-point advantage heading into the fourth quarter.

But, as has happened in each of UConn’s three losses this season (including two without Bueckers), mistakes or a certain player’s inability to step up proved costly. This has not lost on coach Geno Auriemma.

“That was very disappointing, because as shorthanded as we were, we still should have won that game,” Auriemma told Bob Joyce on his weekly radio show. “They made a couple big, big shots late in the game, obviously. And [freshman] Caroline [Ducharme] made some huge shots. But there wasn’t a whole lot of help from our players there in that fourth quarter. And that’s kind of become a little bit of a pattern that I don’t like and somehow I’m going to have to get to the bottom of.”

In a valiant effort, Ducharme scored 13 of her career-high 24 points in the fourth, a huge step forward for the freshman who had taken a few games to find her footing. “She’s not afraid of big moments and she’s gonna get a ton of minutes from here on in the rest of the season,” Auriemma said.

But what was concerning was that the rest of the team managed just six, all of which came in the final minute as the Huskies saw a six-point lead turn into a six-point deficit.

All players aside from Ducharme shot 3 of 13 in the fourth, and seniors Christyn Williams and Evina Westbrook combined for just four points on 2-for-8 shooting.

“It’s not something that we’re used to, where players struggle in the fourth quarter to make plays, to make shots,” Auriemma said. “And not only that, but don’t make dumb decisions, don’t make silly plays that make it even harder to win. It’s hard enough to win the game without beating yourself, and that’s something that we traditionally don’t do here. And it’s showed up now in those three losses in the fourth quarter. That needs to be addressed and hopefully we pay more attention to that.”

While Louisville may have its own flaws, it made the plays needed to win. UConn turned the ball over four times in the fourth, mostly unforced errors, whereas Louisville showed poise by committing zero turnovers. The Cardinals went 5 of 9 from the field in the fourth (3-for-3 on 3s), and a commendable 14 of 16 from the free throw line.

“And that’s what good teams do. When they have an opportunity to put the game away, they put it away,” Auriemma said.

While UConn’s offensive issues have been most glaring, there have been stretches were a lack of defense has hurt. Up until the Huskies started to intentionally foul, Louisville had just three empty possessions on offense, scoring on its other eight.Aside from Olivia Cochran’s scoreless trip to the free-throw line at the 1:10 mark, the Huskies didn’t get a stop or force a turnover on the defensive end after the 5:02 mark — hardly a winning formula.

“We did our part, we scored when we came down, but so did they, so we could never really cut the deficit that much,” Auriemma said. “But there were a couple of big shots that were made by them, and a couple of threes that went in for them were really, really game breakers.”

Louisville entered the game not shooting a ton of 3s (and making 35.4% of them). Sophomore Hailey Van Lith in particular was struggling from the arc all season, hitting just 15% of her shots from the perimeter entering the game. But when her team needed it most, Van Lith — accidentally left open two times when Ducharme, her defender, lost her on the wing — hit a pair of 3s on consecutive possessions to give Louisville the lead for good.

“Van Lith’s shots, those were tough shots going from one side of the floor all the way to the other and we had a couple of defensive breakdowns there, but still, the kid had to make the shots and you have to respond when that happens. First, you got to get a stop. But second, you have to respond when they score like that, and we just didn’t have enough people responding.”

There’s plenty of time for the Huskies, who have been dealing with COVID-19 issues and have seen their first four games back from the holiday break canceled, to correct their late-game execution, including in their three remaining nonconference games against Oregon, South Carolina and Tennessee. Things will get easier once their four injured players return, although there’s little doubt the Huskies’ most experienced core (Williams, Westbrook, Olivia Nelson-Ododa and Dorka Juhász) will be expected to step up more consistently, especially as Bueckers remains sidelined.

The experience, either way, will also help them for when it matters most in March and maybe April.

“I really got to feel like if we keep putting ourselves in that situation, then we’re gonna win our share of those,” Auriemma said.

Alexa Philippou can be reached at aphilippou@courant.com