With 15 seeds playing on the court of a 2 seed, and that second seed is UConn, it’s only a matter of time.

Mercer entered the second quarter of the NCAA Tournament first-round game down only eight, showing some feistiness on defense to counter some inconsistent offense.

But the eight-point margin became 18 less than three minutes into the second quarter as UConn flexed its depth and height muscles en route to an 83-38 win Saturday afternoon in front of about 5,000 at Gampel Pavilion.

Mercer’s season ends at 23-7 after its first meeting with the perennial national title favorite.

“Well, it's been a long time since we've lost,” Mercer head coach Susie Gardner said. “We won 12 games in a row. The last time we lost was January the 20th and you kind of forget what that feels like.”

The Bears’ hopes to stay close took a major hit four minutes into the second quarter when Amoria Neal-Tysor went out with an elbow injury after she hit the floor on a drive.

“Unfortunately we had worst case scenario that could have happened when Amoria Neal-Tysor went down, our starting point guard, our leading scorer,” Gardner said. “We prepared really hard all week. We knew how good UConn is, but you don't prepare to have your starting point guard and the player that's going to play 40 minutes go down in the second quarter.”

“And I'm not saying that would have changed the outcome of the game but it might have changed the margin.”

Without Neal-Tysor, the Bears had no true point guard, a deadly situation against a taller, faster team that was starting to press. Freshman Erin Houpt, a shooter, took over most of the point duties, taking her out of her normal role.

“It did, it shook us,” Gardner said. “I mean, we were unable to run a lot of our plays that we normally run because Erin and Endia don't really have a large vocabulary in terms of what they can run.

“But I felt like Erin did pretty well. What it did, though, was it took her out of position to get open for her threes because she then had to handle the ball.”

The margin was 32-11 at that point. Her departure meant the absence of 17 points and 4.4 rebounds a game. She returned to the bench after halftime with her left arm in a sling.

Still, the Bears – despite some sloppy passing that UConn converted into easy buckets – kept scrapping. The margin grew to 21 and then dropped to 16 before the Huskies settled on a 43-23 halftime lead.

“It takes a little bit of time in that first game,” UConn head coach Geno Auriemma said. “And I thought we came out in the second half and we played exceptionally good defense in that third quarter and that got everything going in the right direction and got us more involved offensively.”

Mercer had about a half-dozen shots go in and out, and was at 26.7 percent shooting in the first half, only 1 of 7 on 3s. The Huskies countered with 51.7 percent and 5 of 12, plus a 21-16 rebound advantage.

UConn had 10 turnovers, four less than its full-game average. But Mercer had 13, matching its average.

We went into the game wanting to play quickly and make sure that we created as many possessions as possible,” Auriemma said. “And one of the downsides to playing like that is you try to play a little too quickly sometimes and play fast and make passes and make decisions that you wouldn't ordinarily make.

“And I thought defensively Mercer did a pretty good job of forcing some of our other guys to have to make shots early in the game. That always takes a little bit of time to get used to.”

The Huskies’ average first-round tournament win – and they tipped off having won 27 straight – in the past 29 years was 48.2 points, and last 14 by 51.3.

They hit a 30-point lead at the 6:09 mark of the third quarter on Paige Bueckers’ layup, and went up by 40 with 31.2 seconds left in the third on a free throw. An immediate turnover doomed Mercer to a scoreless third quarter, trailing 63-23 entering the fourth.

“UConn's a great team,” Jaron Dougherty said. “They do pride their self in playing great defense and putting pressure. And we did struggle to score in that quarter, as the score shows.”

It was the third time a team has been held scoreless in a quarter in a women’s tournament game, Mercer joining Texas (vs. South Carolina, 2021) and Montana State (vs. Stanford, Friday night). The Bears went 0 for 12 from the floor and didn’t get to the line in the quarter. The Huskies were only 8 of 21 in the third.

Mercer finally broke the drought 18 seconds into the fourth on a 3 from freshman Erin Houpt. The Bears finished at 23.2 percent, 13 of 56 from the floor. Jaron Dougherty struggled to a 1-for-10 day, and Shannon Titus 3 for 14. Neal-Tysor was 2 of 10 when she went out.

Titus led Mercer with 13 points and five steals in her career finale.

Christyn Williams led the Huskies with 13 points, and Bueckers added 12. UConn had a 53-30 rebound edge, and was 12 of 27 from 3 to 3 of 12 for Mercer, which managed only four assists against 21 turnovers.

Inevitably, Mercer got what a lot of teams get when they play UConn, although there were bright spots.

“We went in at halftime and we talked about … I think it was they had 18 points off of turnovers and they had 12 points off of offensive rebounds for a total of 30 points. And they only had like 43 points I believe at half,” Gardner said. “So only 13 of those points were from a set, not transition offense and not offensive rebounds.”

That was a positive. But …

“I feel like it was the press that got us and then we just, we weren't hitting shots and I feel like part of it is we were rushing shots,” Gardner said. “We're not used to that length, we weren't hitting.

“Sometimes unfortunately that's contagious when you're not hitting. When you are hitting, it's also contagious. So it was just a total effort of misery.”