The No. 5 UConn Huskies flopped in an 80-76 loss on the road at the No. 19 Tennessee Volunteers on Thursday night. The Huskies shot just 5-20 from three, went 19-35 on layups and struggled in the game’s biggest moments.

UConn trailed by as many as eight in the fourth quarter but came back to tie it at 74-74 with 2:07 remaining. From there, Tennessee out-scored the Huskies 6-2 and made three of their final four shots.

Sarah Strong had 18 points but turned the ball over five times and committed a bad foul with 30 seconds left that reset the shot clock from nine seconds to 20. Paige Bueckers finished with 14 points on a rough 5-14 night from the field, though she still had eight assists.

Neither side could find much of an edge in the opening quarter. Tennessee jumped out to a 4-0 lead, then UConn came back with five straight points. The Vols went back up then the Huskies slowly whittled the deficit down before going ahead themselves.

Tennessee tied the game at 22 all with 8:00 left in the second quarter before UConn took the lead with back-to-back layups from Strong.

The Huskies soon pushed their advantage out to seven points before the offense went cold. They didn’t score for nearly three minutes, which allowed Tennessee to claw back within two. UConn answered by extending the gap back to seven, only to have the Vols again pull it back to two at the break.

Neither side could get the three-ball to fall in the first half. The Huskies went 3-12 from deep while Tennessee was 3-16. UConn also struggled on layups, making just 11-19.

Early in the third quarter, the Vols went on an 8-0 run — aided by back-to-back turnovers from the Huskies — to take the lead which prompted Geno Auriemma to take a timeout. It didn’t help. Tennessee extended the run to 13-0 and went ahead by nine — the largest lead of the night.

UConn cut it down to two points, only to let it balloon back to eight early in the fourth quarter. Again, the Huskies steadily ate into the deficit and tied the game with 3:16 remaining. After the Vols re-took the lead, Bueckers drilled a 3-pointer down the other end to pull even.

From there, UConn’s defense faltered, allowing points on four straight possessions as Tennessee went up by four. Strong made it a one-score game with a layup but then committed a bad foul with nine seconds left on the shot clock (and 30.1 remaining on the game clock), which reset it 20 seconds.

On the ensuing possession, the Vols scored to extend their lead to four with just 12 seconds left. UConn missed its final two shots to give Tennessee the upset victory.

The loss snaps the Huskies’ four-game winning streak in the series as they fall to 21-3 on the season. Next, they return to Big East play with a trip to Providence on Sunday.