Bob Child / AP

Connecticuit's Maya Moore drives past Stanford's Kayla Pedersen during the first half of the Huskies’ 80-68 victory Wednesday.

The first 20 minutes was an offensive showcase. UConn led 19-10 early before Stanford went on a 15-2 run capped by Pedersen’s jumper that made it 25-21 midway through the first half. Pedersen and Ogwumike had 11 of the Cardinal’s 15 points during the spurt. It was the biggest deficit UConn faced all season. The Huskies had only trailed for a total of 2:38 in their first nine games.

The teams traded baskets the rest of the half and Stanford led 40-38 at the break. It was the first time UConn found itself down at halftime since the 2008 loss to the Cardinal.

Ogwumike had 16 points and Pedersen 12 as Stanford shot 57 percent from the field in the half. The Cardinal finished at 46 percent for the game and were outrebounded 43-29.

“They came out and were more aggressive,” Ogwumike said of the second half. “What it felt like for me is we were slow to react to what was going on.”

At 5-5, Stanford is one of the rare teams to have success against UConn since Auriemma took over the program in 1985. Wednesday was the Cardinal’s first regular-season trip to Connecticut since Jan. 20, 1993 — and only second all-time. Connecticut will go to Stanford next season.

Stanford can take some solace from the game as they also lost to UConn by 12 points in Nov. 2007, before beating the Huskies in the Final Four that season.

“This is a good benchmark for us to see where we stand against the No. 1 team in the nation,” Jayne Appel said. “We’ll use it as motivation but we have a lot of games before we can say we’re going back to the Final Four.”

Connecticut honored the 1999-2000 championship team at halftime. That team, led by Sue Bird, Swin Cash, and Svetlana Abrosimova, won the second of UConn’s national championships.

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