Bridgeport — Geno Auriemma, aside from being a basketball Hall of Famer, is a passionate sports fan. His musings are often awash in sports references and metaphors, led by his transcendent view of offense, that would mimic the free flowing Edmonton Oilers with Gretzky, Kurri and Coffey.

Thus, he not only understands the rhythms of sports, but appreciates them: you win on the grand stage, you lose there, too. Losing is part of the deal. And sometimes suffering makes the winning even sweeter.

This is a prologue for what happened Saturday at Webster Bank Arena. Barely 12 hours before tipoff, top-seeded Notre Dame went down in the round of 16 to Stanford. Before that, top-seeded South Carolina went down to Syracuse.

Yet with one minor exception, such a fate has never befallen UConn. Never. Upsets happen to everybody else. But here? Think Old Man River. They jes'keep rollin' along.

At one point Saturday, Mississippi State, a 28-win team, could have gone on a 50-0 run ... and still trailed by 18 points.

(No, really.)

Auriemma was asked about this phenomenon — upsets never happen here — after Saturday's 98-38 victory. He cracked that he'd rather have taken the question at 10 o'clock Monday night, after which his team would, presumably, have made the Final Four.

"I'd like to think that that, generally speaking, when we show up with the best team, we tend to play our best. But that's not always going to happen," he said. "We were just having this conversation outside in the hall. We're pretty hard on our guys, we're pretty hard on our kids in the middle of January, in the middle of nowhere, and we're playing a game that everybody thinks is meaningless. And we demand certain things.

"Then, when you get to this time of the year, hopefully, they don't know any other way of playing. So, when we started out playing the way we did today, I was taken aback myself. That's one of the top defensive teams in the country, right? I knew they would have a hard time guarding Stewie (Breanna Stewart) and (Morgan) Tuck. They're just not used to seeing players like that.

"But I even told them during the timeout, and I never do this, I told them during one timeout, I said, 'man, you guys are really good.' I was just caught up in it all. Now, timeouts on Monday might be completely different."

The last (and only) time UConn ever went out in the round of 16 came in 1999 to Iowa State. It was freshman year for the Sue Bird/Tamika Williams group. The Huskies were not a top seed, barely beat Xavier at Gampel Pavilion in the second round and hadn't been to the Final Four in the two previous seasons. That team hardly had the resume of Notre Dame and South Carolina of 2016.

All you need to know about this group: The seniors have never lost a game in the NCAA tournament. There we go with the word "never" again.

"It felt like I was playing a WNBA team," Mississippi State coach Vic Schaefer said. "That team right there ... I don't know what team in the league they can't compete with. They got all the pieces. So it's a frustrating proposition trying to deal with them, because they are so multi-dimensional.

"I think what separates them is there's lots of great teams across the country that have a lot of All-Americans. Coach Auriemma gets the most out of his. He doesn't let them settle. He develops them to the fullest. That team has developed to the fullest. They're good. I think we're pretty good, ya'll, and we looked awful today."

We shouldn't need reminders anymore that we are watching something historic. And while it's a harder sell to watch them dismantle Tulane on a Tuesday night in January, Auriemma's point is well taken. Even then, while many of us yawn, there are the same demands and expectations as in the Sweet 16.

And anybody else out there who starts waving the flag for the "UConn is bad for the game" narrative ought to pipe down and perhaps wonder why UConn kids play harder than everybody else, too.

"Don't worry, (Auriemma is) going to get another great recruiting class. He's going to continue to recruit well. There's going to be another lineup like the one that played today. So, it isn't going to change," Schaefer said. "And again, I just think that you have to give them their due. Whether you like it or not, you got to give them their due. They're good, they have been good, and they're going to continue to be good. He's not running out of steam or ideas or juice."

So enjoy March Madness and the upsets. Just don't expect the Huskies to succumb.

This is the opinion of Day sports columnist Mike DiMauro.