For an 11-day stretch, the Marquette women's basketball team had three chances to take down a ranked opponent.

No one gave the Golden Eagles a shot to upend No. 5 Rutgers, but Marquette held its own, losing 65-61 at the Al McGuire Center.

Then it was off to West Virginia to take on the No. 14 Mountaineers, where the Golden Eagles again fell just short of a victory, losing 68-63.

The Golden Eagles then returned home to play then No. 23 DePaul on Saturday. Maybe it was the home court advantage. Or maybe it was the heated rivalry between the two schools. Regardless of the reasons, Marquette's 65-56 win over the Blue Demons, its first victory over a ranked opponent this season, was certainly a relief.

"We were close with Rutgers, close with West Virginia but we didn't close the game out," head coach Terri Mitchell said. "Today, what I saw was a determination from our team to get it done down the stretch."

After two tough losses to ranked opponents, junior Krystal Ellis rebounds and six blocked shots as the Huskies (12-5, 3-3 Big East) lived up to their defensive statistics while also coming up with one their best offensive showings of the season.

"We're getting better every day and we always play defense," Thabeet said. "We had poise today."

It was the second straight big loss for Marquette (13-4, 3-3), which lost 71-51 to Louisville on Thursday. The Golden Eagles had their third poor shooting game in their last four, finishing at 40 percent (26-for-65), a number which they improved significantly with a scoring flurry over the game's final minutes.

Connecticut came into the game sixth in the nation in field goal percentage defense (36.8) and led the country in blocked shots (9.2). The Huskies finished with 10 blocks Sunday with Thabeet, who was 3-for-3 from the field and 9-for-13 from the free throw line, leading the way.

"I felt Hasheem owned the middle," Calhoun said. "We decided to take advantage of our size right away by going inside on offense and that's what allowed us to be 5-for-11 on 3s."

Marquette shot a season-worst 30.4 percent in the loss to Louisville which included missing all 12 of its 3-point attempts. On Sunday, the Golden Eagles were 10-for-21 from beyond the arc.

"I'm more concerned we're not making stops defensively." Marquette coach Tom Crean said when asked about his team's recent shooting woes. "Hopefully we'll get something from the way we played the last 10, 12 minutes. We have to play with our hair on fire to be good."

Connecticut's last win over a ranked team was over then-No. 17 Washington in the regional semifinals of the 2006 NCAA tournament, the game before the Huskies lost to George Mason for the right to advance to the Final Four.

Calhoun said the players "didn't have a clue" about the losing streak against ranked teams.

"Probably at the end you saw me a bit frustrated," he said of Marquette's scoring over the final 10 minutes. "I just wanted a totally dominating experience, because we haven't had that against a team obviously like Marquette."

Jeff Adrien and Craig Austrie both had 15 points for the Huskies, who had lost two straight and three of four.

Lazar Hayward had 14 points for the Golden Eagles, who had won two of three, and Wesley Matthews added 13. Dominic James, Marquette's leading scorer with a 14.1 average, finished with nine points on 4-for-10 shooting.

"He's tough, he's not asking out, but he's just not 100 percent," Crean said of James, who injured his right wrist four games ago when he was fouled hard. "He hurt it again against Louisville. We'll just have to see how he feels."

The Huskies were 33-for-39 from the free throw line while the Golden Eagles were 11-for-18.

Connecticut took a 12-4 lead as Marquette missed 10 of its first 11 shots from the field. The Huskies stretched the lead to 39-24 at halftime by holding the Golden Eagles to 27.6 percent (8-for-29), while hitting 51.7 percent (15-for-29).

The offensive struggles continued for Marquette at the start of the second half as the Golden Eagles missed seven of their first nine shots as the Huskies opened a 51-29 lead on a three-point play by Jerome Dyson with 13:49 to play.

The biggest lead was 67-38 on a foul line jumper by Thabeet with 9:30 to go.

The losing streak against ranked opponents was the Huskies' longest since it dropped 10 straight to Top 25 teams in Calhoun's first two seasons at Connecticut.