Here came a night when the college star he cheered and advised, Sabrina Ionescu, the grieving friend who said, “This season’s for him,” arrived way over here in New England with her No. 3 Oregon Ducks, and the whole lot of them created some sort of parallel universe even if a lot of it did seem to make basketball sense.

They gave the Connecticut dynasty currently ranked No. 4 the worst loss it ever took in the on-campus Harry A. Gampel Pavilion — 74-56 at the finish — its first loss there in seven years and its eighth loss there in the past 27 seasons, and they lent the night a soundtrack that bordered on the extraterrestrial.

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Soon, the ear could pick up Geno Auriemma, the iconic Connecticut coach with 11 national championships, saying things an ear never thinks it will hear.

He said, “During that first quarter, it was evident that physically we couldn’t match up with them.”

And he said of Oregon’s Ruthy Hebard, whose 22 points and 12 rebounds made a dominant stew, “Today she faced very little competition in the lane.”

And he said of Connecticut, “Every time we changed defenses, it didn’t take them long to figure it out and they get an easy shot.”

And he joked of Ionescu, “And she didn’t get to the free throw line tonight (1 for 2) as much as she does some other nights because” — and he paused to find the punchline — “there was nobody near her much of the night.”

He did all this after Oregon Coach Kelly Graves said: “Well, they’re still a relatively young team, and they’re still searching for an identity, I think. We had the more experienced basketball team, and I think it showed tonight at times.”

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That looked plainly accurate, but when does Connecticut ever have a relatively young team searching for an identity?

Sometimes, yes. Sometimes.

Even parts of the stat sheet — Oregon’s 44-14 lead in paint points, with Satou Sabally sparkling alongside Hebard with 17 points, 10 rebounds and four assists — seemed not-of-this-planet. That, and the duration for which Connecticut led: 27 seconds. (It was 2-0.) That, and the way Oregon (20-2) spent the time from start to finish simply making Connecticut (19-2) look like a bunch of fair-to-middling athletes. (It was striking.) Just three years after No. 10 seed Oregon played No. 1 Connecticut in a region final not far from here in Bridgeport, Ionescu’s team had mushroomed from a West Coast curiosity to a national powerhouse.

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(That old final score, by the way, was 90-52.)

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The Connecticut patrons, so accustomed to excellence that they did notice it in the Ducks, began pulling on coats to exit in sprinkles early in the fourth quarter, and they left in droves with 4:39 left even with their dynasty down by, well, 14. The Oregon fans who made a green-and-yellow gumdrop in the corner of the stands stayed on in the cavernous arena that once held 10,167, making it audible when one hollered out, “Thank you, Sabrina!”

He, the fan, did this as Ionescu ran back across the court after a TV interview. She did that after she sat on a barstool-height seat talking to ESPN’s Scott Van Pelt for an interview. In between those two things, she leaned down to hug the ESPN broadcasters, and she said, “Oh, that was brutal,” which may or may not have referred to her performance and indicated her high standards.

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Her stat line did look pretty dreamy for most any player: 10 points, nine rebounds and nine assists (with four turnovers and two steals). “It’s nice to know she wasn’t particularly at her best and we still came away with a win,” Graves said, the part about “a win” almost unwittingly humorous given the measurement of this win, which Graves declined to extol as paramount, what with so much season left dangling ahead.

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So she and her mates had a night, and she made plenty of plays Bryant would have spotted as savvy, and maybe the sports world even can grin slightly that as she dedicates a season to him, this landmark win — a first for Oregon over Connecticut — saw her shoot 33 percent, as could he on occasion (if not normally 4 for 12, as in her case).

Just this past weekend, as Oregon made its way through Utah and Colorado on this taxing five-day trip, Ionescu had posted an Instagram tribute to Bryant: “You were and always will be my sanctuary. You brought me the peace and guidance that I had been searching, and praying so long for. You were my mentor, idol, inspiration, and close friend. A part of me was lost Sunday, a void that can never be filled, because you are one of one. You took me under your wing and believed in me more than I believed in myself. I only have one choice. To live out your legacy. You will forever live through me, and be watching over me every step of the way, because you have the best seat in the house. I can still hear you telling me, ‘Sab, real sharpness comes without effort,’ and that’s a voice I will never forget. Love you boss. Always.”

Now, on Monday night, she said of the coping: “Just really trying to focus on the games. Obviously it’s helped me to have games to look forward to and not just focus on last Sunday” — meaning Jan. 26, the day Bryant, his daughter Gianna, two of her basketball teammates and five other people died in a helicopter crash near Los Angeles.

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The Ducks had come to Gampel. They had marveled at all the banners — “star-struck,” Ionescu had called it. Graves had called Auriemma an “icon.”

And Auriemma, who coached in a Bryant jersey a friend had sent him from the Lakers game Friday night, a jacket over it, said of Ionescu: “The interesting thing is that, you know, as I was saying, she doesn’t do it with tremendous foot speed. Like, she doesn’t run by you. And she doesn’t jump over you. She does it more old-school-basketball-wise, and those players are few and far in between.

“She beats you with her head, her eyes, and she beats you with her relentlessness, and how tough she is. So I just said, like, four or five things, that maybe two or three players in the country have, and she happens to have all those things. And if you’ve got those things, and you’re living in a world where very few people that you’re playing against have even one of those things or two of those things, you’ve got a huge advantage every time you step on the floor, and that’s kind of where she is.”

It was, of course, a keen assessment, even while it felt wrenching not to be able to hear — or read — another.