Nebraska's Allison Weidner, right, drives to the basket while the Gophers' Sophie Hart defends on Sunday in Lincoln, Neb. (Katy Cowell/Lincoln Journal Star via AP)

Early in Sunday’s game at Nebraska, the Gophers women’s basketball team took a big punch to the chin and never really found its footing again.

The result: A perfect 10-0 entering their Big Ten opener, the Gophers lost 84-65 to the 25th-ranked Cornhuskers in a game that was pretty much decided in the opening minutes.

“Well, we got punched in the mouth, right at the beginning of the game,” Gophers coach Dawn Plitzuweit said by phone from Lincoln, Neb., “We didn’t play with any kind of edge.”

Look at what happened over the final three quarters and it appears the game was essentially even after the Gophers fell behind by 17 in the first quarter.

Not so.

The Gophers couldn’t stop the Huskers inside or outside. On offense, they couldn’t make enough shots; in the first half Minnesota had 19 shots around the rim and made three.

Within six late in the first quarter, Minnesota was outscored 10-0 over the rest of the quarter. The Gophers were outscored 9-4 to end the second quarter, 13-4 to end the third. They trailed by as many as 28. Four Gophers players scored in double figures, led by Mallory Heyer’s 12 points. But no Gophers player had more than eight points through three quarters.

Heyer was asked what was the most frustrating, the Gophers struggling to make a shot on one end or struggling to slow Nebraska on the other.

“Well, I think it was a little bit of both,” she said. “I think we missed a lot of defensive rebounds and they converted those into points. And on offense I think we got sped up, taking some bad shots. That’s something we’ll be able to fix.”

The numbers are daunting. The Gophers (10-1) feasted early this season on a collection of mid-major teams that had a combined winning percentage just over .300.

But they struggled Sunday.

Offense? The Gophers shot 35%, made five of 21 three-pointers. Heyer, Tori McKinney (11), Grace Grocholski (10) and Alexsia Rose (10) finished in double figures, but the Gophers shot 7-for-39 overall and 1-for-14 on three-pointers while scoring 19 first-half points.

Defense? The Huskers (8-1) shot 51.7%. The fifth-best three-point shooting team in Division I, they made 12 of 28 attempts.

Alberte Rimdal hit two three-pointers and scored 12 points. Callin Hake and Alexis Markowski each scored 11, Amiah Hargrove 10.

The Huskers bested the Gophers on rebounds (49-30), second-chance points (23-11) and scoring off the bench (42-23).

And this was on a day when the Gophers turned the ball over just four times and caused 15 Nebraska turnovers. There is a lot to work on before the Big Ten schedule resumes against Penn State on Dec. 28. Minnesota has two more nonconference games to, as Plitzuweit said, figure out how to show an edge from the start.

“We had it at times,” she said. “But not consistently. So if this teaches us to have it consistently, it’s going to be a good thing for us.”

Heyer is convinced that will happen.

“It’s only going to get better from here,” she said. “We’re going to go back and watch film. We’re going to figure out what went wrong, and we’re not going to let it happen again. You can’t get too down on this one, we just have to learn from it.”