After a loss on the road to Missouri in its last contest, the Massachusetts women’s basketball team fell to Columbia 83-74 Saturday at the Mullins Center.

After UMass (8-3) scored the opening basket with a layup from Ber’Nyah Mayo, the Lions (9-2) took over with a quick three from leading scorer Abbey Hsu, who contributed a career high 34 points, and they never allowed the Minutewomen to take the lead again.

“We played a really good basketball team [Saturday],” head coach Tory Verdi said. “We knew coming into this game, the type of opponent that they were, and they did a great job of controlling both sides of the ball offensively and defensively, and they out toughed us here [Saturday].”

The Minutewomen couldn’t keep up with the Lions efficiency from behind the arc, with Columbia shooting 14-28 compared to UMass’ 5-21. Nine of the 14 makes came from Hsu, who tied her career high of nine 3-pointers in a game and shot 81.8 percent overall from three. Averaging 16.7 points per game this season, Hsu came to play in Amherst, scoring 17 points and going 5-for-5 from three all within the first nine minutes of play.

UMass’ defense relies heavily on communicating and switching off screens, which created rotation problems and more opportunities for Columbia to drive and kick out for open shots.

“We switched to really try to contain them offensively and be there on the 3-point shot, but we didn’t do a good job of containing the dribble penetration,” Verdi said. “Therefore it got us out of rotation and they got kick out threes.”

Columbia controlled the first half, with the Minutewomen coming within six points at the end of the first quarter and end of the half. UMass forced three quick turnovers in the first two minutes of the third that led to a 3-pointer from Destiney Philoxy to cut the lead to five. Sydney Taylor picked up a foul on the other end, sending Columbia to the line to make both free throws.

Mayo got the inbounds pass, drove into the Lions defense and stopped short for the quick jumper, making it a five point game with 7:23 to go in the third quarter. But every time the Minutewomen got into a rhythm, Columbia always seemed to be ahead of them.

“Momentum seems like it was going our way and then they just always had an answer,” Sam Breen said. “And not that we were getting bad shots, but shots weren’t falling for us and theirs were.”

Breen played all 40 minutes and led the Minutewomen with 23 points and 12 rebounds, adding another double-double to her career total of 45. Philoxy was behind her with 17 points, five rebounds, four assists, and three steals. Mayo led the team with five steals, having nine in the past two games, and also contributed four rebounds, assists and 13 points. Sydney Taylor had a quiet night with 11 points, shooting 1-7 from the three, with six rebounds and five turnovers.

The Lions scored 30 points in the third quarter compared to 20 for UMass, going into the fourth down 67-51. Sophomore Kristin Williams came off the bench with six minutes to go and gave the Minutewomen the spark they needed to stay in the game. She grabbed two quick rebounds and got to the line with two minutes to go and made one of her two free throws to make it a 12 point game. The next possession Mayo snatched the ball from Columbia and drove for a fast break layup, cutting the deficit to nine with 1:39 to play, but UMass was unable to score again.

“When you play a team like this, you know it kind of exposes some of your weaknesses a little bit,” Verdi said. “As a staff I think there were some things that we could have, you know, done a little bit differently, changed up how we’re defending certain actions you know in midway through the first half and not wait until you know late in the third period. I thought we could probably make some adjustments earlier on, and so we’ll learn from this.”

UMass has 11 days off until its next home matchup against Saint Peter’s. Verdi says there will be a lot of work to do in practice over the next weeks off, but it will also give time for the team to reset and get healthy as the semester comes to an end.

“I think whenever you lose you have to look at the situation that was handed to you and then go back and look at ‘why you weren’t successful? Why didn’t you get the results?’ We’ll do that. I promise you,” Verdi said.

The Minutewomen play next on Wednesday, December 21, at the Mullins Center. Tipoff is set for 2 p.m.

Jess Galvin can be reached at [email protected] and followed on Twitter @jessgalvin1.