Notre Dame upsets UConn 72-63, heads to title game

It’s not often Maya Moore meets her match. Skylar Diggins was up to the task and Notre Dame will play for a national championship because of it.

The sensational sophomore guard scored 28 points and hot-shooting Notre Dame upset UConn 72-63 on Sunday night, ending the brilliant career of Moore and the Huskies’ quest for a third straight national championship.

Ten years after their last title, the Irish will be playing for another one Tuesday night against Texas A&M, which beat Stanford 63-62 in the first semifinal.

Notre Dame was 0-3 against its Big East rival this season but the Irish had all the answers this time for the Huskies, who lost for just the second time in three seasons. Notre Dame had already beaten Tennessee in the NCAA tournament, ending a 20-game skid against the Volunteers.

Now the Irish (31-7) have knocked out the two-time defending champions.

Moore finished with 36 points, including 12 straight as she tried to rally the Huskies from a 12-point deficit in the final 6 minutes, but it wasn’t enough for UConn (36-2).

The four-time All-American and AP player of the year was overshadowed by Diggins, the South Bend native who felt right at home in Conseco Fieldhouse, where she led her high school to three straight championships.

Calmly directing her offense and fearlessly driving into the lane to create chances for herself and her teammates, Diggins now has a chance to add a NCAA championship to that list.

“We had to be poised, I mean, we had to try to make Maya take tough shots, and I think she did,” Diggins said. “And at the end we said, ‘We have to stay poised on defense and we have to execute on offense.’ We showed a lot more poise than we did in the first three games against Connecticut.”

Trailing 34-26 early in the second half, Diggins’ three-point play started a 15-4 run by the Irish. Devereaux Peters’ added her own three-point play that gave Notre Dame a 38-37 advantage—its first lead since midway through the first half.

Diggins capped the burst with another three-point play that made it 41-38 with 13:17 left and brought the pro-Irish crowd to its feet and left Geno Auriemma’s team reeling.

The Irish extended their lead to 47-40 a few minutes later before UConn cut the deficit to four on Bria Hartley’s 3-pointer.

Brittany Mallory and Natalie Novosel hit consecutive 3-pointers to make it a 12-point game with just over 7 minutes left. Moore did her best to try to rally her young team, but the Huskies fell short.

Moore started her flurry with a three-point play and then a hit a deep 3-pointer. After Novosel hit a layup Moore hit another 3-pointer that made it 63-60 with 2:26 left. That’s as close as the Huskies would get as Diggins and the Irish were too much for them down the stretch.

As the clock ran out, Diggins and the Notre Dame players rushed the floor and danced, knowing they had pulled off the monumental victory.

Notre Dame was making its first trip to the Final Four since winning a national title in 2001 after knocking out UConn in the semifinals that year. The Irish faced a 16-point first half deficit in that game but rallied to the victory.

A half-dozen members of that team were among the 30 former Irish players at the game Sunday night.

Irish coach Muffet McGraw had said leading up to the game that her team would try and draw inspiration from Texas A&M, which lost three games to Baylor in the regular season before beating the Lady Bears in the regional final.

Now the two No. 2 seeds will play with a championship at stake. It’s the first time since 1994 that no top-seed made it to the championship game.

The Irish were the second straight team to play in a Final Four game in their home state. Baylor reached the national semifinals last season in Texas, but also lost to UConn.