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UConn women's basketball coach Geno Auriemma thought his team was vulnerable during the NCAA Tournament. On Sunday night, Notre Dame proved him right.
Skyler Diggins scored 28 points as the Irish rallied in the second half to upset the Huskies, 72-63, in the semifinals of the Final Four in Indianapolis. Notre Dame will meet Texas A&M for the championship Tuesday. The Huskies finish 36-2 and were denied their bid for a third straight championship.
"I think what people have to understand is nothing's a given,'' Auriemma said. "You play really well and you get a chance to win. You don't play well, you lose. I don't care whether you're a 1 seed, 2 seed, the best player, not the best player, it doesn't matter. I think what this night proved was there are good teams, and those teams are not just named Connecticut and Stanford and Baylor."
Notre Dame was 0-3 against UConn this season and in trouble at halftime, trailing 32-26. Notre Dame scored 46 points in the second half, shooting 56 percent from the field. Diggins was perfect, hitting four-of-four from the field and six-of-16 from the foul line. Natalie Novosel scored 18 of her 22 points in the second half.
Maya Moore scored 36 points for UConn, but she couldn't do it alone. Bria Hartley (10 points) was the only other player in double figures. The Huskies were also affected by foul trouble on center Stefanie Dolson, who scored just seven points in 25 minutes. She was saddled for most of the second half with four fouls.
The loss ended several streaks for UConn. It had won 24 in a row overall, 12 straight against Notre Dame and 69 consecutive against Big East competition. Moore and Lorin Dixon finished their careers with a 150-4 career record and two national championships.
"You know, it's never it's never easy when you don't win your last game, because that's kind of the thing that you remember going out on,'' Auriemma said. "So I know how difficult it is for Maya and for Lorin. And I just wanted to remind them in the locker room that when they were freshmen, the same thing happened to them. And they end their senior year with the same outcome, but what happened in between is something that only the really, really, really fortunate can ever experience. And what Maya and Lorin experienced in the two years between their loss in the Final Four and the loss tonight is something that that's what I'm going to choose to focus on when I think about those two, especially Maya. I'm going to think more about the best player in the history of the Big East and maybe the best student athlete in the history of college basketball. And I'm not going to let her be defined by what happened tonight."
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