After a run in which their smallest margin of victory was 11, capped of by the absolute destruction of Maryland by 31 (not a typo), the Lady Irish find themselves in the same position as they did last season, a Final Four game against rival UCONN.
Last season, ND took down the favored Huskies 72-63, but fell just short of the national title, losing to Texas A&M 76-70. This season though, the Lady Irish, led by junior point guard, Skylar Diggins, are looking for a different fate. Diggins, who put up an impressive triple-double of 22 points, 11 assists, and 10 rebounds against Maryland, appears to be more than ready to bring the hardware back to South Bend:
“This game is great momentum for us going into it, and our incentive is getting back to the championship,” Diggins said.
“That’s been our goal, which we’ve wanted to do all year.”
Of course, the Lady Irish can’t look past a formidable UCONN team whom have lost only four games all season. Two of those losses though, have come at the hands of ND, one an OT thriller and the second an absolute 72-59 beating at UCONN’s home court that made Geno lose his damn mind. However, the Lady Huskies did manage to rebound and top ND 63-54 in the Big East Finals, securing a #1 seed in the NCAA Tournament.
UCONN has kept up that momentum, crushing their opponents by 15 points or more, including a scary 72-26 win over K-State in the second round (again, not a typo). To put it lightly, this isn’t the same team the Irish embarrassed in February.
The action will tip off at 6:30pm EST, Sunday, April 1st, on ESPN and ESPN3. The battle of the two giants in the Big East will be followed by the other two #1 seeds Baylor and Stanford.
Best of luck ladies, let’s finish the job this year.
Texan by birth, Irish by choice.
First-generation Domer and a former student manager, HLS podcast host, HLS Sim creator, Extra Life streamer, and technical problem haver. You can find more non-Notre Dame related writing on his Patreon.
- Epilogue - January 3, 2022
- HLS Podcast Finale - January 2, 2022
- The Final Fiesta: Notre Dame vs Oklahoma State NCAA ’14 Sim - December 31, 2021
Been an exciting run to watch. Plenty of seniors on this team such as Natalie Novosel, Brittany Mallory, Devereaux Peters…all have gotten close, but haven’t managed to get one of the coveted championship rings. To see them go out on top as seniors would be really, really cool.
Although all of those girls are an integral part of the team, and they are undoubtedly led by Junior guard Skylar Diggins, I would actually argue that sophomore Kayla McBride will determine how far this team will go. Kayla may be the most talented player on the team (yes, including Skylar!), as she has that rare combination of size and speed. She plays more of a guard position because of good ball-handling abilities, but she can also bang a bit down low and grab some rebounds. Several times this year she has led the Irish in scoring, and she has been remarkably efficient lately. Generally, when she is going off, it opens up so much for her more publicized teammates, so getting her going here in the Final Four (and hopefully in the Title Game as well) would be huge.
Will the semifinals or finals be on network TV?
GB — both games will be on ESPN. April 1st and April 3rd. The Final Four game is at 6:30 PM
Thanks.
That means that I can’t watch it. I check the score after the game(s).
For the record, they are not the Lady Irish. They are simply the Irish, same as the men.