SOUTH BEND, Ind. – There is an idea floating around women’s college basketball, forwarded mostly by those who coach, that games like the one Notre Dame and UConn played Saturday are comparatively meaningless because they happen in the regular season.
Nothing could be further from the truth, of course, unless someone tried to convince you that the Huskies and Irish aren’t somehow genetically predisposed to destroy each other and the nation isn’t simply fascinated by the inherent drama.
Granted, what happens in April will answer the ultimate question. But at Purcell Pavilion, adorned in lime green and championship envy, the two-time defending national champions proved again how irrelevant the calendar is when putting down a challenge from their most well-equipped rival.
Down 10 points midway through the first half, overshadowed and overrun by Notre Dame All-American Jewell Loyd, the Huskies regrouped and blasted the Irish from their own gym, winning, 76-58.
Morgan Tuck, in the boldest performance of her career, scored a career-high 25 points and nine rebounds. Kiah Stokes, in the most consequential performance of her career, gathered 18 rebounds. Loyd led the Irish with 31 points.
Breanna Stewart added 15 points and nine rebounds for the Huskies (6-1). Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis and Kia Nurse added 12 points each.
The Irish (8-1) had held the nation’s longest active home court winning streak at 34 games, dating to a 73-61 loss to Brittney Griner and Baylor on Dec. 5, 2012. They had also won 60 straight regular-season games. Both of those runs are done.
If nothing else, the game provided tangible proof of UConn’s defensive progress since allowing 88 points in the overtime loss to Stanford on Nov. 17.
The numbers over their four wins had seemed to indicate growth; the Huskies had allowed an average of 47.3 points and held opponents to 30.3 percent shooting since the loss to the Cardinal. These good signs were validated with emphasis over a dominating final 30 minutes.
The Irish, led by Loyd, seemingly balanced from perimeter to post, came into the game leading the nation in both scoring (94.8) and scoring margin (43.6). So it wasn’t going to get more challenging than this, especially in a wildly partisan building. And UConn passed the test.
It was an emotional game characterized by one dramatic mood swing. At its beginning, the crowd spurring them on, the Irish – and Loyd – controlled. Notre Dame, after falling behind immediately on Tuck’s opening basket, built a 28-18 lead with 10:13 to play in the half.
By this time, Loyd already had 15 points and the Huskies were 0 for 5 from three while Notre Dame had made 4 of 8.
And then it all changed. The Irish scored only 28 points in the last 30 minutes.
Beginning with UConn’s first three-pointer, scored appropriately enough by Mosqueda-Lewis with 9:59 to play in the half, the Huskies began a 22-4 run that gave it a 40-32 lead at the half.
Not only was Loyd held scoreless, but the Irish missed 18 of their last 19 shots in the half, scoring only again from the field with Taya Reimer’s basket cut the Huskies lead to 34-30 with 3:53 to play in the half.
Tuck had 10 points at the half and Stewart added eight. But it was Stokes, the most athletically built player on the floor, who took over this athletic competition with the shear force of her rebounding and defensive presence.
In just 11 minutes at the end of the half, a stint that basically paralleled UConn’s burst, she had 12 rebounds, 10 on the defensive boards.
By the end of the half, Notre Dame’s shooting percentage has plummeted to 11 of 38 (.289) which basically allowed the Huskies to take control despite making only 1 of 9 three-pointers.
This game, the 20th in which both teams have been ranked in the Top 10 at tip-off, was, essentially, a rematch of last season’s national championship game, the first ever between unbeaten combatants, which UConn won easily in Nashville in April.
Many of the played large roles in that game were back Saturday, the 17th meeting of these foes in not quite four seasons. And in last week’s prelude many UConn players, despite coming out on top, admitted at least a degree of enmity for an opponent that has successful snuck up on them over recent years.
And a big part, perhaps the biggest of all, was figuring out a way to stop Loyd, the preseason first-team All-American, who averaging 21.1 points this season. She has scored at least 20 points in six games, 51 straight in double-figures.
UConn began by putting junior Moriah Jefferson on Loyd, but eventually it became a team effort trying to contain an offensive force equipped to score from just about everywhere.
Like during last year’s national championship game, when the Irish were without center Natalie Achonwa, they played this one with freshman post Brianna Turner, the 6-3 phenom from Texas. Second to Loyd in scoring, she injured her right shoulder on Wednesday against Maryland and was officially ruled out about an hour before the start.
