Notre Dame fell behind by 13 points early in the game and recovered to take a 2 point halftime lead, but Danielle Adams’ 22 second half points proved to be too much as Texas A&M won the Women’s NCAA Tournament championship 76-70 in Indianapolis on Tuesday.  Adams finished with 30 points.  Skylar Diggins led the Irish with 23.

“I had a little voice in my head, ‘Don’t let this team down,'” said Adams, who became the school’s first All-American a week ago and added outstanding player of the tournament to her honors. “Every time we’d get down, we were telling each other we’re not going to lose this game. We worked hard all season to prepare for this point. I had to do this for my teammates. They’ve been doing everything for me. I decided to take them on my back and just let them ride on my back.”

Tyra White added 18 points for A&M, including a 3-pointer as the shot clock buzzer sounded to put the Aggies up 73-68 with 1:07 left.

“That was the knife in my heart. That was the game,” Irish coach Muffet McGraw said, bowing her head when the question was asked. “I thought that was just an amazing play on White’s part, and that play was the game.”

Notre Dame ran to a 44-37 lead early in the second half; but A&M battled back to tie at 50-50, and the game stayed tight until the Aggies pulled away in the final minute.  The Irish had chances to take the game to the last possession, but they missed every shot they took in the last 90 seconds.  The Aggies made 3 of 4 free throws in the last 20 seconds, and the game was theirs, 76-70.

“We gave you that national championship game without the so-called powers of the world,” Blair said. “The two powers tonight were the two that earned it.”

Indeed, they earned it.  Both teams defeated two #1 seeds to get to the championship game.  Both had to vanquish teams that had beaten them three times before the tournament started.  Both came from behind during the championship when it looked like the other was taking charge of the game.  In terms of drama, only a game deciding last second shot could have made the story better.

Most women’s basketball pundits thought these teams were a year away from being legitimate title contenders.  If that’s true, the Irish intend to make the most of the early experience.

“You lose that last game, you just get motivated to come back and work a little bit harder and make sure it doesn’t happen again,” McGraw said. “So I think it will be a really good motivator for us.”

McGraw’s comment was a little more measured than the players’ were.  The team didn’t seem happy just to have been there.

“It hurts incredibly bad,” said Frederica Miller.  “I have no emotion right now because I am in shock. I, with my whole heart, believed that we were supposed to win that game and it hasn’t hit me that we didn’t win.”

Diggins wasn’t satisfied either.  “I’m just disappointed,” she said tersely after the game.  “Obviously we wanted to win and we didn’t.”

“I think it’s going to be a while for her to get that perspective,” said McGraw when asked if Diggins will appreciate the season or dwell on the championship loss.  “I think she’s extremely hard on herself.  And she will spend the entire summer, I’m sure, thinking about this game, and that’s probably a good thing for us.”

Whether this was part of the journey will be the story next season.  In the meantime, Natalie Achonwa summed up the season as she summed up the game.   “As a team, we have never given up,” she said.  People said we wouldn’t be here and we are.  I think that deficit at the beginning really hurt us and the second one as well, but we fought back, we never gave up, and we came back every time and we just didn’t have enough at the end.”

Noteworthy

• Three point shooting served Notre Dame well against Tennessee and Connecticut.  Not so vs. Texas A&M.  The Irish made 9-19 (47%) from long range in the UT and UConn games but just 2-10 against A&M.
• Notre Dame’s seven-point second-half lead was built scoring close to the basket. When points in the paint dried up in the final 16 minutes, tND’s lead evaporated.  Over the first 24 minutes of the game, the Irish made 14 of 18 shots in the paint.  It fell to 7 of 19 in the final 16 minutes.
• Devereaux Peters had an outstanding game – 21 points, 8-10 from the field, and 11 rebounds.
• Thanks to Adams’ work around the basket, Texas A&M made 68% of its shots in the second half.  Adams was 9-11 in the half including baskets the first 8 times she shot.  Tyra White padded the percentage by making 3 of her 4 second half shots including the killer three with 1:07 to play.
• Becca Bruszewski closed her Notre Dame career with her typically well rounded stat line – 3-4 from the field, 2 blocked shots, 2 steals.