Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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M BY LOU SOMOGYI not getting voted the national title on the last day of the season: 1938, 1964, 1970, 1989 and 1993. Fortunately, the passage of time any of the most bittersweet or agonizing moments in Notre Dame football his- tory are related to losing or McGraw and her Irish women's basketball team have to temporar- ily endure in the present — but also celebrate and cherish in the future. For the second straight year, Notre seeds Tennessee and Connecticut, the two-time defending national champ, and had a seven-point sec- ond-half lead in the championship tilt against Texas A&M before losing 76-70. This time, Notre Dame obliterated Dame advanced to the national title game. It crashed the party in 2011 prior to living up to immense expec- tations in 2012. In 2011, the Irish stunned No. 1 its tourney foes en route to the Final Four, where it recorded a dramatic overtime victory versus archrival UConn before running into a buzz saw on April 3 in Baylor. The 35-4 Irish ended the season 2 Good … Again Irish finish as national runner-up for a second straight year provides a perspective of amazing achievement. That is what head coach Muffet with an 80-61 loss to Baylor, the first college program on the men's or women's side to win 40 games — with no losses on the docket, to boot. Led by 6-8 All-American Brittney Griner, the Bears were in control throughout their conquest. "It hurts no matter how much you lose by," McGraw said when asked to compare the heartbreaks. "But I think the feeling last year was a little differ- ent — more of we kind of let it slip away a little bit. This game got out of hand. So I think there was some frus- tration that everybody didn't play as well as they wanted to. "But it's still pretty much the same. Everybody's pretty emotional." Junior first-team All-American Skylar Diggins saluted the four play- ers who suited up for the final time in a Notre Dame uniform — Nata- lie Novosel, Devereaux Peters, Brit- tany Mallory and Fraderica Miller — while helping propel the program's greatest back-to-back seasons. "I hate that it ends on a game like this, because you fail to see every- www.BLUEANDGOLD.com to the national championship, topping the Irish 80-61 in the title game to cap a perfect 40-0 season. PHOTO BY MIKE BENNETT/LIGHTHOUSE IMAGING All-American Brittney Griner (26 points, 13 rebounds, five blocks) and Baylor blocked Notre Dame's path MAY 2012 47