Even Missing Star, Irish Are Unstoppable
NASHVILLE - That other undefeated women's college basketball team, the one without the luck of the Irish, nonetheless steamrollered its way to the national championship game on Sunday night.
Playing without its injured forward/center, Natalie Achonwa, Notre Dame still had too much firepower for Maryland, running away with their semifinal, 87-61, in the Terrapins' final game as an Atlantic Coast Conference member on the way to the Big Ten next season.
In its first A.C.C. season, Coach Muffet McGraw's team won for the 36th consecutive time while commandingly securing its spot in Tuesday night's final against the winner of Sunday night's other semifinal between Connecticut and Stanford.
Notre Dame made 50.8 percent of its shots and, even without Achonwa, outrebounded Maryland by 50-21.
Kayla McBride, Notre Dame's all-American senior guard, dominated the game, with 28 points and 7 rebounds. The sophomore guard Jewell Loyd had 16 points and 9 rebounds. Brionna Jones led Maryland with 15 points as the Terrapins finished the season 28-7.
The regular-season game between the teams, a 4-point victory in late January for Notre Dame on the Terrapins' home court, was the closest game the Irish played all season. Given the absence of Achonwa, and with Lexie Brown, a freshman point guard, having gone through a full season, a case could have been made that the semifinal rematch was a tossup.
Maryland Coach Brenda Frese was not buying that. She seemed to prefer the motivational mind-set of the underdog role for her six-loss team against an unbeaten opponent. The last thing she wanted to hear was any sympathy for the Irish.
'Yeah, yeah, Notre Dame can't play that card,' she said. 'They've been to four straight Final Fours.' Referring to McBride and Loyd, she added that Notre Dame still had 'the best one-two punch in the country, two of the best all-Americans.'
'Everyone's still picking them, so there's no way they can be the underdog,' she said. 'To some extent, I feel like Maryland and Stanford are the extras at the Miss U.S.A. pageant. Everybody's rooting for the other two. Our job is to be able to crash the party.'
Each coach began the game with one national championship. McGraw won the title in 2001, a 2-point victory over Purdue. Five years later, Maryland upset Duke in overtime behind a freshman point guard, Kristi Toliver. In her first trip back to the Final Four, Frese liked the symmetry of being led by another rookie, Brown, the daughter of a former N.B.A. slam dunk contest champion, Dee Brown.
But if Maryland had the right to consider itself the underdog, Notre Dame had inspiration sewn on the back of its warm-up shirts: 'Ace,' the nickname for Achonwa, a 6-foot-3 senior forward from Ontario, cruelly sidelined on the threshold of her fourth and last Final Four after sustaining a knee injury in the quarterfinals against Baylor.
Starting in Achonwa's place was a 6-3 freshman, Taya Reimer. Throughout the week, her teammates told her she should not try to be Achonwa, Notre Dame's leading rebounder and third-best scorer. Just be herself. As it turned out, that was more than enough as Notre Dame took control of the game midway through the first half.
Early on, Notre Dame did appear vulnerable on the defensive end without Achonwa. Maryland's first four baskets were scored inside, three of them by the 6-3 Jones. Reimer, in fact, got an early hook, at 16 minutes 7 seconds, for some counseling from McGraw.
But it was also clear at the other end of the floor that Maryland could not contain Notre Dame, on the break or in its half-court sets. McBride looked much like what McGraw had been calling her all season - 'the best player in the country,' even if Connecticut's Breanna Stewart was on her way to being named the Associated Press player of the year.
McBride befuddled the Terrapins with step-back jumpers and aggressive drives, pushing the tempo whenever she could. Loyd was also a difference-maker, despite three early turnovers. And when Reimer returned to the floor, she and the 5-10 Loyd collaborated for something not often seen in the women's game.
Spotting Loyd streaking to the basket to the left of the rim, Reimer - who showed excellent ball-handling and passing skills - lofted a perfect lob that Loyd caught in midleap and gently deposited in the basket.
Still, Maryland was in the game, trailing by 23-21 after successive baskets by Laurin Mincy, when McBride scored hit a banker on a left-side drive and followed that up with a 3-point play on a fast-break drive. Another break resulted in a layup and converted free throw by Lindsay Allen. When McBride buried a 17-footer from the left side, she skipped back on defense with a knowing smile. On the way to a 19-point first half with 8-for-12 shooting, she and the Irish went into the break with a 17-point lead.
The lead ballooned to 22 early in the second half. Without its Ace, Notre Dame was still going to finish the night undefeated, on its way to the national championship game Tuesday night.
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