Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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93-64 shellacking of No. 10 Louisville, which fell to 20-5. The Fighting Irish women are 23-1 overall, including 11-0 in the Big East. Furthermore, head coach Muffet McGraw's Irish are 7-1 against ranked foes, with the lone defeat coming to defending national champ and current No. 1 Baylor on Dec. 5 (73-61 after leading 50-49 with less than eight minutes left). The victory also improved Notre Dame senior guards Skylar Diggins and Kaila Turner's career marks to 11819. The Irish have achieved remarkable scoring balance all season, with Diggins setting the pace with a 15.9 average, followed by junior guard Kayla McBride (14.2), junior center Natalie Achonwa (13.8) and freshman guard Jewell Loyd (12.0). Meanwhile, junior forward Ariel Braker, coming off knee surgery, has become a glue figure, somewhat like graduated fifth-year senior Brittany Mallory a year ago. Although averaging only 19.3 minutes per game as the fifth starter, she converted on 10 of 11 field goal attempts while scoring 15 and 10 points, respectively, in victories against Seton Hall (Feb. 9) and Louisville (Feb. 11). Her 31 blocked shots lead the team. Achonwa's 9.2 rebounds per game easily pace the squad, followed by Loyd (5.3), McBride (4.8) and Braker (4.4). Diggins' 137 assists more than doubled the next highest total of 61 by Achonwa, but the unselfish ball movement collectively has made Notre Dame one of four teams nationally averaging more than 80 points per game. When needed, though, Diggins can take control. In Notre Dame's 77-67 victory at No. 9 Tennessee Jan. 28, she tallied a career-high 33 points, the 10thhighest output in the program's 36-year history. The record is 41 by sophomore center Ruth Riley during a 97-59 victory at Providence on Jan. 30, 1999. ✦ More Milestones • The victory at Tennessee made Notre Dame the first team to defeat both the Volunteers and Connecticut — the game's two pre-eminent superpowers the past two decades — three years in a row, and also the first to vanquish both on the road in the same season. • During a hard-fought 59-52 victory at Villanova Feb. 5, Notre Dame Women's Basketball Hall of Fame head coach Muffet McGraw became the 13th Division I coach to record 700 career victories (with 612 of them coming in 26 seasons at Notre Dame). • Skylar Diggins stood No. 3 on Notre Dame's all-time scoring chart entering the Feb. 17 game at Marquette. Her 2,108 points trailed only Katryna Gaither (2,126) and current Irish associate coach Beth (Morgan) Cunningham (2,322), a duo that led Notre Dame to its first Final Four back in 1997. The Irish still had five regular-season games to play, an expected three Big East Tournament games and hopefully at least four more in the NCAA Tournament, where they will be gunning for their third straight Final Four. Diggins would need to average just more than 18 points per game in those dozen projected games to top the Notre Dame career chart in scoring.