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2011 – 2013
2012: The 2011–12 team reached the Final Four in Denver and beat Connecticut in the semifinal, 83–75 in overtime — Notre Dame's third win over the Huskies that season, after a regular-season sweep, and its second straight national-semifinal win over them. The final, on April 3, 2012, was a different weight class: Baylor 80, Notre Dame 61, behind Brittney Griner, and Baylor finished 40–0. Notre Dame's season ended at 35–3, a runner-up for the second straight year.
2013 — the season of Connecticut: The 2012–13 teams met four times, and for three of them Notre Dame was the better team. The Irish won at Connecticut on January 5, 2013, 73–72; won the return at home on March 4 in three overtimes, 96–87, in one of the celebrated regular-season games of the era; and won the Big East tournament final 61–59 — with freshman Jewell Loyd the tournament's most outstanding player — to take the program's first, and as it proved only, Big East tournament championship, in the last season the league existed in its old form.
The fourth game: It was the one that counted most. In the national semifinal at New Orleans, Connecticut beat Notre Dame 83–65. It was Diggins's last college game, and the cruel arithmetic of the era in one line: Notre Dame had beaten Connecticut seven times across the three seasons since the 2011 semifinal, and Connecticut's one win of 2013 was the game that ended the Diggins era.
Sources:
- University record book, NCAA tournament history — the 2012 semifinal (83–75, overtime) and final (61–80); the 2013 semifinal (65–83) at New Orleans.
- Associated Press and university accounts — the January 5, 2013 and March 4, 2013 (triple overtime) Connecticut games; the Big East tournament final (61–59) and Loyd's most-outstanding-player award; Baylor's 40–0 finish.