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2001 – 2010
The pattern: The decade after the championship settled into a shape the program's supporters learned by heart: twenty-plus wins a year, a place in the national rankings, an NCAA tournament bid every season, and a March exit in the Sweet Sixteen or before — 2002, 2003, 2004, 2007, 2008 and 2010 all ended there or one round earlier. The Irish of those years were never bad. They were, for nine seasons, the best team in the country not playing on the final weekend.
The hometown star: The decade's best player was the second of the program's two great South Bend products. Jacqueline Batteast, of South Bend's Washington High School before Skylar Diggins made the same walk, was the USBWA national freshman of the year in 2002 and the Big East player of the year in 2005. Drafted by Minnesota in the second round in 2005, she won the 2006 WNBA championship with Detroit — as Ruth Riley's teammate, two Notre Dame players on one title team, one of them from the city itself.
The near teams: The 2007–08 team beat Oklahoma in overtime in the tournament and lost to Tennessee in the Sweet Sixteen; the 2009–10 team lost its Sweet Sixteen game to Oklahoma in overtime, 77–72. The through-line of the decade is the program's floor: in the ten seasons after the title, Notre Dame never missed the NCAA tournament and never won fewer than nineteen games. What it had not yet done was get back.
Sources:
- University record book, NCAA tournament history and honors lists — the 2002–2010 tournament finishes; Batteast's 2002 freshman honor and 2005 Big East player-of-the-year award.
- WNBA record — Batteast's 2005 draft and the 2006 Detroit championship.