One point short — the defense of the title, 2019

2018 – 2019

The team: The title defense ran through the most experienced starting five in the sport: Young, Ogunbowale, Shepard, Mabrey and a returned Turner — five 1,000-point career scorers whose combined 10,230 points the record book carries as the most prolific starting five in Division I history. The Irish went 35–4, won the ACC regular-season and tournament championships, and in December McGraw won her 900th career game — against Lehigh, on December 30, 2018, the school where her head-coaching career began.

The semifinal: At Tampa on April 5, Notre Dame beat Connecticut 81–76, Mabrey's twelve assists setting a record for a national semifinal. The championship game, on April 7, was Baylor — the team that had beaten Notre Dame in the 2012 final.

The final: Baylor led by seventeen. In the third quarter Baylor's Lauren Cox left the game with a knee injury, and Notre Dame erased the lead entirely. Chloe Jackson, who scored 26 and was the Final Four's most outstanding player, put Baylor ahead for good with a layup in the last seconds — 3.9 seconds in NCAA.com's account; the university's own recap says five seconds, and the two figures stand as the sources give them. Fouled with 1.9 seconds left and Notre Dame down two, Ogunbowale missed the first free throw, and Baylor won 82–81. Her 31 points were, in the NCAA's accounting, the most ever scored in a losing championship-game performance.

The draft: Three days later the whole starting five was drafted into the WNBA in the top twenty picks — Young first overall to Las Vegas, Ogunbowale fifth to Dallas, Turner eleventh, Shepard sixteenth, Mabrey nineteenth — a draft-night fact no other starting five has matched in the record carried here. Young went on to win a WNBA championship with Las Vegas in 2022 and Olympic gold medals in 2021 and 2024: with Riley, one of two Irish players to hold all three titles.

Sources:

1. University record book — the starting five's 10,230 combined points; the 2019 NCAA run; the draft order of the five starters.
2. NCAA.com and university game accounts — the semifinal (81–76) and Mabrey's semifinal-record twelve assists; the final (81–82), Cox's injury, Jackson's 26 points and the winning layup's timing as the two accounts give it; Ogunbowale's 31 points.
3. University record — McGraw's 900th career win, December 30, 2018, against Lehigh.