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2014 – 2015
The season: The 2014–15 Irish, 36–3, took both ACC titles again and reached a fifth consecutive Final Four, at Tampa. Jewell Loyd, now a junior, was the espnW national player of the year and the ACC player of the year — the engine of a team that started three underclassmen in its biggest games.
The final: April 7, 2015: Connecticut 63, Notre Dame 53. For the third straight season Connecticut ended Notre Dame's — in the 2013 semifinal, the 2014 final, the 2015 final — and the five-year run of Final Fours (2011–2015) closed with four championship-game or semifinal losses to the same program and one to Baylor. It remains the defining frustration of the McGraw era: a half-decade as one of the two best programs in the sport, and no banner from it.
The departure: Days after the final, Loyd declared for the WNBA draft with a year of eligibility left — the program's first early entrant. Seattle took her first overall in the 2015 draft; she was the league's Rookie of the Year, won championships with Seattle in 2018 and 2020 and with Las Vegas in 2025 (the record book's accounting), and won Olympic gold medals with the United States in 2021 and 2024. She is, with Jackie Young, one of the program's two No. 1 overall draft picks.
Sources:
- University record book, NCAA tournament history and honors lists — the 2015 final (53–63) at Tampa; Loyd's espnW and ACC player-of-the-year honors; her championship accounting.
- WNBA and Olympic records — the 2015 draft (first overall, Seattle); Rookie of the Year; the 2020 and 2024 Olympic gold medals.