The undefeated final, 2014

2013 – 2014

The season: The first ACC season produced the program's finest regular season: 37–0 entering the championship game, the conference's regular-season and tournament titles taken on the first attempt, with Kayla McBride — the ACC player of the year — and sophomore Jewell Loyd in the backcourt and Natalie Achonwa in the middle. The one piece of damage came at the worst hour: Achonwa tore a knee ligament in the regional final, an 88–69 win over Baylor played at Purcell Pavilion on March 31, 2014, and was lost for the Final Four.

The semifinal: At Nashville the Irish routed Maryland 87–61, outrebounding the Terrapins 50–21, McBride scoring 28 — a performance that made the final a meeting of unbeatens: Connecticut 39–0, Notre Dame 37–0, the first championship game in NCAA history, men's or women's, between two undefeated teams.

The final: April 8, 2014: Connecticut 79, Notre Dame 58. The Irish played the game without their center and lost it in the middle, where Connecticut's frontcourt decided it. The 37–1 finish stands as the program's best single-season record, and the game as the summit of the rivalry's national stakes — the only championship game, in the NCAA's accounting, ever played between two undefeated teams.

Sources:

1. University record book, NCAA tournament history and honors lists — the 2014 run (the Baylor regional final, 88–69; the Maryland semifinal, 87–61; the final, 58–79); McBride's 2014 ACC player-of-the-year award.
2. NCAA and contemporaneous accounts — Achonwa's knee injury in the regional final; the first final between undefeated teams (Connecticut 39–0, Notre Dame 37–0); the semifinal rebounding margin and McBride's 28 points.