Tiffany Hayes '12 (CLAS) drives to the basket against a Notre Dame defender during last night's game at the XL Center. (Steve Slade '89 (SFA) for UConn)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nThe nationally televised game was a back and forth battle from the outset, with nine lead changes and eight ties, until just under 13 minutes remaining in the game with the score tied at 51-51. Three straight baskets by Skylar Diggins, who finished with 20 points, sparked a 21-8 run that led to the final score. With just over three minutes remaining in the game, Natalie Novosel, who led the Irish with 21 points, hit a 3-point shot and there was no other scoring by either team, with the Huskies held scoreless for the last 7:33 of the game.<\/p>\n
After Novosel\u2019s shot, Auriemma sat his starting players who had been on the court for most of the game and put in his bench players.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was saying we still had three minutes. I think if we would have come together we would have had a chance,\u201d said Tiffany Hayes \u201912 (CLAS), who led the Huskies with 18 points. \u201cI guess he wanted to give the other five a chance. We just had to cheer and see what they could do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stefanie Dolson \u201914 (CLAS) had 12 points, 6 rebounds, and 2 blocks in her best outing in recent weeks.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think she looked like she did last year,\u201d Auriemma said. \u201cThere was a body language that I haven\u2019t seen at any other time this year. She managed to keep that the entire game, which I think is a great positive, for her and for us going forward.\u201d<\/p>\n
Notre Dame, which was picked to finish first in the conference earlier this year, said their first-ever win in Hartford was a point of pride and should earn the Irish a measure of respect.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe wanted to show we deserved respect,\u201d Novosel said. \u201cThat\u2019s the mentality we had. I think a lot of people thought we couldn\u2019t win the championship. We just didn\u2019t feel like we had the respect.\u201d<\/p>\n
Added Diggins, \u201cIt was a pride thing; we wanted to step out of the shadow of UConn. I think the team did a great job staying focused and getting a great win on the road.\u201d<\/p>\n
Irish coach Muffet McGraw said, \u201cI think everybody in the country probably thinks they\u2019re in UConn\u2019s shadow. We have complete respect for Geno and what he\u2019s done here. It\u2019s nice to come and win here, because we haven\u2019t done it before. I think it propels us, makes us a little more anxious to come back to Hartford for the tournament.\u201d<\/p>\n
As the Huskies have struggled during the season, Auriemma has talked about his belief since the pre-season that the relatively young Huskies seem to lack focus at times, repeating mistakes.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis team has not improved since the last time we played Notre Dame,\u201d he said, referring to the seven-point loss in early January in South Bend, Ind. \u201cI would have thought we would have made great strides. This is one of the few years that I can remember that\u2019s been the case.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Huskies will have the No. 3 seed in the Big East Tournament, which begins Friday at the XL Center in Hartford, behind No. 1 Notre Dame and No. 2 St. John’s.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":55663,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[55],"class_list":["post-55631","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-23 15:35:48","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55631","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55631"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55631\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56046,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55631\/revisions\/56046"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/55663"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55631"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55631"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55631"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=55631"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=55631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Stefanie](\"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/BasketballW2.jpg\")
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