{"id":57742,"date":"2012-04-02T09:29:28","date_gmt":"2012-04-02T13:29:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=57742"},"modified":"2012-04-05T15:25:22","modified_gmt":"2012-04-05T19:25:22","slug":"notre-dame-wins-in-overtime-to-end-huskies%e2%80%99-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2012\/04\/notre-dame-wins-in-overtime-to-end-huskies%e2%80%99-season\/","title":{"rendered":"Notre Dame Wins in Overtime to End Huskies\u2019 Season"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Tiffany<\/a>
Tiffany Hayes \u201912 (CLAS), left, and Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis \u201915 (CLAS) greet Kelly Faris \u201913 (ED) after she helped send the NCAA Tournament game against Notre Dame into overtime at the Pepsi Center in Denver on Sunday. (Bob Stowell for UConn)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Huskies had exceeded all expectations from the beginning of the season, when even head coach Geno Auriemma did not think his team would be likely to reach the 2012 Final Four. Yet the young team kept winning, despite repeated errors pointed out by their coaches, until the sting of a 13-point loss to Notre Dame in the last home game of the regular season made them understand, and sent them on a seven-game postseason run to the Mile High City.<\/p>\n

Committing 21 turnovers, however, and an aggressive defensive effort by Notre Dame at the Pepsi Center in Denver on Sunday was too much for the Huskies to overcome in a rematch of last year\u2019s NCAA semifinal game. Although they fought back from a 7-point deficit in regulation to force the game into overtime, the Huskies could not match the Fighting Irish, who made it 3-0 against the Huskies in the national semifinals to win 83-75. Notre Dame will play in the national title game on Tuesday in Denver against Baylor, which defeated Stanford 59-47 on Sunday.<\/p>\n

\u201cAny time you have that many turnovers, the defense has a lot to do with it and you have a lot to do with it yourself,\u201d Auriemma said. \u201cWe were just not very good offensively. I can\u2019t tell you why, because maybe it was the emotions of the game. Or maybe for some of our younger guys, maybe the game was too big for us. There was a lot of standing around and that\u2019s just not us. It\u2019s not how we play.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Stefanie<\/a>
Stefanie Dolson \u201914 (CLAS) drives to the basket between two Notre Dame defenders during the NCAA semifinal game Sunday night in Denver. (Bob Stowell for UConn)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

With center Stefanie Dolson \u201914 (CLAS) sitting on the bench for 10 minutes after picking up her fourth foul early in the second half, following an opening period with 12 points \u2013 she finished with 20 \u2013 the Huskies and the Irish battled back and forth. Bria Hartley \u201914 (CLAS), who finished with 18 points, and Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis \u201915 (CLAS), with 13 points, led the Huskies, and Natalie Novosel (20 points) and All-American Skylar Diggins (19 points) paced Notre Dame, along with key shots by Brittany Mallory (11 points), as the game wound down to a 67-67 tie at the end of regulation.<\/p>\n

\u201c[Dolson] really played well,\u201d said Irish head coach Muffet McGraw. \u201cWe were having trouble guarding her. We were supposed to be in front of her. We never quite got there. That was one of the best games she had against us, and certainly having her out of the game \u2026 was important for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Auriemma had said that in facing Notre Dame for the fourth time this season and the eighth time in just over a year, the game likely would be determined by one player making a big play. Mallory\u2019s two consecutive 3-point shots in overtime to break a 70-70 tie kept the Irish ahead until the end of the game.<\/p>\n

\"Caroline<\/a>
Caroline Doty \u201913 (CLAS) battles for the ball against Natalie Novosel of Notre Dame at the Pepsi Center in Denver during the NCAA Tournament on Sunday. (Bob Stowell for UConn)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cWe put ourselves in the position to win the game. That last two minutes of regulation was pretty amazing,\u201d Auriemma said. \u201cAs most games do, it turned on one great play by a great player. And when we got into overtime we just didn\u2019t have enough. They just made some shots. We took a chance on making it difficult, but Brittany Mallory made two huge shots; that\u2019s who we wanted to shoot the ball. God bless her, she stepped up and made the shots.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Huskies nearly won the game in regulation, after trailing for nearly the last 12 minutes of the second period. With Notre Dame ahead by 4 points, Kelly Faris \u201913 (ED), who had 10 points, 5 assists, and 3 steals, again imposed her refuse-to-lose will upon a game. With 1:19 remaining in regulation, she picked up the ball stolen by Tiffany Hayes \u201912 (CLAS), threw the ball back to Hayes, and then got the rebound from her teammate\u2019s missed shot to cut the Notre Dame lead to 2 points, 65-63. A few moments later, she was fouled by Deveraux Peters and made two free throws to tie the game at 65. Faris then stole the ball and was fouled by Diggins going to the basket. She made both free throws to give UConn its first lead since halftime. But Novosel laid in a missed shot by Diggins with three seconds left in regulation to send the game to overtime.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur defense was fine for the first 40 minutes,\u201d Auriemma said. \u201cWe just passed up too many opportunities. You can\u2019t do that against Notre Dame. You can\u2019t come away empty-handed. They\u2019re just too good. You can\u2019t give them that many chances.\u201d<\/p>\n

The loss signaled the final game for Hayes, who played in her fourth consecutive Final Four.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe fought hard and made it further than anybody thought we would,\u201d Hayes said. \u201cWe have nothing to hang our heads over. I\u2019m definitely proud of the season and proud of the way we were able to handle our ups and downs over the year. It hurts because I know we definitely could have had the game and we let another one slip away.\u201d<\/p>\n

Faris, known for her stoic demeanor on the floor during a game, was emotional when talking about seeing Hayes play her last game in a Connecticut uniform.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hate this for her. It\u2019s just like last year [when we] sent Maya [Moore] out like that. It\u2019s hard,\u201d Faris said. \u201c[Tiffany] changed a lot this year. I couldn\u2019t have been more proud of her this season. She took on a [leadership] role; she excelled at it and I know it wasn\u2019t easy for her to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reflecting on her time at UConn, which included winning two national championships and back-to-back unbeaten seasons, Hayes said, \u201cI think it was a good four years here and I wouldn\u2019t have done it anywhere else if I had the chance.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After exceeding expectations from the beginning of the season, the Huskies lost to Notre Dame in the NCAA semifinal on Sunday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":57745,"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-57742","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":"2026-05-09 06:26:45","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\/57742","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=57742"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57742\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58053,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57742\/revisions\/58053"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/57745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57742"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=57742"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=57742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}