Entering the month of February, it seemed Notre Dame’s 2019-20 women's basketball season couldn’t end soon enough.
Now that it’s March … the Fighting Irish don’t want it to stop now.
Head coach Muffet McGraw’s squad capped the regular season with a 70-67 upset win at No. 19 Florida State (22-7 overall now), thereby winning their last three games and finishing 6-3 in the last nine (or since February).
With a 13-17 record overall — 8-10 in the ACC — Notre Dame will begin ACC Tournament play in Greensboro, N.C. this Wednesday (March 4) as the No. 10 seed versus No. 15 (last place) Pitt. The Irish defeated the Panthers 60-52 on the road on Jan. 2 and 74-52 at home on Feb. 9.
For Notre Dame to get into the NCAA Tournament, it has to win five game in five days, a virtually impossible task.
Still, it has begun to play to its potential in the last month in a reconstruction era after it had been one of the nation’s top three programs throughout the 2010-19 decade.
Freshman forward Sam Brunelle converted 7 of 11 from three-point range, with her 25 points pacing the attack. Her final trey put the Irish ahead 64-63 at the 2:30 mark in the fourth quarter.
The seven threes tied for second-most in a game in the program’s history, behind the eight (on 12 attempts) by Sheila McMillen versus St. John’s in 1998.
Notre Dame trailed 41-30 early in the third quarter after a 9-0 FSU run, but gradually chipped away and pulled within 52-50 at the end of the third on a Brunelle three at the horn.
With the score knotted at 64, graduate student/point guard Marta Sniezek went to her left to finish a layup, and then did the same, this time to her right, shortly thereafter to put the Irish up for good at 68-66.
With 1.5 seconds remaining and Notre Dame leading 69-66, the Seminoles’ Nicki Ekhomu was fouled on an off-balance three-point attempt. However, she missed her first free throw attempt, made the second and a lane violation on the forced missed with the third helped ensure the win.
Three-Point Play
1. Sam I Am
In a few days Brunelle will be recognized as the ACC Rookie of The Year, and she will be the rock upon whom Notre Dame will build its foundation to return to Final Four contention in hopefully two or three years.
Considered one of the elite recruits/shooters last year as a Top-5 prospect, Brunelle found her shooting stroke as the season progressed and converted 18 of 37 (.486) beyond the arc in the last four games, with an emphasis by McGraw to get the right ball movement that allows her to not rush shots. Sniezek also developed a good chemistry with her while giving her screens off a pass — and opened up more driving lanes for Sniezek, as it did late versus FSU.
2. Close Calls
The strong finish also leads to frustrations of so many opportunities blown on the road this season that should have resulted in what would have been a respectable 11-7 league record, and above .500 overall.
The Irish squandered double-digit second-half leads at Syracuse (Jan. 5), Duke (Jan. 16) and Boston College (Feb. 13), with the Orange hitting a desperation three in regulation at the buzzer to send the game into overtime, and Boston College winning after the Irish had gone ahead with 1.5 seconds left in the contest. Sometimes, though, one must grow through the experience of failure.
3. Playing Loose
As written previously in this column, once McGraw went through all the “stages” of denial, anger, bargaining and sadness — and then finally reached the "acceptance" stage of recognizing this team can't be like the last decade and she has to start anew , everyone began settling in and settling down, and played more to their potential for this season.
Next year with more chemistry among the current group and the influx of five freshmen, it will be about getting back into Top 25 status.
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