Notre Dame, Muffet McGraw headed back to the Final Four

The defending national champions are headed to the Final Four once again.

After getting off to a rough start from beyond the arc, the Notre Dame Fighting Irish put on an absolute clinic in the second half to beat Stanford 84-68 in the Elite Eight of the Chicago Regional.

Led by a scoring tandem of Jackie Young and Arike Ogunbowale, the Irish were simply too much for Stanford to handle. However, it wasn’t as easy as the final score might suggest. The Cardinal were the better team on both ends of the floor to start the night. Even head coach Muffet McGraw noticed something was off.

“First half, could not make a shot,” McGraw said. “I thought we looked just completely out of sorts, very unlike what we normally look like. I think credit Stanford’s defense. They were hitting the boards hard. They were packing it in. We couldn’t get anything going.”

Stanford’s length and size caused significant issues for Notre Dame trying to get anything going inside, and were active on the offensive glass grabbing nine offensive boards in the first half.

Going into the locker room with a 33-26 edge, it appeared that Stanford coach Tara VanDerveer game-planned perfectly against Notre Dame, limiting Ogunbowale and Young to a combined 4-19 from the field.

As well as Stanford played i-n the first half on defense, that’s about as bad as it got after the break. It also helped that Young scored 19 of her 25 points in the second half of the game. Couple that with Stanford going cold in the third quarter, shooting 27% from the field, and 25% from deep, and this game got away from the Cardinal quickly.

There were several runs throughout the fourth quarter that gave a little sliver of hope that Stanford could come back in the game. With Alanna Smith and Kiana Williams knocking down shots, Stanford hung in there as long as possible before Notre Dame started clicking on all cylinders and ran away with it.

Ogunbowale was named Most Outstanding Player of the Chicago Regional after posting 34- and 21-point game performances in the Sweet Sixteen and Elite Eight. Ogunbowale was joined by teammate Jessica Shepard on the All-Tournament team, who collected her 17th double-double on the season against the Fighting Irish.