Tennessee players, from left, Jannah Tucker, Meighan Simmons, Andraya Carter, Cierra Burdick, Jordan Reynolds and Isabelle Harrison celebrate as they receive a No. 1 seed in the NCAA women’s basketball tournament. Players, coaches and fans gathered Monday night at the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame for the selection show.All season there has been a buzz around women’s college basketball about Connecticut and Notre Dame.
Now the stage is set for the former Big East rivals to meet in a historic national championship game.
The teams enter the NCAA tournament unbeaten — only the second time that’s ever happened. They are on a collision course to meet in the national championship game. If they do both get to Nashville, the Irish will be all that stands between Geno Auriemma and a record ninth NCAA championship, breaking a tie with Tennessee’s retired Pat Summitt.
“We really haven’t talked, I bet hardly at all, about this national championship or what number it is or any of that,” Auriemma said.
Despite being the 13th women’s team to go unbeaten during the regular season, the Irish have felt almost unappreciated with most of the talk centered on the Huskies. Coach Muffet McGraw doesn’t seem to mind.