Final Four live results: Notre Dame beats UConn on last-second shot

For the second straight season an undefeated UConn team was beaten in the national semifinal by a last-second shot. On Friday night in Columbus is was Arike Ogunbowale playing hero to send Notre Dame to the title game.

Ogunbowale scored 27 points for the Irish, forming a potent 1-2 punch along with Jackie Young, who scored 32.

The loss marked the seventh consecutive overtime loss for UConn, and just their third loss in their last 197 games.

Notre Dame will play Mississippi State on Sunday for the national championship.

The second half was full of close basketball with several lead changes, something UConn wasn’t accustomed to after winning their first 36 games of the season (and 194 of their last 196, before Friday).

Notre Dame trailed by eight with 6:49 but built a five-point advantage with 21 seconds left, looking primed to pull a huge upset. But a three by Napheesa Collier followed by a steal and breakaway layup by Kia Nurse improbably tied this game back up.

We will need an extra period to see who gets to play Mississippi State on Sunday for the national championship.

Kobe Bryant is in attendance watching the women’s Final Four, and ESPN showed him walking through the crowd and saying hello to Teaira Mccowan, who led Mississippi State to a win in the earlier game on Friday night. Mccowan’s reaction was priceless:

Notre Dame keeps hanging around, and thanks to threes in the final two minutes of the quarter by Marina Mabrey and Arike Ogunbowale remain within striking distance.

But UConn’s Azura Stevens scored the final four points of the quarter to take the lead into the final period.

The Huskies used a 13-0 run to tie things up, then a 14-0 run to surge into the lead at the half. UConn hasn’t won 36 straight and 194 of their last 196 for nothing. Katie Lou Samuelson has 13 at the break, and UConn got 10 each from Gabby Williams and Azura Stevens, the latter off the bench.

Jackie Young has 13 to lead Notre Dame, keeping them within striking distance.

UConn finally gets going, hitting two three-pointers and one by Katie Lou Samuelson at the buzzer. But it’s still a 10-point game. It’s also still UConn. It will be interesting to see how they respond. Credit to Notre Dame for how they’ve started this game.

Also. KOBE IS HERE!

That Notre Dame defense is still causing UConn a ton of problems. The Huskies are 0-for-6 from behind the arc in the first quarter so far. They’re face guarding Katie Lou Samuelson and it’s working to perfection.

Notre Dame jumps out to an early lead. The Irish came out in a 1-3-1 zone which is causing UConn some trouble so far, making this a half court game. This is the first time Notre Dame has trailed all tournament.

On their way to yet another Final Four, and having gone almost a calendar year without a loss, the No. 1 seed UConn Huskies will take on No. 1 seed Notre Dame in Columbus, Ohio on Friday night around 9:30 p.m. ET (the second game).

The team doesn’t like to think about it, but last year’s NCAA Tournament was rough for UConn, being knocked out of their 10th consecutive Final Four in an overtime loss to Mississippi State. They might not like to think about it, but that doesn’t mean people let them forget, either.

“I don’t have much choice but to think about it because it’s brought up in almost everything that I do, so yeah, I think about it all the time,” said UConn senior Gabby Williams following their win over South Carolina in the Elite Eight.

Williams and co. are certainly doing everything they can to avoid the same outcome. Already this tournament, they set all sorts of NCAA records with their 140-52 first-round win over Saint Francis (Pa.), claimed a 25-point victory over Quinnipiac, then a 13-point win over Duke, and was emphatic about making the Final Four with a 94-65 win over No. 2 South Carolina.

In UConn’s win over the Gamecocks, both Gabby Williams and Crystal Dangerfield scored more than 20 points, with Dangerfield going 5-for-5 from being the arc in the first half. Katie Lou Samuelson and Napheesa Collier had big games with 17 and 16 points each, respectively, and the team as whole set a new school record for most points scored in the Elite Eight game of the NCAA tournament.

Nothing has been easy so far this season for the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, and having fought through injury-after-injury — resulting in only seven players on the team’s bench — beating UConn would have a lot of meaning. Not only to get into the championship game but to get revenge for the loss they took from the Huskies back in December.

The Irish have had a solid run thus far in the tournament, racking up wins by margins ranging from six to 26 points. Their most recent win was over the No. 2 seed Oregon Ducks, and despite some lead changes throughout the matchup, Notre Dame’s conditioning won 94-84. It was a true team effort with four players claiming well over 10 points, Kathryn Westbeld led the squad with 20 points, followed by Arike Ogunbowale (19), Jessica Shepard (18) and Marina Mabrey (15).

In a rare tournament occurrence, all of the Final Four teams are No. 1 seeds, which should make for a great evening of women’s college basketball. With UConn charging through opponents, and Notre Dame outlasting its foes, it could be a long night in Columbus.