Diggins hoping title caps career

NEW ORLEANS — Skylar Diggins has accomplished nearly everything she could have imagined in her career at Notre Dame. The only thing missing is a national championship.

To get another chance at that elusive title, Diggins will have to help the Fighting Irish women beat Big East rival Connecticut (33-4) for an unprecedented fourth straight time this season.

“It would mean a lot,” Diggins said. “I say this over and over — not only to me but to our team and our program, the city of South Ben,d who have been supporting me my whole life. The opportunity is here now.”

These two teams have had the best rivalry in the sport over the past few years, and tonight’s meeting might be the final chapter, with Notre Dame (35-1) heading to the ACC next season.

Two years ago, the Huskies had won the first three meetings before Notre Dame shocked them in the national semifinals. That started an unprecedented run in which the Irish have taken over the rivalry, winning seven of the past eight meetings.

This year the two schools played three thrilling games, with Notre Dame coming out on top by margins of one point, two points and in triple overtime.

“We came out of each game with, ‘Wow, we didn’t play well,’ ” said Notre Dame coach Muffet McGraw. “We can do a lot better. We learned a lot from each game since they were so close.”

Louisville-California

ESPN: Louisville vs. California, 3:30 p.m.; Notre Dame vs. Connecticut 5:30 p.m.

Louisville has really relished being the underdog. So much so that coach Jeff Walz doesn’t want to hear about how the Cardinals have that team-of-destiny air about them heading into the women’s Final Four.

Yet, is there any other way to see Louisville (28-8) after it derailed AP Player of the Year Brittney Griner and defending national champion Baylor, and then upset Tennessee — the most storied program in the sport?

Surely they couldn’t be the underdogs against Final Four newcomer California (32-3) in today’s national semifinals. Don’t tell that to Walz.

“No one expects us to win now,” Walz insisted. “I’m sorry, we’re seeded fifth. So my thing is, I know we won two games, but we’re seeded fifth, and if they expected us to win, we’d be seeded second or third.”

Neither Cal nor Louisville was widely expected to make it this far.