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Texas A&M holds off Irish for crown
AP
Photo
Notre Dame's Skylar Diggins (4) tries to strip the ball from Texas A&M's Adaora Elonu (21) in the first half of the women's NCAA Final Four college basketball championship game in Indianapolis, Tuesday, April 5, 2011.
Associated Press
INDIANAPOLIS
Skylar Diggins turned the NCAA tournament into a bit of a coming out party.
She’ll get another chance next year for the coronation she really wants.
Notre Dame’s dynamic sophomore guard scored 23 points against Texas A&M but committed six turnovers against the stifling Aggies, including one that sealed A&M’s 76-70 victory in Tuesday night’s national championship game.
The budding star who led her prep team to four Indiana state championship games, won Indiana’s Miss Basketball award two years ago and made the all-tournament team eventually succumbed to A&M’s quickness.
“We didn’t handle their pressure,” she said, fighting back tears. “We turned it over too much. I don’t know if it was nerves or what. We just didn’t handle the pressure.”
In the closing minute, Diggins lost the ball after getting double-teamed near the free-throw line, missed a jumper that would have kept it a one possession game and wasted too much time looking for an open teammate.
Diggins didn’t just struggle late, either.
Whether it was nervousness or carelessness, she was one of the primary reasons Notre Dame committed seven turnovers in the first 61/2 minutes of the game, when the Fighting Irish fell behind 18-6. She struggled again, too, midway through the second half when Notre Dame blew a seven-point lead.
“We really dug ourselves a hole early,” coach Muffet McGraw said. “We were very nervous. I thought we were a little flustered offensively and completely out of synch.”
That has been a common thread throughout the postseason for Texas A&M, which limited each of its first four opponents under 50 points.
“Skylar Diggins, she’s as good as it comes, and she was terrific in the first half,” A&M coach Gary Blair told the crowd. “But in the second half, Danielle Adams stepped up.”