Notre Dame’s Skylar Diggins held up her end, though, in the anticipated matchup between two of the Big East’s finest players. The junior guard scored a game-high 22 points on 7-for-12 shooting, went 8 for 10 from the free throw line and added four assists, three rebounds and a steal.
The Fighting Irish also got 21 points from senior guard Natalie Novosel and 16 from sophomore guard Kayla McBride, who was 6 for 6 from the foul line. As a team, Notre Dame shot 88 percent (28 of 32) on free throws.
The Hoyas (13-4, 2-2 Big East) lost for the second straight time at home despite taking 28 more shots than Notre Dame, winning handily in offensive rebounding, 22-6, and forcing 18 turnovers. Georgetown’s downfall was 28 percent shooting, including 18 percent in the first half. The Hoyas, who are 2-4 against ranked teams, also were 5 for 24 from three-point range.
“We did enough things to win the game,” Georgetown Coach Terri Williams-Flournoy said. “We just didn’t score enough points, and you can’t give a team 80 points.”
Trailing 37-16 at halftime, the Hoyas cranked up the pressure and had Notre Dame off-balance for long stretches in the second half. The frenetic pace caused Diggins to pick up her fourth foul with 11:11 left, and Brittany Mallory, the Fighting Irish’s most capable defender, logged her fourth with 10 minutes to play.
Ten seconds after Diggins’s fourth personal, Rodgers made a three-pointer for her first field goal of the game to draw Georgetown to 48-37. Notre Dame Coach Muffet McGraw called timeout, and the Fighting Irish responded with consecutive baskets.
Georgetown went on a 13-6 run to draw to 10 points on Rodgers’s second three-pointer and twice more cut the deficit to that margin, including 62-52 with 5:14 to play. But the Fighting Irish (16-1, 4-0) never let it get closer than that, making all but two of their foul shots in the final minutes to preserve the victory.
“We faced a lot of adversity out there,” McGraw said. “So I was really pleased. We got a good challenge on the road, and we handled it well.”
The Hoyas were unable to settle into any rhythm offensively in the first half. They scored a season-low 16 points and thus stumbled to their largest halftime deficit this season.
Georgetown missed 31 of 38 shots in the first half, and Rodgers went 0 for 4 with four turnovers. Notre Dame, meantime, shot 52 percent and constructed a 21-point advantage on the strength of a 16-2 surge in the closing minutes in which Diggins scored 11 points.
The Hoyas held a 15-4 margin in offensive rebounds by intermission, but that was small consolation considering their starting lineup combined to shoot 3 for 24, including 0 for 6 from three-point range.
“Tonight was just not our night,” Rodgers said. “I mean we’ll see them again down the road, and it’s going to be a different story.”
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