Georgetown vs. Notre Dame: Skylar Diggins and No. 2 Fighting Irish run away ... - Washington Post

The 18th-ranked Georgetown women’s basketball team endured a ragged first half on Tuesday night, and despite pushing No. 2 Notre Dame after intermission, the Hoyas lost for the second time in three games, 80-60, before 2,119 at McDonough Gym.

It was a particularly grueling evening for Georgetown’s Sugar Rodgers, the Big East’s leading scorer â€" she rarely had a clean look at the basket. The junior guard finished with 13 points on 3-for-18 shooting and did not score until 18 minutes 41 seconds remained in the game.

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.”