TONIGHT
TONIGHT
NCAA Championship -- Raleigh Region/Second Round
#4/4 [#1 seed] Notre Dame Fighting Irish (31-3 / 15-1 BIG EAST) vs. [#8 seed] California Golden Bears (25-9 / 13-5 Pac-12)
DATE: March 20, 2012 TIME: 7:20 p.m. ET
AT: Notre Dame, Ind. - Purcell Pavilion (9,149)
SERIES: ND leads 1-0
LAST MTG: ND 62-59 (3/18/07)
TV: ESPN2/ESPN3/WatchESPN/ESPN Full Court (live) (Dave O'Brien, p-b-p / Doris Burke, color)
RADIO: Pulse FM (96.9/92.1) / UND.com (live) (Bob Nagle, p-b-p)
LIVE STATS: UND.com
•Notre Dame is 19-2 (.905) all-time in NCAA Championship play when holding its opponent to 60 points or fewer.
•The Fighting Irish are 10-1 (.909) this season, and 26-8 (.765) in the past four years, when playing on just one day's rest (or less).
Rankings
•Notre Dame was No. 4 in the final Associated Press poll and is No. 4 in the current ESPN/USA Today poll.
•California was receiving votes in the final Associated Press poll and is receiving votes in the current ESPN/USA Today poll.
Quick Hitters
•Notre Dame earned its second BIG EAST title, and first outright championship (first in any league since the 1995 Midwestern Collegiate Conference/Horizon League crown).
•Notre Dame appears in the top 30 of 13 different NCAA statistical categories, including seven top-10 appearances (as of Monday). The Fighting Irish rank second in scoring offense (79.4 ppg.), while placing third in scoring margin (+27.6 ppg.) and field goal percentage (.473), fourth in assists (18.1 apg.), fifth in steals (13.1 spg.) and turnover margin (+6.76), seventh in scoring defense (51.8 ppg.), 11th in rebounding margin (+9.1 rpg.) and assist/turnover ratio (1.12), 14th in free throw percentage (.763), 26th in three-point percentage (.349), 27th in three-point percentage defense (.269) and 29th in field goal percentage defense (.354).
•Notre Dame is 12-2 against Top 25 opponents this season (8-2 away from home), including five victories in seven outings against teams in the top 10. The 12 wins over ranked opponents is a school record for an entire season (2000-01), let alone in the regular season (previous was seven in 2003-04 and 2004-05).
•Notre Dame is just the second school ever to defeat both Connecticut and Tennessee in consecutive seasons, matching the feat first pulled off by North Carolina in 2005-06 and 2006-07.
•Notre Dame is the first school to win three consecutive series games against Connecticut since North Carolina (2004-07) and Tennessee (2005-07), and the first BIG EAST program to do so since Miami (1992-93).
•Nine of the 12 Fighting Irish victories against Top 25 opponents this season have been by double digits, including four by at least 25 points -- notably a 30-point win at No. 13/14 Rutgers on Jan. 31 (Notre Dame's largest margin of victory ever on the road at a ranked opponent) and a 28-point win over No. 7/9 Tennessee on Jan. 23 (the largest margin of victory ever and fewest points ever allowed by Notre Dame against a top-10 team).
•Notre Dame has posted back-to-back 30-win seasons for the first time in school history while reaching that mark for the fourth time in school history (31-7 in 1996-97; 34-2 in 2000-01; 31-8 in 2010-11). The Fighting Irish also notched their 30th win prior to the NCAA Championship for the first time ever.
•Of the 31 Fighting Irish wins, 21 have come by 20+ points, and a school record-tying 12 by at least 30 points. In 26 victories this year, Notre Dame has held its opponent to 60 points or fewer, with a school-record 18 when the opponent had 50 points or fewer (and a school-record six of 40 or fewer).
•The Fighting Irish have scored at least 100 points twice this year, while going over 90 points a school-record nine times (including a school-record four in a row from Dec. 18-30) and topping the 80-point mark 14 times.
•Notre Dame is ranked No. 4 in the latest Associated Press and ESPN/USA Today polls, marking the 19th consecutive week the Fighting Irish appeared in the top five of both major national polls. That's the longest uninterrupted streak of consensus top-five poll appearances in school history, topping the previous standard set during the final 18 weeks of the 2000-01 season (Notre Dame was sixth in the preseason AP poll that year).
•With its No. 4 ranking in the final AP poll of the season, Notre Dame has appeared in the media rankings for 96 consecutive weeks, extending a program record that dates back to the 2007-08 preseason poll. In fact, every current Fighting Irish player has competed for a ranked Notre Dame squad throughout her career, with more than half that time (58 weeks) spent in the AP Top 10.
•With 587 victories in 25 seasons at Notre Dame, head coach Muffet McGraw ranks second on the Fighting Irish athletics all-time coaching wins list (across all sports), trailing only men's/women's fencing coach Michael DeCicco (774-80 from 1962-95).
Other Notre Dame Notables
•Notre Dame is among the nation's winningest programs during the past 16 seasons (1996-97 to present), ranking fourth with 405 victories.
•For the fifth year in a row, the Fighting Irish posted a perfect 100-percent Graduation Success Rate (GSR), according to figures released by the NCAA in October. What's more, since Muffet McGraw became head coach in 1987, every Notre Dame women's basketball player who has completed her athletic and academic eligibility at the University has earned her bachelor's degree (a 64-for-64 success rate). The Fighting Irish also are one of only four schools in the past four years to record a 100-percent GSR and play for a national championship in the same season.
