The Notre Dame Fighting Irish were led by 31st-year head coach Muffet McGraw . The Fighting Irish opened their season by winning eleven of their first twelve games , including three wins in the Gulf Coast Showcase and a win in the ACC – Big Ten Women 's Challenge , with three of those four being ranked opponents , most notably defending champions No. 3 South Carolina . The Irish suffered their first loss in their eighth game of the season , a matchup with No. 1 Connecticut in the Jimmy V Classic . Notre Dame entered ACC play 11 – 1 , ranked No. 2 in the nation . The Irish performed exceptionally in conference , finishing the regular season 27 – 2 , with fifteen wins from sixteen ACC games , including three wins against ranked conference opponents ( No. 8 Florida State , No. 19 Duke , and No. 21 NC State ) and one win against a ranked non-conference opponent ( No. 8 Tennessee ) . The Irish 's only other loss of the season came against No. 3 Louisville in their fifth conference game ; Notre Dame finished the season having won their last twelve games and were seeded second in the ACC tournament , where they defeated ( 7 ) Virginia and ( 3 ) Florida State en route to the title game , where they once again fell to Louisville . The Irish were seeded first as an at-large bid in the NCAA Tournament 's Spokane Regional . On their run to the title game , Notre Dame defeated ( 16 ) Cal State Northridge , ( 9 ) Villanova , ( 4 ) Texas A&M , and ( 2 ) Oregon to get to the Final Four , where they faced and defeated ( 1 ) Connecticut in overtime via a made basket by Arike Ogunbowale with 1.0 seconds left
ACC tournament
2018 ACC Women's Basketball Tournament
2018 NCAA Division I Women's Basketball Championship Game