No. 11 Rutgers Defeats No. 1 Notre Dame

Tammy Sutton-Brown converted a three-point play with 28.1 seconds remaining and blocked a last-second shot as No. 11 Rutgers defeated No. 1 Notre Dame, 54-53, on Saturday night at Piscataway, N.J.

“Notre Dame is a great team, they are still No. 1,” Rutgers Coach after the Scarlet Knights, 18-6 overall and 10-3 in the Big East Conference, beat a ranked team for the first time in six games. “We were just very lucky and we are very happy.”

Notre Dame Coach Muffet McGraw saw nothing positive in a loss by the Irish (23-1, 12-1).

“There was absolutely no burden at all,” McGraw said. “We wanted to go through the whole year undefeated. Everyone kept telling me a loss would be good for us. I don’t see it that way. I think this was a great opportunity for us to get a big win on the road and we missed our opportunities at the end.”

Notre Dame had a chance to win after Sutton-Brown’s layup and foul shot, which not only gave the Scarlet Knights the lead, but also sent Irish center Ruth Riley to the bench with her fifth foul.

Niele Ivey tried to drive the lane on Notre Dame’s last possession but Sutton-Brown stepped up and easily swatted the point guard’s shot, catching the ball as it came down.

Sutton-Brown led the Scarlet Knights with 12 points and Dana Boonen, who started in place of Sutton-Brown at center, had a career-high 10 points.

Kelley Siemon had 19 points and a career-high 15 rebounds for the Irish. Riley, who was limited to 25 minutes because of foul problems, had 12 points. Ericka Haney also had 12 points and 10 rebounds.

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In other games, Jennifer Jackson scored 17 points as Kansas (10-14, 4-9 in the Big 12) defeated No. 6 Iowa State, 69-61, at Lawrence, Kan., to end a three-game losing streak. Angie Welle led the Cyclones (20-4, 10-3) with 20 points and nine rebounds. . . . Stacey Dales scored 22 points as No. 10 Oklahoma (21-4, 12-1 in the Big 12) defeated No. 14 Texas Tech (19-5, 10-3), 80-75, at Lubbock, Texas. . . . Anaya Walker had 20 points as No. 8 Louisiana Tech (23-4, 14-0) extended its Sun Belt Conference winning streak to 49 games with a 75-49 victory against New Mexico State (9-15, 6-8) at Las Cruces, N.M. . . . Kristina Andersen had 17 points as No. 16 Utah (22-2, 11-0 in the Mountain West Conference) defeated Colorado State, 67-59, at Fort Collins, Colo. The Rams are 18-5 and 7-3. . . . Kaira White scored 14 points as No. 18 Texas (19-8, 7-6 in the Big 12) scored a 73-69 victory against Oklahoma State (13-11, 5-8) at Stillwater, Okla. . . . Tera Bjorklund had 25 points and eight rebounds as No. 19 Colorado (19-5, 10-3 in the Big 12) defeated Texas A&M;, 67-54, at College Station, Texas. Brandy Jones scored 11 points for the Aggies (12-12, 3-10). . . . Oregon (13-10, 6-7 in the Pacific 10) stopped a five-game losing streak with a 64-60 overtime victory against No. 23 Washington (16-7, 9-4) at Eugene, Ore.