SOUTH BEND, Ind. – Providence faced a difficult situation when it played Notre Dame on Tuesday night with the Irish coming off a frustrating loss to West Virginia.
It got a whole lot worse for the Friars when Teya Wright sprained an ankle during the second minute of the game.
Rachel Barnes scored 16 points, but Providence committed 21 turnovers in a 66-47 loss at the fourth-ranked Irish.
"They're running hard each possession and if you're not prepared and you're not ready to play defense and you don't stop the ball, they're going to just drive right down your throat," Friars coach Phil Seymore said.
The hobbled Wright, who leads the team with 13 points and 9.2 rebounds per game, was held to five points and three rebounds in 23 minutes of play.
"Hopefully she will be ready for the Georgetown game," said Seymore, whose team faces the Hoyas on Saturday. "We have won some games without her when we have gone with smaller lineups. I did not know if she was 100 percent and ready to go. Defensively she wasn't doing some of the things that I wanted her to do so I might have taken her out for that reason."
Devereaux Peters had 19 points and 11 rebounds for Notre Dame (25-2, 12-1 Big East), which lost 65-63 to West Virginia on Sunday, snapping a 21-game winning streak. Peters had 17 rebounds and blocked six shots against the Mountaineers, but also went 1 for 8 from the field and finished with four points.
"That's never going to happen again in my career here," she said Tuesday. "That is just unacceptable. I don't care what the circumstances are. (Against West Virginia) I wasn't squaring up, I wasn't being aggressive, I wasn't being physical. I just have to keep pushing and look for the ball more."
Skylar Diggins finished with 19 points and seven assists for the Irish, who shot 48 percent from the field and outrebounded the Friars 41-25. Peters' eighth double-double of the season helped Notre Dame outscore Providence 40-26 in the paint.
Symone Roberts had 12 points for Providence (13-13, 5-8), and Barnes also had eight rebounds.
The Irish shot 56 percent in the first half and led 37-27 at the break. Diggins had 15 points at intermission.
Providence opened the second half with five quick points but Notre Dame went on a 12-3 run to take a 55-38 lead with 10:53 to go. The Irish's largest lead was 22, at 65-43 lead with 2:42 remaining.
Notre Dame went 15 for 23 from the foul line, compared to 2 for 5 for the Friars.
"That means we were shooting a lot of jump shots," Seymore said. "We were not getting the ball inside enough to get to the line and that was the big difference in the game. They went to the line 23 times and we went five times. You can't win basketball games like that."
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