'Deer in the headlights'? ND came out loaded for bear, knocking down shots, playing D, etc. I saw no fear. They were not in awe of big bad UCONN.
Then UCONN began to play, and that, as they say, was that. ND simply got it's green tush kicked. All the mental toughness in the world wasn't going to make a difference. Muffin was thinking back to her teams made up of bruise sisters who were good enough, but would stomp you, until and if the refs did something about it, which they rarely did. 'Mental toughness' at ND translates to assault.
Tara took a page from Muffin this year because she had nothing to lose, and if there is a silver lining to that L, it isn't that we didn't work hard enough. It was that UCONN came to understand, at a gut level, that every other team out there has a simple game plan: hold them, bang them, knock them down, and hope for the best.