LEXINGTON, Ky. -- Notre Dame and Stanford will play Sunday to decide once and for all which is the era's preeminent program in women's basketball.
Or at least, that's how the story goes in a parallel universe. One in which Geno Auriemma perhaps followed a passion for food and wine to rise to the pinnacle of the restaurant business and scratched a suppressed itch for basketball by building a dynasty in the local CYO league.
In our version of reality, the stakes when top-seeded Notre Dame and second-seeded Stanford meet in Sunday's regional final (ESPN/WatchESPN, noon ET) are familiar to both.