Lincoln Regional

Texas A&M 84, DePaul 65 — Courtney Walker is playing her best basketball of the season for Texas A&M. She is going to have to be even better in her next game.

Walker scored 25 points, and the Aggies beat DePaul on Saturday night to advance to the regional finals of the NCAA women's tournament.

"The competition goes up," Walker said, "your play has to go up."

Walker and the Aggies will have to be at their best Monday night when they face defending national champion UConn.

"If we follow our game plan, play hard and not worry about the fact it says UConn on their jersey, we'll be fine," point guard Jordan Jones said. "So many get caught up in the hype of it being UConn. It's that mental aspect of it."

The Aggies (27-8) led the Blue Demons by 14 points at halftime and turned back two runs to win a third straight tournament game by at least 15 points.

"Yes, we can score points," Aggies coach Gary Blair said, "but we can defend, too."

DePaul (29-7) shot 40 percent against A&M's man-to-man defense, 28 percent in the first half. In their first two tournament games, the Blue Demons shot 45 percent while making a combined 25 3-pointers. They were just 4 of 20 from long distance against A&M.

"They played great defense and took away our jump shots," Megan Rogowski said. "They get into you. We needed to drive the ball more. You saw that in the second half when we made a run. But it was too late."

Courtney Williams had 14 of her 15 points in the second half for the Aggies. Karla Gilbert and Jordan Jones had 11 points apiece and Tori Scott scored 10.

Walker stepped up when the Aggies needed her the most. She's averaging 22.6 points over the last five games.

"She can stop, pop and rise. She's got that intermediate game, and very few people have that," DePaul coach Doug Bruno said. "She's a high-percentage 3-point shooter. Once we went to the zone, she was able to knock them down from out there."

The sophomore guard scored 13 points over a nine-minute stretch of the first half when the Aggies' lead grew from seven to 13 points. The Aggies led by 22 in the second half when Walker went the bench with three fouls, and DePaul went on an 11-2 run to close to 57-44.

Texas A&M got its lead back to 17 points, but the Blue Demons pulled to 10 with 6 minutes left. The Aggies then used a 12-2 spurt to make it a 20-point game again.

Jasmine Penny had 16 of her 24 points in the second half and Rogowski added 14 points for the Blue Demons. Megan Podkowa had 11 points, nine rebounds and four blocked shots.

Notre Dame Regional

Notre Dame 89, Oklahoma St. 72 — Natalie Achonwa got Notre Dame going early and never let up as she finished with 23 points and Jewell Loyd added 20 to lead the Fighting Irish over Oklahoma State.

Notre Dame (35-0) is a victory away from its fifth straight Final Four berth, while the Cowgirls (25-9) missed a chance to advance to a regional final for the first time in school history. They fell to 0-3 in regional semifinals.

To get to the Final Four, the Irish will have to beat Baylor, the last team to knockoff Notre Dame at home.

The Irish jumped to a 14-0 lead in the opening 3:31, capped by a three-point play by Achonwa, as the Cowgirls missed their first six shots. The Cowgirls later used a 7-0 run to cut the lead to 24-14, but that was as close as they got.

Baylor 90, Kentucky 72 — Odyssey Sims scored 25 points, including her 1,000th this season, to lead No. 2 seed Baylor to a 90-72 rout of third-seeded Kentucky.

Sims became only the second player to reach that milestone in a single season. She is 41 points behind Jackie Stiles' record of 1,062 for one year set in 2001.

The last time Baylor and Kentucky met, they played one of the most exciting games in the history of women's basketball. The Wildcats came away with a 133-130 four-overtime victory back in December.

This one fell far short of matching that thriller as Sims and Baylor (32-4) put the game away by the half.

DeNesha Stallworth scored 19 points to lead Kentucky (26-9).