CHICAGO — Something happened in the second half of Stanford’s NCAA Elite Eight game against Notre Dame in Chicago Monday night.

“We got pummeled,” said Stanford senior Alanna Smith.

Pummeled, steam-rolled, dominated- any of those words would fit the manner in which the defending champion Notre Dame Irish outplayed the Cardinal in the second half on the way to an impressive 84-68 victory to advance to this coming weekend’s Final Four in Tampa.

After building a 33-26 lead at halftime and scoring the first basket of the second half, Stanford was overwhelmed by the offensive push by the Irish. After shooting just over 25 percent in the first half, the Irish started driving to the hoop relentlessly, led by junior guard Jackie Young, who scored 19 of her game-high 25 points in the second half.

“We did not do a good enough job defensively,” said Stanford coach Tara VanDerveer. “We fouled them too much, they got on the offensive boards, dominated that, and we turned the ball over too much.”

Stanford entered the tournament as its best defensive team, but they allowed the Irish to shoot 64 percent (23 of 36) from the field in the second half and were out scored 11-3 at the free throw line. The other numbers in the second half box score are just as revealing.

“We came out at halftime and lost our focus a little bit and they got away with it,” said Smith, who completed her basketball career at Stanford in the loss. “We weren’t following our game plan as well and they came out very aggressive.”

“It wasn’t out of control until the fourth quarter,” said guard DiJonai Carrington, who finished with 18 points while backcourt mate Kiana Williams had 20. “After that third quarter, we were feeling it for sure, but in the fourth quarter we were turning the ball over and they were getting easy buckets.”

Smith was the third Stanford player in double digits with 14 points, and added 8 rebounds. But Notre Dame grabbed 19 offensive rebounds in the game, turning them into 22 second-chance points, 17 in the second half.

The game was played at Wintrust Arena in downtown Chicago, 90 miles from the Notre Dame campus. When the game started to turn in Notre Dame’s favor, the predominantly green-clad crowd grew boisterous and every Stanford miscue was celebrated as loudly as the successful Irish plays.

The game ends the career of Smith, the Australian native who was not only a member of the All-PAC 12 team but also on the All-PAC defensive team and this season’s PAC-12 Scholar Athlete of the Year. She was named to the Associated Press All-America Second Team. The accolades she has accumulated at Stanford are too numerous to mention.

“She had a great career at Stanford, and we will miss her next year,” VanDerveer said. “It has been the best four years of my life, and I don’t think I would be the person I am today without my teammates and my coaching staff. It is going to be very, very hard to leave.”

The Cardinal will play next year without Smith but with Carrington, Williams, sophomore Maya Dodson and freshmen Lacie and Lexie Hull having advanced to the Elite Eight with good reason to believe they can do that next year, and perhaps reach the Final Four as the program did in 2017.

“This is a really, really close team, a really fun team to work with, and I’m really proud of them,” VanDerveer said. “They have had a great year. We’ve dealt with some adversity, we hope to get some people healthy, we have great recruits coming in next year, so it is something to look forward to.”

Among the newcomers is the No. 1 recruit in the nation, Haley Jones from Archbishop Mitty in San Jose.