After back-to-back convincing victories in the NCAA Tournament, one might think that Notre Dame coach Kevin Corrigan is getting a little tired of hearing the word "upset" attached to his team’s wins.

For his part, Corrigan didn’t try to duck the Fighting Irish’s triumphs over No. 6 seed Princeton in the first round and No. 3 seed Maryland in the quarterfinals.

"Look, we were 7-6 in the regular season," Corrigan said via telephone Sunday morning. "It is what it is. Certainly, they were the favorites, and we understand that. As long as we hear win, I don’t care what the prefix is."

Saturday’s 7-5 decision against the Terps (12-4) cemented Notre Dame’s first trip to the Final Four since 2001 when that squad fell to Syracuse, 12-5. Corrigan said the coaches have not tried to use the program’s tradition as inspiration with this year’s team.

"We talked about this with our kids last week and we said, ‘We’ve been to the tournament 15 years, but that’s meaningless because some of those happened before a lot of you were born,’" Corrigan said. "While tradition is certainly important to a program and it’s meaningful to the kids to be part of a program like that, it’s this year and this team that you’re kind of focused on. It’s a thrill and I’m guessing that if it happened again within the next four years, it would be just as much of a thrill every time."