First, Todd Stewart said he sat down when Michelle Clark-Heard told him which team she locked up on this year’s schedule. Then, Stewart asked her to repeat it.

As Heard has built Western Kentucky back into a mid-major contender among well-known women’s basketball programs, the coach and athletic director both acknowledged getting teams to play the Lady Toppers at E.A. Diddle Arena has become more challenging.

It won’t get much tougher than playing a team that’s won 240 games and been to five Final Fours in the past seven years.

Notre Dame, one of the nation’s powerhouse teams in women’s basketball, will play WKU at 7 p.m. Tuesday at Diddle Arena in the first of a home-and-home series. WKU will travel to South Bend, Ind., in 2018.

The sixth-ranked Fighting Irish (1-0) have played in four national championship games over the last seven years and won four straight Atlantic Coast Conference regular-season and tournament titles.

“I give Michelle credit for scheduling this game and I give (coach) Muffet McGraw and Notre Dame credit because it’s become a challenge for us to have good opponents come in here,” Stewart said. “There’s been a lot of great teams and great programs come into Diddle Arena, but honestly, I don’t know if anyone has a better body of work than this Notre Dame program over the last seven years.”

Notre Dame is the highest-ranked team to visit Diddle Arena since Louisville visited in 2013 as the No. 4 team in the country. WKU (1-1) is 3-6 against top 25 opponents under Heard, a mark that includes Friday’s season-opening win over No. 23 Missouri at the Hawkeye Challenge in Iowa.

WKU followed that up with an overtime loss to host Iowa. The Lady Toppers are in a tough opening stretch with a road game at Indiana coming Friday. The last time any Notre Dame team visited Bowling Green was in 1926 for baseball.

While much of the attention is on the Fighting Irish coming to Diddle Arena, the Lady Toppers have made their own statement by beating a Missouri team picked to finish third in the Southeastern Conference. In the past three seasons, the Lady Toppers, who received 24 votes in the latest Associated Press poll to rank 27th, have beaten a team from the SEC, ACC and Big Ten.

Plus, WKU is pretty good on its home floor under Heard with a 63-11 record.

“I think it says a lot for our program,” senior Ivy Brown said. “For a top team in the country year in and year out to come into our arena and play us first, it’s huge, but I’m really excited to get out there and compete again.”

WKU is anticipating one of the largest crowds in Diddle Arena for a women’s basketball game Tuesday. Currie McFayden, associate media relations director for women’s basketball, said 4,000 tickets have been distributed with still plenty of seats available.

The largest crowd to watch the Lady Toppers under Heard – with the exception of Education Day games – is 3,725 against Louisville in 2013. Outside of Education Day games against conference opponents, which draw more than 4,000 area students in attendance, Louisville has drawn the largest crowds in the 3,000-range.

“The tradition and everything that’s here at Western Kentucky and the ability to do the things we have in the past five years, it’s hard to get teams to come here and play us,” Heard said. “For a Hall of Fame coach like Muffet and a team that’s went to five of the last seven Final Fours that won the ACC every year says a lot. I’m really excited for our community and really excited for women’s basketball and our players to have a chance to play against a great team.

“Hopefully we’ll have an amazing crowd. … This is a great place to be and these ladies deserve it. I want to have a great showing because Muffet agreed to come here. Any time for the game of women’s basketball that you can come here and have some great competition, it’s great.”

McGraw told the Daily News in a phone interview Monday she was expecting “a really good crowd” in Diddle Arena. WKU is the only non-Power 5 road game on Notre Dame’s schedule.

The Hall of Fame coach said WKU’s win over Missouri and tight loss to Iowa made them “a really dangerous team” and that her Fighting Irish need a tough road test after an easy win in their home opener.

“I think it’s important for our team to go on the road and play against really good teams in good environments,” McGraw said. “I think it’s important to challenge ourselves by playing good teams on the road and I think it’s great for program’s like Western to go out and play teams like Missouri and Iowa. A lot of places can really benefit from a tough schedule.”