May 2, 2007
NOTRE DAME, Ind. – University of Notre Dame head coach Muffet McGraw has signed a two-year extension to continue as coach of the Fighting Irish women’s basketball program through the 2012-13 season.
McGraw, who will begin her 21st season with the Irish in 2007-08, signed a four-year contract extension in July 2002 that took her through the 2008-09 season – then signed a two-year extension in the fall of ’04 that took her through 2010-11. Her 20 seasons at Notre Dame have been highlighted by 17 20-win campaigns (including 13 in the past 14 seasons), 14 NCAA tournament appearances (including a current streak of 12 straight) and the 2001 NCAA title. Entering the 2007-08 season, she has a 449-179 (.715) record at Notre Dame, and a career record of 537-220 (.709) in 25 seasons, ranking among the 20 winningest coaches in NCAA Division I history (in terms of victories and winning percentage).
“We have been blessed to have Muffet leading our women’s basketball program to such wonderful success for the past 20 seasons,” said Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C., Notre Dame’s president. “As a coach, educator and mentor, she has served as a superb role model for our student-athletes and an ideal representative of our University.”
Added athletics director Kevin White:
“Muffet long ago established herself as one of the elite coaches in the women’s college basketball world. She truly has become the face of Notre Dame women’s basketball, based on the exemplary manner in which she has represented our program both on and off the court.
“Additionally, without question, Muffet is truly a highly accomplished and decorated professional – and she also happens to be the quintessential fit at our institution. We are truly blessed to have her at the helm.”
In 2006-07, McGraw put together arguably her finest coaching job since her Irish claimed the ’01 national title. Piloting a team that was picked to finish 11th in the preseason BIG EAST Conference coaches’ poll and was without its top three scorers from the previous year, McGraw steered Notre Dame to a 20-12 record, including seven wins over NCAA Tournament qualifiers and a pair of victories versus ranked opponents (No. 10/9 Purdue and No. 17/16 Louisville). The Irish also finished fifth in the BIG EAST with a 10-6 mark, and crafted a 14-2 record at home, just one win shy of matching the school record for Joyce Center victories in a season.
“I am truly thankful and blessed to be working for great people like Kevin White and (Notre Dame president) Father (John) Jenkins. Working at Notre Dame has been and will always be my dream job. I’m thrilled with what we’ve already been able to achieve, but I’m even more excited about what the future holds for Fighting Irish women’s basketball and I can’t wait to roll up my sleeves and get back to work,” said McGraw.
McGraw has continued to enhance her reputation as one of the nation’s outstanding big-game coaches and tacticians, piloting Notre Dame to 52 victories over nationally-ranked opponents, including 42 in the past nine seasons (an average of nearly five per year). She has been especially sharp in the postseason, overseeing the program’s landmark NCAA tournament road wins at top-three seeds Texas (1997), Texas Tech (1998) and Kansas State (2003), as well as a near-toppling of top-seeded North Carolina in 2007.
Under McGraw’s guidance, the past 12 years have been the most successful in Notre Dame’s history as the Irish have compiled an impressive 290-99 (.746) record, including a sparkling 155-45 (.775) regular-season mark in BIG EAST play, the second-best winning percentage in league history. Notre Dame also has averaged more than 24 victories per campaign during that span, with two 30-win seasons to its credit. The Irish have won at least one NCAA tournament game 11 times in that 12-year span, advancing to the Sweet 16 six times (1997, 1998, 2000, 2001, 2003, 2004) and the Final Four twice (1997 and 2001).
The night of April 1, 2001 will be one McGraw will never forget. On that memorable evening in St. Louis, Mo., Notre Dame defeated Purdue 68-66 as McGraw’s 14th Irish team won the school’s first NCAA women’s basketball national championship. It was the second Final Four appearance in five years for McGraw’s squad, which became the only NCAA champion to erase double-figure deficits in both of its Final Four contests.
Having coached the Irish to their best-ever regular-season record at 26-1 and a school-record 34 wins (the second 30-win campaign in school history), and having guided Notre Dame to its best record (34-2) and season winning percentage (.944), McGraw earned numerous national awards for her efforts. For the first time in her 20-year career, she won national coach-of-the-year honors from the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association, Sports Illustrated for Women and Associated Press, as well as the Atlanta Tipoff Club, which named her the Naismith Women’s College Coach of the Year. All-American Ruth Riley joined McGraw for the latter two honors, earning AP and Naismith player-of-the-year laurels. Riley also was honored as the nation’s top student-athlete when she was named the Verizon Academic All-America® Team Member of the Year.
In addition, the New York Athletic Club honored McGraw with the Winged Foot Award, which is presented annually to the coach of the NCAA champion. She has earned coach-of-the-year honors in all four conferences with which she has been associated during her head coaching tenure — the East Coast Conference, North Star Conference, Midwestern Collegiate Conference and BIG EAST.
Success for McGraw also has meant coaching great players. Riley, the 2001 BIG EAST Player of the Year, became the third Notre Dame player to earn AP All-America honors when she was named in ’99 to the third team. She also was a unanimous first-team all-BIG EAST selection in 2000 and was the ’99 BIG EAST Defensive Player of the Year, in addition to earning WBCA/Kodak honorable mention All-America honors that year. She has gone on to represent USA Basketball on three occasions, most recently as a member of the 2004 U.S. Senior National Team that won the gold medal at the Athens Olympics.
Prior to Riley’s arrival, two players whose names forever will be linked to elevating the Notre Dame program to national prominence are ’97 graduates Beth Morgan and Katryna Gaither. The two-time Kodak and AP honorable mention All-Americans both scored more than 2,000 points during their careers, becoming the first two players from the same team in NCAA history (male or female) to reach that milestone. The tandem are among a group of nine All-Americans to develop under McGraw’s tutelage (most recently Charel Allen in 2006-07), as well as 19 all-conference selections (15 first-team honorees, led by Allen in ’06-07) and 15 conference all-rookie team picks (including the trio of Ashley Barlow, Melissa Lechlitner and Erica Williamson this past year).
Another sign of McGraw’s success has been her ability to prepare her players for the next level. No less than 13 Notre Dame cagers have gone on to play professionally, including eight who either have been drafted or signed as free agents with WNBA teams. The past seven years have seen the greatest influx of Irish talent into the WNBA, with six Notre Dame players having been selected in the league’s annual draft since 2001. Four of those players — Riley, Niele Ivey, Kelley Siemon and Ericka Haney — were starters on the ’01 Irish NCAA championship team, and four of the recent Irish WNBA draftees (Riley, Ivey, Jacqueline Batteast and Megan Duffy) earned All-America status during their careers at Notre Dame.
Riley has enjoyed perhaps the most success in the WNBA of any Irish women’s basketball player. She won two league titles with the Detroit Shock (2003, 2006) and was the WNBA Finals Most Valuable Player in 2003, becoming the only player in women’s basketball history to earn Finals MVP honors at the NCAA and WNBA levels. Riley also is one of only six women’s basketball players ever to win a championship in NCAA, WNBA and Olympic competition. Riley was traded to the WNBA’s San Antonio Silver Stars in February 2007, and she is one of four Irish women’s basketball alums who will be on 2007 WNBA training camp rosters — Duffy is in Los Angeles, Gaither in Minnesota, while Batteast returns to Detroit after joining Riley on the Shock’s WNBA championship squad a year ago.
McGraw’s teams also have been stellar in the classroom. Since McGraw came to Notre Dame in 1987, every women’s basketball player who completed her athletic eligibility at the University has graduated (a perfect 51-of-51 success rate). Additionally, two Irish players — Riley and Duffy — have been named first-team Academic All-Americans, with Riley twice earning that honor and going on to be named the 2001 Academic All-America Team Member of the Year.
Fifteen of her former players and/or assistant coaches currently are serving as coaches at either the high school or college level. In addition, six of her former assistants are presently collegiate head coaches, including Bill Fennelly at Iowa State, Kevin McGuff at Xavier, Carol Owens at Northern Illinois, and, most recently, Coquese Washington at Penn State.
McGraw received her bachelor’s degree in sociology from Saint Joseph’s (Pa.) in 1977. Following graduation, she coached for two seasons at Philadelphia’s Archbishop Carroll High School where she guided her teams to a 50-3 record.
McGraw then played point guard for one year with the California Dreams, a team in the since-folded Women’s Professional Basketball League (WBL). She returned to her alma mater in 1980, serving as an assistant coach under Jim Foster (now the head coach at Ohio State).
Two years later, McGraw was named head coach at Lehigh University, her teams finishing 88-41 (.683) during her five-year tenure. She was named East Coast Conference Coach of the Year following her first season as a collegiate coach in 1982-83.
Born Dec. 5, 1955 in Pottsville, Pa., McGraw was named an honorary alumna by the Notre Dame Alumni Association in 1997 and received an honorary monogram from the Notre Dame Monogram Club.
— ND —