March 21, 2004

On winning the game…
“Now, I know what they mean by ‘survive and advance.’ This was definitely a game of survival for us. I thought Southwest Missouri State played an outstanding game. Defensively, they did a great job. [Jenni] Lingor really stepped up, hitting those two threes at the end.”

On Le’Tania Severe’s performance…
“I thought Le’Tania Severe was really player of the game. She did a great job driving to the basket for us, and I thought her defense on [Kari] Koch was outstanding.”

On Le’Tania Severe’s leadership…
“It in terms of leadership, in terms of poise, I thought all of our seniors played pretty well down the stretch, but Le’Tania’s performance was outstanding. She won the game at Pitt for us with the steal at the end, and she tried to win the game for us with her defense tonight. She is somebody we want to have on the free-throw line, and we know that nobody is going to score on her because she is a great defender. She just has that attitude and that leadership that everybody wants to follow.”

On Notre Dame’s shooting the second half…
“Every time out, I said, ‘Let’s stop shooting, let’s get lay-ups,’ and it is evident how well they listened. I was frustrated with our shots. We finally did what we wanted to down the stretch in overtime, and that is kind of what we were trying to do the whole game, for our guards to penetrate and give it to the posts.

We really needed to get inside. We didn’t get into the bonus in the first half, and the reason we didn’t get to it was we were standing around shooting jumpers. We really needed to attack the basket, and we did not do a good job of that. In the second half, we got five quick fouls on them right away. I thought we were going to get into the bonus really early and that turned out to be key in the game.”

On losing the lead to Southwest Missouri State…
“If you’ve been watching TV this weekend, you see that no lead is safe. We certainly didn’t feel like ours was safe because they are a very good basketball team. They play with a lot of energy. They never got down, and I think their fans really inspired them. They just didn’t quit.”

On facing Middle Tennessee State…
“They’re a little more athletic, and they play a great game. They played with such poise down the stretch. They had that 12-point lead and then North Carolina came back, and they never faltered. They came in with nothing to lose, and I think they finally reached that point where they got control of the game.”