Feb. 4, 2016

Recap | Box Score | Notes | USATSI Gallery

2015-16 University of Notre Dame Women’s Basketball
Notre Dame vs. North Carolina State
February 4, 2016
Purcell Pavilion at the Joyce Center – Notre Dame, Indiana

Notre Dame Head Coach Muffet McGraw

Opening statement…
“I was really pleased coming off the last few games where we really haven’t played well offensively. It was nice to have a really good game. Madison [Cable] was unbelievable ââ’¬” [she] tied her career high, just made everything; [she was] making some huge plays and was scoring in a little bit of a different way tonight. I thought she really moved without the ball well, came off the dribble a bit and I think she then continued to play well. Arike [Ogunbowale] comes in, gives us that instant offense that we needed to punch early and she really provided it for us. I’m really happy with these two.”

On defense…
“Defense has really been good. I looked the other day and I think we’re actually first in the conference, which is astounding. That never happens. It’s really good to see that because usually we’re up there offensively but it’s a nice change to be there defensively – it means we’re really working hard. I think that’s where you see your team’s chemistry, on the defensive bench.”

On working a zone offense…
“Our zone offense needed some work. We’ve seen very little zone and with their size, we haven’t see anything like that. I thought we got stagnant ââ’¬” we stood around, we weren’t even sure what we were in sometimes, we didn’t have a great plan. We worked on some things we weren’t able to execute, so I think we really can take a lot away from that. We learned a lot from what we did offensively. That free throw area is so important.”

Madison Cable – G – Graduate Student

On working the inside more…
“If I saw an open cut, I’d just take it. I think Bri [anna Turner] gave me a nice pass and a couple of people found me cutting or just moving around. I was just trying to take what they gave me.”

Arike Ogunbowale – G – Freshman

On working the inside more…
“I was just taking what they gave us. If they come up at me, I know Bri [Turner] or Kat [Westbeld] is there to get a lob or a tip off so I’m just looking around to see what they gave us.”

North Carolina State Head Coach Wes Moore

Opening Statement…
“Again tough night. Notre Dame has got great talent and a great coach. Third period I just thought they took over. Halftime we were down 13 I believe, still manageable, and then third period I believe I thought they looked like the Harlem Globe Trotters and we looked like the Generals. They just put on an exhibition, knocking down shots, we didn’t do a very good job of rotating, and they made some great passes. Then on the other end of the floor I thought they did a great job defensively as a team rotating. It caused us to commit 24 turnovers that led to a lot of points. We didn’t shoot the ball well tonight, again got to give Notre Dame a lot of credit for that but we rely on the three quite a bit. You could say we live and die by the three and tonight we died by it. This just tells us we have got a ways to go still and we’ve got to be patient, we’ve just got to keep plugging to get there. They [Notre Dame] are one of the top teams in the country and we’ve just got to keep grinding to get there.”

On the Notre Dame defense…
“Well we thought we could maybe take them off the dribble some and they did a lot better job containing one-on-one than I had anticipated. But not only that, they played great team defense. You beat one person and they do an awesome job of rotating. You’ve got to be able to see that third person and we talked about that this week. You may think you’ve got a man that appears to be open and someone’s rotating on that weak side and picking that pass off. Without looking at the film I would say a lot of those turnovers came from someone rotating over and making a play. Again, great coaching.”

On Notre Dame shooting…
“Well there’s no way you can cheat off of people. Most teams you take away two players and you’ve got a chance but with them they’ve got three kids who are shooting almost 45% or above 45% from three and then you’ve got Brianna Turner. You’ve got to pick your poison. You try to take her away and they’ve got kids burying threes. It’s a tough assignment and you just hope they’ve got a bad shooting night and you’ve got a good one and that didn’t happen.”

Miah Spencer ââ’¬” Junior ââ’¬” Guard

On team effort…
“Well I thought we came into the game, not lackadaisical, but I felt that we weren’t ready to play like I thought we were. I put that on myself being a leader I should have helped my team out. We did miss a couple shots but we were attacking and we were trying to get it to the open person but like coach said, they just played great team defense.”