Jan. 30, 2014
Notre Dame Women’s Basketball
Notre Dame vs. Virginia Tech
January 30, 2014
Purcell Pavilion at the Joyce Center – Notre Dame, Ind.
Notre Dame Head Coach Muffet McGraw
Opening Statement…
“Well, that was a difficult game to play in between Maryland and Duke. Crazy scores tonight – Maryland loses to NC State, Duke’s down right now to Miami. I think it’s just that time of the year when it’s hard to find energy, especially from the starters. So you really need someone on the bench to come in and just give you a shot. I thought Madison Cable did a really good job of that tonight – career high in rebounds with 13, and she hit that three in the first half that kind of got us going a little bit. So I was really happy with her. I thought Lindsay Allen played really well – career-high eight assists from Lindsay. And she just really took care of the ball and did all the right things. Defensively, I thought we did a really nice job on [Uju] Ugoka, and I was really happy with that coming off the not-so-good defensive effort against Maryland. So overall I think we can take some good things from that.”
On the impact of Jewell Loyd’s big plays in the first half…
“I thought it brought us energy. She had a spurt there where I think she had three baskets in a row, and we just needed something to get the crowd going. We’d been just so dead in terms of our pace and our effort on really both ends of the floor. We looked like we were just going through the motions, so that really perked the crowd up, I thought. It was good to see we had a little bit of energy in our tank.”
On Natalie Achonwa getting out of her funk from the previous game…
“I never worry about Natalie. She’s probably the most mature player that I’ve ever coached. She understands the game so well. She knows what she has to do. She will be ready tomorrow. She’s going to be ready on Sunday. I think she comes into every game with the right mental approach.”
On how to get the team up for this game between Maryland and Duke…
“It was difficult. You could tell when we came out. We just were flat – we just didn’t have it. I was really hoping that Taya [Reimer] could come in and play well, and she did. That gave us energy, so we had two kids come off the bench and really give us good minutes. And I think that’s what you need with a game like this. You want to rest your starters as much as possible, and we were able to do that.”
On the 15-1 run at the end of the half…
“We got the press going a little bit. I thought we forced some turnovers and Maddie (Cable) hit the three, Ace (Achonwa) had a nice play inside and Taya (Reimer) had a couple of nice plays inside. I thought we finally went in and did what we wanted to do from the beginning of the game.”
Notre Dame Players
Kayla McBride – Senior – Guard
On playing this game between Maryland and Duke…
“It’s all about mental toughness. I think it’s coming in and we’re tired, we started school, all that other stuff. We have a big game coming up, but it’s just executing and going out there and continuing to play hard and stay aggressive. We came out a little flat, but we got it done.”
On how the team got going…
“We had that 15-1 run at the end of the half. I think it was getting the ball inside. That’s what Coach wanted to do. They went to the 2-3 towards the end of the first half, and we started getting inside and getting easy looks and started getting some steals and turnovers, which allowed us to get in transition, and we started making shots.”
On being mentally tough as a team…
“I think it’s something that we expect of each other. I think Coach put it well when she said that we don’t get high off wins and we don’t get low off bad days. We know there’s going to be things that don’t go our way, but it’s what comes next, what can we do next and how can we be better? We don’t want to settle. We know that we have a target on our back, and we’re going to continue to work hard and take it one game at a time.”
Taya Reimer – Freshman – Forward
On getting to the basket more…
“I was really trying to be more aggressive. I haven’t been happy with the way that I’ve been playing the past few days. And I talked to the coaches, and I talked to a few teammates. I think around this time in the season it’s hard for freshmen to stay consistent and stay aggressive. So I’ve been trying to focus on that and I tried to do that today.”
On Notre Dame’s interior defense…
“I think we were really focused on it. We worked on it a lot in practice. The post we didn’t play as well in the Maryland game as we’d wanted to, so I think this was kind of our chance to redeem ourselves, and we tried to do that.
Virginia Tech Head Coach Dennis Wolff
Opening Statement…
“I thought our kids played hard but I think we can play better basketball than that. I thought Muffet was very kind to us – I know we are sandwiched in between two big games for them. I thought our kids played hard but we just have to play better basketball than that to win games.”
On Notre Dame’s 15-1 run in the first half…
“They might have been sleeping a little bit prior to that, and I’ve been talking about trying to avoid those types of runs. We were kind of in it until that four minute mark and then it kind of got away from us and it is difficult for us to make up that ground against this kind of team.”
On Jewell Loyd’s alley oop…
“I think they made good plays, we guarded them pretty good on that possession and then we started to fall asleep for one second and she nailed an off-balance three pointer as well. They have really good players, they make good plays, they are smart and they are tough. There is a reason why they are 20-0.”
On playing a close game against Duke…
“I have coached for a long time and we had a pretty good non-conference and we had four consecutive ACC games that were winnable but we did not win. So now what you get is that we are fragile, that’s where we at. But from where I am, the girls are still trying and I think if we keep plugging away at it there are games that we can win if we are ready.”