Nov. 25, 2014

Recap | Box Score | Notes | Photo Gallery

2014-15 University of Notre Dame Women’s Basketball
Notre Dame vs. Quinnipiac
November 25, 2014
Purcell Pavilion at the Joyce Center – Notre Dame, Ind.

Notre Dame Head Coach Muffet McGraw

Opening statement…
“I’m really proud of the team right now. We’ve had such a tough stretch. It has been really difficult to play Wednesday, Friday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. We’ve been in class, we’ve been finishing papers and taking tests. I’m really proud of the effort. We had to come out and have the focus we had in the past three games. We never let up. The bench has done a phenomenal job, and it seems like it’s a different person every night that comes in and plays well. Tonight it was Mychal Johnson. She gave us such a huge lift. Seven assists, with no turnovers and four assists was a phenomenal line for a freshman. She hasn’t really played the point much and we don’t expect her to, but she did a really good job. Jewell [Loyd] was phenomenal. She got us started. She came out and was ready to go. She always is, but she was unguardable today. Brianna [Turner] was tough to stop, and if she hadn’t been in foul trouble early, I think she would have had another career night.”

On preparing the team for three games in three days…
“I think we tried to really go easy on gamedays and not try to do too much in shootarounds. We went really light on Saturday. We’ve kind of eased up on them a bit, but now we need to get them back in great shape and ready for the next game. We’ll work on that Friday and Saturday and get ready to dive into yet another tough stretch in the schedule.”

On the team’s struggles with turnovers…
“I think we needed to have a little more focus. We were tired mentally and we didn’t have that focus. We got careless. I think we really thought we were going to make a spectacular pass when all we needed to do was really be strong with the ball and take another second to look at the defense. We were sloppy, but I think we can fix that pretty quickly.”

Notre Dame Players

Jewell Loyd – Junior – Guard

On overcoming her offensive struggles from the previous night…
“I just stopped thinking. I was overthinking things yesterday. When I think too much, it’s not good. I also relied on my teammates. I know they believed in me and kept telling me to shoot the ball. I really relied on them, and it helped a lot.”

On preparing for three games in three days…
“It was kind of like an AAU tournament where you play four or five games in one day. As a team, we were trying to stay focused and do whatever we needed to. We took ice baths, did extra stretching and really tried to do anything we could to stay rested as much as possible. Our mindset was different and we had to try to stay focused in walkthroughs and practice.”

On how she maintains her energy level in such a stretch…
“It helps to be playing a sport we love and are passionate about. We aren’t just going out there to do something just to do it. We are doing it for a bigger cause, and we are playing for each other and with each other. That’s the most important thing.”

Brianna Turner – Freshman – Forward

On what she did to improve on the offensive end tonight…
“I tried to run the floor more tonight. I thought I could have run the floor a lot more last night, so today that was one of my focuses. I knew Jewell and Lindsay [Allen] were going to be looking up, so I was really focusing on getting down the court.”

Quinnipiac Head Coach Tricia Fabbri

Opening Statement…
“I thought we did some good things and I thought we battled and competed. I liked our first half minus the first couple opening minutes. We shot the ball fairly well, forty percent in the first half. I would have liked to see us close halftime with a score rather than giving up a score. But I thought we competed and played hard. I liked the emergence of Val (Driscoll); she had a great three games out here and it was a fantastic experience to be a part of. It’s one that were going to continue to build and improve upon.”

On playing three games in three days…
“Because we play so many kids, I don’t think we looked exhausted at any part of it. I think we were able to play hard and continue a pace that we wanted to play at. I would have liked to have seen us shoot the ball a little bit better in the second half though. I wish some more of the shots would have gone down to get us some more points on the board. I think that our assistant coach, Mountain MacGillivray, had the girls ready to go with the scouting report. We knew that they liked to work a lot of their sets off the high post and we really wanted to jam it up. When we were there, I thought we were able to do what we had to do to get them out of sync.”

On experience playing Notre Dame…
“I thought we went up against currently the top team in the country and had some success. We’ve got a long way to go to get ourselves better but this is definitely a stop that will get us better.”

Quinnipiac Player Val Driscoll

On difference between Notre Dame team last year versus this year…
“I think Notre Dame is a solid game year-in and year-out. They’re in the ACC and are always a top competitor. They’re always in the Final Four, and no matter what they’re going to have a good program. Muffet (McGraw) is a great coach and they bring in great kids, and I think they are a successful program and will continue to be successful.”