Dec. 20, 2009

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Notre Dame Women’s Basketball
Notre Dame vs. Charlotte
December 20, 2009 · Purcell Pavilion, Notre Dame, Ind.

Notre Dame Head Coach Muffet McGraw

On tonight’s game and the level of play…
“I was pleased with the whole game, I really have no complaints about this one. We played well defensively for 40 minutes, offensively we were clicking on a lot of different cylinders, and despite a little bit of a rocky start I thought everybody came in and played well. It was a great way to send [the team] off for Christmas, a nice present for everybody.”

On playing a strong defensive game…
“At half-time I wasn’t quite that happy with the defense because I thought [Charlotte] had a lot of open shots. I thought, defensively, in the second half we really played a lot better. I was really pleased. Offensively I can’t say we executed really well because we shot a little quicker than we may have wanted to, but I thought we did a nice job in transition. We didn’t cut down on our turnovers, we had 13 in each half, so there’s something I can be unhappy about.”

On the contribution from those coming off of the bench…
“The minutes were good, I thought that the starters actually played more than the bench tonight. We need to have that because they work so hard at practice, and we don’t really have starters and subs because we have so many people that contribute. It’s great to see everybody get the chance to play and have so many people playing well.”

Notre Dame Player Quotes

Skylar Diggins – Fr. – G

On the 16-0 run to start the game…
“We started out not being able to buy a bucket and realized that it was going to be up to our defense. We started to get aggressive with our press and really got after to make that early run possible.”

On the potential of the team…
“I honestly didn’t know what to expect. The team has absolutely exceeded my expectations, but it doesn’t stop here. There are still some things that we have to work on in order to be a great team. If we do, we can go from being a good team to a great team.”

On the leadership…
“I feel like I can go to my captains for anything. I definitely have a lot of confidence in them. I can count on anyone on the team to make that game-winning bucket. The seniors really put themselves out there to sacrifice anything for the team.”

Ashley Barlow – Sr. – G

On getting ahead early and keeping up the intensity…
“We know that we have to bury a team. Even if the other team is down we know that they are capable of making shots and get back into the game easily. We know that if we get up we have to keep stomping them so that they can’t catch up to us.”

On her shooting for the game…
“I was really disappointed in warm-ups because I couldn’t make anything. We always do a three-point contest before the game to practice our shooting and I couldn’t make a shot. We played three times and I think I lost every time. I kept my confidence, though, and kept shooting. Making the first one in the game really helped out a lot.”