Feb. 12, 2012

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Notre Dame Head Coach Muffet McGraw

On today’s game…
“I thought we’ve been building up to this game now for a couple of weeks. We just haven’t played well in a long time, and the pressure really got to us today. West Virginia played a great game. They’re a really good defensive team. They got us out of our rhythm. Besides Skylar [Diggins] no one could really get anything going offensively. I thought [Asya] Bussie was outstanding for them. She was really the difference in the game. We couldn’t defend them in the post, and we couldn’t score in the post on our end. I’m just really disappointed for everybody. Hopefully, this gets the pressure off our back, and now we can settle and start playing our game again.”

On their physical style of play…
“They were physical, but I don’t know if that’s what threw us off. We just didn’t execute the offense like we can. We weren’t able to put up the numbers that we usually do on the boards. We weren’t shooting the ball well. We couldn’t play well against their zone offense. We were trying to drive, but they packed it in and took it away. Down the stretch we’re usually such a smart team, but today we looked flustered.”

On the team’s poor passing…
“Ten assists and 17 turnovers tells you the story on that. We made a lot of bad decisions on who we were throwing to and how we were throwing it. We missed a lot of opportunities.”

Notre Dame Player Quotes

Skylar Diggins – Junior – Guard

On what went wrong in the second half…
“We just weren’t attacking. We were getting transitions at first, but then we stopped playing defense, and they scored.”

On using the loss to move forward…
“We became complacent. We didn’t play defense. We haven’t practiced with intensity this week, and it showed. It’s not the end of the season. It’s just a bad loss. We’ve got to come back and make sure we’re ready for the rest of the season. We know the league we’re in. Anybody can beat you, even at home. It’s disappointing to our fans and everyone to let someone come in and beat you at home. We have to learn from this loss. We have to let it go and move on to the next game.”

Devereaux Peters – Senior – Forward

On having to play against Asya Bussie…
“She is an aggressive player. She was finishing, and we couldn’t stop it. We couldn’t keep her out of the paint. We let her get easy lay-ups. We weren’t doing our job on defense.”

West Virginia Head Coach Mike Carey

Opening Statement…
“That’s a great win for us. Notre Dame is a great team, and they deserve to be No. 1 or No. 2 in the country. They’re well coached and a great team with great players. But with that being said I thought our players came in here, got in foul trouble early, and had to play some players we don’t play a lot and they did a great job. I’m very proud of my team and I thought they came in here with a tough crowd and great atmosphere and [responded well] for as young as they were. I thought Asya Bussie in the last two or three minutes really carried us and did a great job. When we go with that high-low with Ayana Dunning, that gives us a great tandem right there. I’m very proud of them, and Notre Dame will be fine. They’re a great team, and we needed this one bad and we were able to get it. With that being said, when you play in the BIG EAST, we have five more games, and we play Rutgers next on Wednesday at our place. I told the team after the game to enjoy this, but that’s the problem in the BIG EAST since you have to play another ranked team next.”

On preventing Notre Dame’s offensive cutting…
“I thought we sat down on defense when they threw it to the elbow and their guards make those shuffle cuts. We did a good job switching but didn’t give up the back door at times. At times we did but made them go over the top and most of the time I thought we did a good job. My biggest concern was that we were fouling people 50 feet from the bucket and putting them at the line. Those are things we need to be a little smarter about, but I thought our girls did a great job. Both teams got in foul trouble and we were able to get a big win.”

On the physicality of the game…
“I’ve watched a lot of tape of them and they throw people out of the way and get layups and back door stuff. We tried to get our guards to sit down and body them up a little bit.”

On defending Skylar Diggins…
“We did a good job on the on-ball pick because that’s what she was hurting us on [earlier in the game]. We were shading off of a couple players and she was running into people in the paint. When we did that, Peters had a good game because our centers rotated over to help. At times she really hurt us and we needed to block her out.”

West Virginia Player Quotes

Asya Bussie – Junior – Center

On matching up with Devereaux Peters…
“She’s a great player and jumps a lot, so it’s hard to ball fake, so I had to kick it out or try to draw the foul [as much as I could].”

On the physicality of the game…
“I just think we were focused and we prepared all week. We followed the scouting report and just came in here because we needed the win.”

On believing the team could win…
“I think that after the Louisville game [we believed]. That was a big win for us and we just carried that over to today.”

On how big the win was…
“It felt amazing. It’s a big win for us, but it doesn’t mean anything if we don’t get these next couple of wins coming up.”