Dec. 9, 2015

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Notre Dame Head Coach Muffet McGraw

On the game …

“DePaul shot the ball really well, but I thought we got complacent in the second half and we can’t do that. Especially with the seniors that we have on the floor, we know better. We could’ve played a lot better defensively. I thought Mychal [Johnson] did a really good job. The three that she hit was huge and she was one of the few people that was able to hit free throws tonight. That was a concern down the stretch. You certainly want to be able to make your free throws. With four ranked teams in a row and finals coming up, we are tired. We need to get it together for one more game before finals. Good poise down the stretch, but that was not what we expected.”

On Taya Reimer’s minutes…

“She was allowed to play four minutes a quarter. She ended up with 16 minutes, which is right on what she was allowed to do tonight. I thought she gave us good minutes.”

On the second half compared to first…

“Credit to their defense, they changed what they were doing. They pressed us in the first half; we handled that really well. I was really happy with that. In the second half, they made us play halfcourt, which we had worked on. We missed a lot of shots and it didn’t really work for the shots we could have gotten. We were content to take a jumper, maybe settled for some shots. We tried to drive the ball, but didn’t have any success with the exception of Arike (Ogoubowale), who I thought played well tonight.”

Arike Ogunbowale – Freshman – Guard

On team performance in the first half…

“We had worked on it, we knew they would be pressing. There were a lot of gaps so we attacked the ball whenever we could.”

Mychal Johnson – Sophomore – Guard

On her game…

“My teammates and coaches trusted me to come in and play defense. I know that’s what they wanted me in there for, so I tried the best I could on whoever I was guarding.”

On the feeling at halftime, and team being complacent…

“I think a little bit. They came out hitting threes and we had talked about that in practice. They could come back. We kind of relaxed and thought the game was over.”

DePaul Head Coach Doug Bruno

Opening Statement…

“As a head coach, you have to make decisions, and I made a decision to play DePaul scatterball on the road. I wanted to see how it would travel, and I believe in it. So we came out and played it, and after being down 26 at halftime I told them it was all on me. It was my decision and Notre Dame knocked down open shots. I also talked to them at halftime telling them it wasn’t all on me, because we still gave up 17 points off turnovers, and we still got beat on the boards by 10. At halftime I told my players that we could go out there and quit or we could go out there and make it the worst home loss in Notre Dame history. And that’s what we went out to do. Our players did a great job in the second half. I’m just really proud of this basketball team. We’re still finding out about ourselves, but I know we’re good. We’re still trying to get some new people integrated, and working on things. Notre Dame is obviously a really good team, they’re number three in the nation for a reason. They shot the lights out, and we played toe-to-toe with them for three quarters.”

On shooting well in the second half…

“We settled down in the second half. The reason we play the way we play is to try and get people to go and watch women’s basketball. Notre Dame has done a great job here to get people to come watch women’s basketball. It’s hard to get people to come and watch women’s basketball. We went back and played regular basketball, we ran our stuff and they ran their stuff. We have good players, that’s why we knocked 3’s down. Offenses don’t get people open, players inside offenses get themselves open.”

On what they changed defensively in the second half…

“We stopped chasing them. In the first half we were chasing them, extending the floor, trying to wear them out. We’re trying to use 10 people against seven people to wear them down. But they picked us apart. They found and knocked open looks down. They were on fire, making tough long shots, and we also gave up way too many layups in the first half. We went back to straight man and slowed the pace.”

Chanise Jenkins – Senior – Guard

On how the players felt at halftime…

“Like Coach said, we couldn’t hold our heads down. In the locker room, we told each other what Coach just said. We told ourselves that there’s no way we should be down this much, and we buckled down and told each other we would have each others’ back. We came out with so much fire and it showed in the second half. I think we did a great job of coming out with a lot of intensity.”

On the players’ reaction to Notre Dame’s shooting in the first half…

“All credit to Notre Dame. They probably practiced those shots because they knew how we were going to play, spreading the floor. They probably worked on knocking those shots down in practice. We changed our defense in the second half and I think that helped a lot, and we took ownership.”