Jan. 27, 2010

Recap | Box Score | Photo Gallery

Notre Dame Women’s Basketball
Notre Dame vs. Providence
January 27, 2010 – Purcell Pavilion, Notre Dame, Ind.

Head Coach Muffet McGraw

On the game in general…
“I thought we were a little sloppy today. I didn’t think that we had the intensity that we needed to start the game. Overall offensively I thought we did some pretty good things. I thought that foul trouble really helped us. We looked a little out of sync tonight. We’re going to take the day off tomorrow and hopefully mentally and physically rest up a bit.”

On the play of the bench…
“Erica Williamson did a great job off the bench. She gave us a huge lift. So did Natalie Novosel. The two of them really helped us tonight. They gave us the energy we needed. We needed that punch and I thought they both provided it for us. I was really pleased with the way they played off the bench. I also thought we distributed the minutes a little better tonight than I have been doing. I was happy everybody got a pretty good opportunity tonight.”

On Natalie Novosel’s role…
“When she lost her starting role I thought it was a blow to her confidence. We needed a punch off the bench and she has been able to do that the last couple of games. I think she’s looking to score a little bit more but her confidence is up and she is playing better defensively and that was my concern.”

On Notre Dame’s defense…
“I was really pleased that we held them to 0-9 three point shooting in the first half. Holding them to 3-16 for the game was good. That’s a lot higher than the percentage that we have been defending at. I didn’t think they got a lot of open looks.”

Notre Dame Players

Becca Bruszewski – Jr. – F

On coming back from food poisoning on the return trip from Louisville last week…
“The whole team got sick, I just got it twice. I felt a little bit out of it, I wasn’t confident in my shot. I had a talk with coach about getting back in the post and shooting the ball more. (Scoring in) double-figures for me is not a goal. Winning games, playing defense, locking people down, and playing team ball are goals. A win is a win, it’s not my personal play that I am worried about.”

Lindsay Schrader – Sr. – F

On not coming out strong in the first half…
“I don’t know what the deal is. Our team doesn’t kick it into gear until the second half. That’s me included. I do not have a good answer for why we do not come out strong in the first half. If we want to go far in the league and in the tournament we have to play forty minutes and that includes myself.”

On the play of Natalie Novosel…
“She was great. I went up to her in the locker room and congratulated her, and she put a really big smile on her face. She just has to be confident. She is a really great player. She is too hard on herself. This is what she is capable of every game.”

Natalie Novosel – So. F

On her mentality…
“I think I come in with the same mentality every game. Every minute I get I make the most of it. I got confidence and I was able to get aggressive and attack the basket. It opened a lot of things up. Even though I come off the bench, I know my role and I know what I have to do. I’m just being aggressive and doing what I do. When you miss a couple of shots, you can’t focus on that or else it will take you out of the game. Moving onto the next play is key. I feel like every good game I have, I want to just come out next game and do the same.”

Providence Quotes

Phil Seymore – Head Coach

On the Notre Dame…
“Notre Dame is a very good team. If I wanted to watch a basketball team play the way they play, I would come and watch them play because I enjoy the way they play. I like the way they pass the ball. They do a wonderful job passing. They all have a lot of intangibles individually. They are very skilled. They shoot the ball very well and look for each other as a team. That’s what makes them a good basketball team. They are one unit and really play together well.”

On Notre Dame’s strong play off the bench…
“If you’re not bringing firepower [off the bench], it makes it even tougher to guard more people, especially people that can shoot and pass. If you have people that can pass, shoot, and are fundamentally sound, it makes it hard to defend them.”

On the team’s struggles in tonight’s game…
“We had twenty-six turnovers when we’re averaging fifteen a game. We only had nine assists. We didn’t have a lot of production tonight. We did a pretty good job of getting to the line, but they just passed the ball and forced a lot of turnovers. We had opportunities to score, and we didn’t take advantage of it. They took advantage of everything they had. We couldn’t convert. Then some of our players got in foul trouble and didn’t want to play defense when we needed them to play defense.”

On the team’s poor three-point shooting…
“People look at us as a three-point shooting team, but I don’t look at us that way. When we can shoot the ball pretty well, it’s harder to deal with us, but they were guarding our three-point line. We had to score inside, but we couldn’t score inside and weren’t creating so we really struggled and that’s where we run into problems.”