Nov. 25, 2014
Box Score 
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Notre Dame, Ind. (AP) – Jewell Loyd and Brianna Turner bounced back in a big way for No. 2 Notre Dame.
Loyd scored 23 points and Turner finished with 20, leading the Fighting Irish to a 112-52 victory over Quinnipiac on Tuesday night.
Loyd went 8 for 12 from the field and 7 for 7 at the line. Turner made eight of nine shots, and also went 4 for 5 at the line.
Loyd and Turner combined for 14 points on 2-of-16 shooting in Monday night’s win over Harvard.
“I just stopped thinking,” Loyd said. “I think I was over-thinking yesterday. I relied on my teammates. I knew that they believed in me and they kept telling me to shoot the ball today.”
Turner, a 6-3 freshman forward, said she just tried to run the floor more.
“I thought I could have run the floor a lot more last night, so that was one of my focuses, and I knew Jewell and Lindsay (Allen) were going to be looking up,” she said.
The Irish (6-0) had a 15-0 lead before Maria Napolitano hit a 3 for Quinnipiac’s first basket 3:43 into the game.
The Bobcats (3-2) had no answer for Turner, who repeatedly turned lob passes in the low post into easy baskets or trips to the foul line.
Notre Dame led 57-30 at the break and opened the second half with a 25-13 surge over the first 10 minutes.
Samantha Guastella led the Bobcats with 17 points.
Quinnipiac, Harvard and Holy Cross had come to Notre Dame’s Purcell Pavillion to compete against the Irish in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame Women’s Challenge. Quinnipiac coach Tricia Fabbri said she liked her team’s effort despite the final score.
“I thought we did some good things, I thought we battled, I thought we competed,” Fabbri said. “It was a great tournament to be a part of, and one we’re going to continue to build upon. This is definitely a stop that’s going to help us.”
TIP-INS
Quinnipiac: Val Driscoll and Jasmine Martin had 10 points apiece. … Quinnipiac was outrebounded 52-26 and committed 25 turnovers.
Notre Dame: The Irish have won 37 of their last 41 regular-season tournament games, dating to the 1996-97 season. … Reserve Kathryn Westbeld had 10 points and 12 rebounds.
TUCKERED OUT?
Notre Dame’s win over Quinnipiac capped off a stretch of five games over seven days. The Irish turned the ball over 17 times, but coach Muffet McGraw said she was proud of her team’s stamina.
“It’s been really difficult because we’ve been in class, we’ve been finishing papers, we’ve been taking tests,” McGraw said. “You have to have a little more focus when you’re tired and we got careless. I think we can fix that pretty quickly.”
SPREAD THE JOY
After sophomore Diamond Thompson hit a free throw with 2:53 to play, all 12 players on the Notre Dame roster had scored for the third straight game. It was also the third straight game that five players scored in double figures.
UP NEXT
Quinnipiac hosts Alabama on Sunday.
Notre Dame faces Kansas on Sunday in Uncasville, Connecticut.