Dec. 8, 2009

Recap | Box Score | AP Gallery

Notre Dame Women’s Basketball
Notre Dame vs. IPFW
December 8, 2009 ” Purcell Pavilion, Notre Dame, Ind.

Notre Dame Quotes

Muffet McGraw – Head Coach
On the game…
“I thought we played really well offensively. I thought Becca (Bruszewski) got us off to a great start. Lindsay (Schrader) did a super job. Our post game really came along; I thought Erica Williamson did some great things off the bench. I was really pleased with all three of our post players. I was a little disappointed with our three-point defense. I thought we had conquered that, but apparently we need a little more work. I thought (Anne) Boese was spectacular tonight. We had a tough time finding her and shutting her down.”

On the loss of Erica Solomon and the importance of academic discipline…
“When the players come to Notre Dame, they know that they have the responsibility to get their work done academically, and she has not followed through on her obligation in that regard. She’s not going to be with us until she does, and I’m not sure when that’s going to be, but we’re hoping that she gets things together. I think it’s very important. I think our team generally performs well academically. Our team GPA is very important to us and I think it’s important that everybody is on the same page.”

Becca Bruszewski – Junior – Forward
On tonight’s effort and aggressiveness from the start…
“I guess I was being smart on the inside; being sure there was no way they could call a foul on a hold or anything like that. I get around, I get a steal, I get out and run. I was aggressive at the right times.”

On the balance between fouling and maintaining aggression with steals…
“That’s what I struggled with at the Paradise Jam; just being overly physical. It’s about getting around in the post without touching anyone at all. That was what I really struggled with. Maybe I have my timing down on getting there. It just worked.”

Lindsay Schrader – Senior – Guard
On the team’s early run and what changed…
“I think we were getting mad. We always want to come out thinking no one can play with us and we had been lacking that attitude for a little bit. This game kicked us really hard. We were getting frustrated that we could be up by 30 on this team and we weren’t.”

IPFW Quotes

Chris Paul – Head Coach

On Notre Dame as a team…
“Obviously I’m disappointed. I’m disappointed in a couple things. First of all, I want to say that (Notre Dame) is an awfully good basketball team. They really, really are. Probably in my nine years here at IPFW as an assistant and now head coach, it’s probably the best team that we’ve played for a couple reasons. Number one, they have so many different weapons. Obviously you see twenty-five assists is an unbelievable number in forty minutes. They pass the ball around, they play as a team, they play hard. I guess there’s a reason they’re number three (in the nation) right now I’d hate to see (numbers) two and one.”

On how IPFW played…
“I was disappointed in the way that we handled ourselves, our composure early on. We’re obviously a new Division I (program) and we’re trying to grow as a program, but we’ve been in these environments before and I felt like we’d come out and at least handle the basketball better than we did. Our basketball team has a problem right now with turnovers. We’re averaging eighteen (turnovers) a game, and unfortunately we had thirty-one today. We’ve got to take care of the basketball. On the other hand, I was proud of the kids because we fought throughout to the end. They continued to battle. I was proud of what Anne (Boese) did tonight, and we continue to grow as a program from here.

On managing to tie the game for a little while…
“We’ve got a bunch of kids that are going to play hard, but you’ve got to understand, I’m not one who’s big on moral victories. I don’t believe in this position you should be happy with moral victory. You show up to compete as a competitor to try to win basketball games. Yes, am I happy that it was tied at 21, I was at the start, but I’m not happy with the way it ended.”