Jan. 10, 2016

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North Carolina vs. Notre Dame
January 10, 2016
Notre Dame Post-Game Quotes

Notre Dame Head Coach Muffet McGraw
On Notre Dame’s win…
“I’m very happy, we’re playing very well and we’re starting to really gel as a team. I think we are starting to find our comfort zone, and working the ball defensively.”

On Kristina Nelson’s play…
“She’s starting to find her way with this team, and I think it’s been very good for her (Nelson) to get out there and get a lot of playing time. The girls are really looking for her inside and she can score on the block. She played a lot better defensively.”

Brianna Turner – F – Sophomore
On what she is focusing on defensively…
“I wanted to rebound more these past few games, and like Coach said, altering shots. If I can’t block it just put a hand in their face to make it harder for them to shoot over me.”

On what she does mentally each game to stay locked in…
“I just try and focus to help the guards out if their man drives I try to get a hand up and box out to get the rebound.”

Arike Ogunbowale – Freshman – Guard
On the importance of attacking the way they (Notre Dame) did today…
“We are good when we are attacking and transitioning, we have a lot of guards that are quick and can get to the basket. When we see an open lane we just have to attack before they set up easy baskets.”

On the luxury of having [Turner] behind her, and knowing she can gamble trying to get steals…
“It’s great, we have a lot of gamblers, like Marina [Mabrey]; she gambles a lot and gets a lot of steals, so it’s always good to have Bri[anna Turner] there in case you miss it or you get beat by your player.”

North Carolina Post-Game Quotes
North Carolina Head Coach Sylvia Hatchell
On the game…
“I thought we played pretty good at first and then we missed shots. Of course, Notre Dame is just such a great offensive team and they can all score and shoot. We weren’t getting up on them like we needed to contest their shots. And then we took some bad shots which gave them easy buckets on the other end.”

On her team’s freshmen…
“Our freshmen learned a lot. They have been shooting pretty good but together they were 5-29. We’re going to learn from this and move on.”

On playing against Brianna Turner…
“I thought our big girls took it to her. They weren’t afraid of her. She had some blocked shots but we weren’t afraid of her and we did take it in there. But she’s a great athlete; you’ve got to box her out. I thought in the second half we didn’t box her out as well as we did in the first half. Without a doubt she’s one of the best athletes in the country.”

Xylina McDaniel – Senior
On playing Notre Dame…
“A few of us were trying to stress to the younger ones how good they really are. No matter who’s on the floor they can shoot. Mike [Michaela Mabrey] and her sister [Marina] can shoot deep. But I think they just didn’t understand where we were trying to come from when we said `they have it all. They have the total package.'”

On what the freshmen should take away from this game…
“I hope it puts fire in their souls because we should never lose like this, no matter how good a team is. To prevent this from happening again and to build ourselves for the next games that are coming up, hopefully we say `We can never let this happen again and we have to do better, especially in practice so that it carries over into the games.'”