Oct. 8, 2013
Media Day Notes
| Media Day Quotes
NOTRE DAME, Ind. – Fresh off a third consecutive NCAA Women’s Final Four appearance, the Notre Dame women’s basketball team held its annual Media Day activities on Tuesday afternoon inside Purcell Pavilion at the Joyce Center. In addition to a tipoff press conferences with head coach Muffet McGraw, the Fighting Irish players and staff were available for interviews with members of the media. The Notre Dame contingent then assembled for the official 2013-14 team photo, as well as a handful of group photos, with Mike Bennett and his talented crew from Lighthouse Imaging in Mishawaka, Ind.
Among the highlights of Tuesday’s Media Day was the announcement that two of the team’s senior tri-captains, forward Natalie Achonwa (Guelph, Ontario/St. Mary’s Catholic) and guard Kayla McBride (Erie, Pa./Villa Maria Academy), are among 25 candidates on the 2013-14 Women’s Basketball Coaches Association (WBCA) Preseason Wade Trophy Watch List, according to a WBCA release earlier in the day. Notre Dame is one of five schools in the nation (along with California, Connecticut, Duke and Tennessee) with multiple candidates on the Wade Watch list, and the ACC leads all conference with six players on the preseason chart.
Also on Tuesday, Achonwa spent a good portion of the day with a TV crew from TSN (The Sports Network, which is Canada’s leading English-language sports channel. The crew interviewed Achonwa, as well as McGraw and McBride for a feature on Achonwa that is expected to air Tuesday, Oct. 22 (time TBA) on TSN’s SportsCentre (the Canadian equivalent of the ESPN show by the same name). The feature also will likely appear on TSN’s web site, tsn.ca, at a later date.
The Fighting Irish held their first official team practice last week in accordance with NCAA regulations (the team had been allowed limited practice time prior to Oct. 1). Notre Dame currently is preparing for its lone 2013-14 exhibition game at 7 p.m. (ET) Oct. 30 against California (Pa.) at Purcell Pavilion.
Single-game tickets for the 2013-14 Notre Dame women’s basketball season go on sale to the general public at 8:30 a.m. (ET) Wednesday and may be purchased by contacting the Murnane Family Athletics Ticket Office at (574) 631-7356, visiting the ticket office windows located in the Rosenthal Atrium at Purcell Pavilion (Gate 9 entrance) from 8:30 a.m.-5 p.m. (ET) weekdays, or by going on-line to the official Notre Dame athletics ticketing web page at www.und.com/buytickets.
For more information on the Notre Dame women’s basketball program, sign up to follow the Fighting Irish women’s basketball Twitter pages (@ndwbbsid or @ndwbb), like the program on Facebook (facebook.com/ndwbb) or register for the Irish ALERT text-messaging system through the “Fan Center” pulldown menu on the front page at UND.com.
— ND —