Dec. 7, 2013

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Notre Dame Women’s Basketball
Notre Dame vs. UCLA
December 7, 2013
Purcell Pavilion at the Joyce Center – Notre Dame, Ind.

Notre Dame Head Coach Muffet McGraw Quotes

On Madison Cable …
“That was so much fun to watch. It was exciting to see her come back, she told me yesterday that she was ready and she certainly was. What a fantastic offensive showing and she played really well on the defensive side as well, she got some rebounds and forced some turnovers.”

On the team’s play…
“I was a little disappointed with our sloppy play at times. I thought we really turned the ball over on unforced errors, just trying to do too much instead of just playing a sound fundamental game. Seventeen turnovers are just too many. But overall we played really well.”

On Lindsay Allen in foul trouble…
“I think it’s tough for a freshman, especially during final exams. She has a lot on her plate being a pre-med major. I think she came out the last game not feeling she played as well as she could and so today she may have been trying too hard to make things happen and the foul trouble really hurt her game.”

On getting rest…
“We need to rest, Ace’s [Natalie Achonwa] knee has been bothering her and she is having some issues with it. Ariel [Braker] always has issues with her knee. Also for us it has been a long week mentally and we need a rest, we need a break mentally and physically so we are going to take a couple days off and come back on Tuesday and get ready for Michigan.”

On the team’s growth…
“[I have seen growth] Defensively, I thought at Penn State that was the best defense we have played in years and that was outstanding. I was really proud of the way we guarded Maggie Lucas, our team awareness of her was fantastic and that’s where I was disappointed today, the awareness was supposed to be on the post and we didn’t have quite the same focus.”

On the bench players…
“We have eight solid players with Madison [Cable], Michaela [Mabrey], and Taya [Reimer] on the bench and we have high expectations for them and really think they can score when they are playing late in the game. For other teams it’s like having a starter playing. We definitely have great depth, we are taking advantage of it, we are trying to get them some easy shots and get some post ups especially with Kristina [Nelson] in the game. I think we have that kind of power with our offense that we have so many different people that can score.”

Notre Dame Player Quotes

Kayla McBride – Senior – Guard

On dealing with pressure and minimizing error…
“I think it comes from Coach, she expects a lot out of us and she doesn’t want to settle, there’s always something we can be working on. I think it’s our team mentality at this point, I don’t think we are taking anything for granted and we are just going out trying to execute our game plan.”

On team’s disappointments…
“We have high expectations. I think that even defensively and offensively we can be a lot better. We know that and I feel that’s why we are hanging our heads.”

On this year’s team, considering the loss of Skylar Diggins…
“We are really competitive and I think that with Jewell [Loyd], Mike [Michaela Mabrey] and Maddie [Madison Cable] they want to be on the court and they want to represent Notre Dame like the seniors have these past three years. That representative nature just fires everyone else up, especially the veteran players who are passing that down. It’s kind of cool to see because I remember being in Maddie’s shoes. I was proud of how she played today, hitting all those big shots.”

Madison Cable – Junior – Guard

On the offense…
“We did a pretty good job and I was able to knock down some good shots because my teammates found me and made some really good passes.”

On wanting the ball when she is on a hot streak…
“I only want it if I’m open, I’m not one of those people who shoots every time. I want to make sure everyone is involved.”

On confidence…
“It grows and grows and grows with every basket but I need to get to the point where I am confident with every shot. I’m making progress slowly and everyday in practice I’m working on my game trying to get better at it.”

Head Coach Cori Close

Opening Statement…
“Credit to Notre Dame. I think they’re playing extremely well. Carol Owens is one of my best friends in the business and I talked to her last night and said, `I think they might have the potential to be even better this year than they were last year.’ I think they do a spectacular job playing. They have a lot of great individual pieces, but I think they’re even better in their teamwork than they are individually. All the credit to them. I love my team. I love who they are. I love their hearts. We have no margin for error, so when we have mental lapses or when we have choices in things that are under our control that we don’t control, a team like Notre Dame is going to expose that every time. That’s what we saw today. So my challenge as a teacher is to go back and examine it possession by possession. I don’t think you can focus on the score or the margin. I think we have to focus on the individual ownership, possession by possession. That’s the only way we can respond. But again, all the credit to Notre Dame. I think they do a great job in what they’ve done in this community and the way they treat their players and invest in them as young women. It’s an honor to keep our series and there’s a reason we keep it going. It’s because of our respect for them and how they represent our game as a program.”

On transitioning to the time difference…
“Well, it gave us a lot of opportunities to get mentally tougher. We didn’t have one mechanical failure yesterday we had two getting here. Our practice time got changed multiple times. We didn’t get on the practice court to shoot around until almost 9:00 p.m. last night. That part didn’t hurt very much, but the response to that cumulatively becomes a factor. I thought we had dead legs at the beginning of the game quite frankly. In the preparation for that, we have a choice of how to respond. You can’t control the circumstances, so you have a mental choice for how you can respond to it. I thought we came out a step slow. They took advantage of that. I don’t know if the game would’ve been different, but I don’t think we played close to our potential.”

UCLA Player Quotes

Atonye Nyingifa – 6th yr. Senior – Forward

On Notre Dame’s 14-2 run in the first half of the game…
“I guess for them, it was their transition game. I think we struggled trying to stop the lob and stop the speed at which the ball was going up the floor. I think they just went on a run and our team should’ve responded a lot better by stopping that game, but we just let them continue on pushing and putting us in a deeper hole. It made it hard for us to climb back up after being put in that hole.”

On her productive game…
“I just keep moving my feet and trying to find the open space. I think I saw a couple double teams within the game, but for the most part they played me pretty even. I focused on moving around the key, finding the open spot and trying to crash the boards. Like [Coach Close] said, for the first half, we played them pretty even on the boards and those second opportunities really helped us.”