Dec. 6, 2014

Recap | Box Score | Notes | USA Today

Notre Dame Head Coach Muffet McGraw

Opening statement…
“I think in the long run this will be a good thing for us–we can learn a lot from it. I thought that Jewell [Loyd] was the best player on the floor, but we did not give her any help at all, and I think we are capable of a lot more. We’ve got to figure out why we didn’t perform today. I think we can fix a lot of this. Defensively, I was really disappointed with our effort, and our post defense was poor. I think the game was lost on the boards. We went soft and it was very disappointing. [Connecticut’s] Morgan [Tuck] was tremendous. She had a heck of a game, and really did everything she wanted in both halves. She was the difference in the game; she did a lot of good things. [Connecticut’s] Kiah Stokes with her rebounds was also very impressive.”

On Connecticut’s defensive strategy…
“They sagged and were daring us to shoot the jumper. We had worked on that, but we did not look like we did. I thought we froze a lot on offense: we stopped moving, we stopped screening, we pretty much stopped doing everything.”

“We just looked like dewr in headlights. I think we made some shots early, but when things started to go badly, Jewell was really the only one that wanted the ball.”

On the lessons to take away from the loss…
“I think we need to get tougher. We’re not tough enough, and we don’t have the mentality of toughness that the last four [Irish] teams have had. I think Jewell [Loyd] has it, [and] there’s a couple of people that have a little bit of toughness, but I think that for many people it’s a quiet competitive spirit, and we need a vocal leader to get everyone fired up and ready to go. Jewell is trying to do that, but she’s got enough jobs and I’d like someone else to do that one.”

On the difficulty of defending Connecticut forward Morgan Tuck…
“We never planned on leaving her: we had always planned on guarding her the whole time and we actually had a body in the vicinity, but we just crumbled when she drove the ball. She was the aggressor and we did not match that.”

On the shot choice during the game…
“They were definitely daring us to shoot more. I think there was less `catch and shoot,’ and more `catch and look and think,’ and they were completely out-of-rhythm shots.”

“I thought we took some quick 3’s. We need Michaela [Mabrey] to make some 3’s, and she got a few but she just wasn’t in the right spot. She was rushing it a little bit.”

On how to encourage toughness on the team…
“It’s more of an individual thing: some people are tough, some are not. That’s difficult, to make somebody tough when they are just not. We can play different people and work at practice and make it a little more competitive and do drills that encourage competitiveness and toughness, but after that it’s got to come from within, and I’m hoping that is what everyone in the locker room is thinking about right now.

On where the team is at this point in the season…
“I think we’re close. We’ve got a lot of positive things, so if we can learn from this and move on we’ll get a lot better.”

Jewell Loyd · Junior · Guard

On what to take away from the game…
“Like Coach (McGraw) said, we have to get tougher. We’re going to learn from this, get back in the gym and go to work. You always have to keep learning, and with Coach on our side, we’re going to be fine.”

“We hate losing. You never want to lose and you always want to compete at a high level, and after this game we’re going to go back to the drawing board and compete and practice. Hopefully that will transfer over to our games.”

On playing against Connecticut’s Morgan Tuck…
“She’s a good player. We’ve played against each other in high school and have played with each other as well, and today she just put her head down and went to the basket.”

Lindsay Allen · Sophomore · Guard

On how being double teamed affected her play…
“It affected us a little bit. We had worked on it in practice, but it definitely slowed us down.”

Connecticut Head Coach Geno Auriemma

On changing the defense at the end of the first half…
“It wasn’t so much how different it was; it was just adjusting to how we wanted to guard certain people going forward. The way we started the game out and what the plan was and how we were going to guard them was one way and then we just made a couple of adjustments. We only played a couple of possessions in zone. Maybe four or five I think. The rest of the time we just kind of changed up what our man-to-man looked like. We’re not a great zone team, so I didn’t trust it. Maybe down the road I will, but I didn’t trust it tonight.”

On the defensive adjustments…
“I think guarding Jewell Loyd is really hard, and guarding her with one player is just not possible. We were trying to figure out how we were going to keep her from getting shots. She got 27 of them off, and that’s a lot. I think their offense moves so well. They move the ball and they move people, which is a really good sign of a really good offensive team. We were getting caught out of position and we couldn’t rebound the ball and we couldn’t get our transition game going. So basically what we changed was how we were going to guard Jewell Loyd and how we were going to rebound the ball–where we were going to put our big guys so that we could be in position to rebound better. Going back to all of the games that we have played against Notre Dame, every time we have out-rebounded them and/or shot more free throws than them we’ve won the game, pretty handily actually. So we knew those were going to be the big keys to the game.”

On filling in the gaps from lost players…
“We can fill those gaps, but we can’t replace them. And neither can Notre Dame. I think they’re finding out too. Playing without Natalie Achonwa and playing without Kayla McBride is not easy. Both teams are trying to find themselves. We’re not going to be able to replace them, but things are going to have to get done and people have to step up and have to make the plays that they can make. We’re not going to look the same as we did last year, but they’re aren’t too many teams playing college basketball today, or last year, that could look as good as that team looked. So we’ll just have to do it a different way.”

Breanna Stewart · Junior · Forward

On limiting Notre Dame’s ability to get in the paint…
“I think that a lot of times we were pressuring (Michaela) Mabrey and Jewell Loyd and our other three players were compacted in the lane to be in help side. I think our post presence is stronger than their post presence and we knew that we could take it to them at the post.”

On the team’s defensive play…
“At Stanford we had a lot of miscues. We didn’t really listen to our game plan. Tonight we knew that. And we knew who we wanted to force left and who we wanted to force right. And we actually did that. Practices have been more intense and we’ve had a higher intensity especially defensively and as you can see it’s worked out pretty well.”

On the importance of this game…
“I think that it has a lot of importance. I think that coming from the Stanford loss we knew that we wanted to change peoples’ views and opinions of our team. It’s early on in the season, so we still have a long way to go, but I think that for us and for our mental state of mind it’s a good game.”

Kiah Stokes · Senior · Center

On her personal and the team’s defensive play…
“I know personally I just need to come in and block shots and get rebounds, especially defensively. I know that’s one thing I can do and I just have to be more consistent and do it everyday. And I know that’s one thing our guards are looking for; it’s for me to get some help in the lanes so they can pressure the guards and that’s what I try to do.”

On how good it feels to have contributed so well today…
“It feels pretty good, but obviously we’re not done yet. It’s only December. We have a long way to go. It’s just a building step. We have to take this and kind of go with it.”