Dec. 20, 2011

Recap | Box Score | Photo Gallery

Notre Dame Women’s Basketball
Notre Dame vs. UCF
December 20, 2011
Purcell Pavilion at the Joyce Center o Notre Dame, Ind.

Natalie Achonwa – Sophomore – Forward

On her contributions coming off of the bench…
“I think that has been a goal that Coach [McGraw] and I have set for myself, even before the start of the season. Coming back from my injury it has just taken a little bit more time than planned, and I think I still have a long way to go. I’m just trying to fill the shoes that we lost, keep contributing, and be that strong post presence. I’m just trying to get back into it.”

On her improvement as a rebounder…
“I think that we have been working hard at practice and playing against each other. This entire summer I was trying to focus on [Devereaux Peters] and seeing how she gets open on offense and defense by boxing out. She knows where the ball is going to go before it even goes there, and I think I’ve been trying to implement that a little bit more in practice. I’ve really just been trying to get after rebounds in practice.”

On the team’s scoring ability tonight…
“I think that we had a lot of different looks, and we tried to focus on running some different plays. We didn’t take the easiest option but looked at all of the options we had available to us. We did a lot of cutting and posting up on the weak side, and that was really what we were trying to focus on.”

On the importance of substitutes keeping up the intensity…
“Just like Brittany [Mallory] said, we have a lot of options in terms of girls who can play together. The focus is then in making sure there is no drop in intensity once I come in or once anybody comes in. We just need to be focused on what we’re running on the floor, what’s getting open, and just making sure that we pay attention on the bench so that we don’t miss a beat when we come in.”

Brittany Mallory – Senior – Guard

On the play from players coming off of the bench…
“We really need to focus on more substitutes coming in off of the bench, especially games like the one tonight. We really just need to keep up the intensity, we need to keep going, and everybody needs to feed off of each other.”

On the areas the team needs to focus on…
“Definitely rebounding and boxing out. We’ve really been focusing on boxing out and just making sure we hit somebody every time. You know there are some games like [the game against] Kentucky that we won but in which there were a lot of missed box outs and a lot of missed offensive rebounds that we could have turned into points. It’s just something that we focus on all of the time and that we need to get better at.”

Joi Williams – Central Florida Head Coach

On getting ready for joining the BIG EAST…
“We better be ready. We saw that tonight and this is what I told coach (Muffet) McGraw before the game. We have to get some BIG EAST (caliber) players and we have a year to do it. (Joining the BIG EAST) is a tremendous opportunity for us. We are a very young university with a young athletic department so it is a great time for us. I am excited (about joining the BIG EAST) and this will allow us to get some kids that otherwise we wouldn’t have been able to get in on. It opens the door to a lot of other recruits nationwide. Our facilities and the things that we do have are in place and I am excited to go out and recruit kids of this caliber to compete in the BIG EAST.”

On the atmosphere at Notre Dame…
“This is by far the biggest crowd we have played in front of this year. I think it is phenomenal. We told our kids this is an NCAA Tournament environment. The last time we played against a crowd like this was last year at Ohio State in the NCAA Tournament. Great environment and great for our kids to see that kind of support and if we do make it to (the NCAA Tournament) we can at least say we’ve been in a hostile environment with great crowd support.”