This was a rough week for the women’s basketball team, as they were routed by #3 Louisville in a game where nothing seemed to go right. They did bounce back with a comfortable win over Boston College, but fell from #2 to #5 in this week’s rankings.
Game 1: #2 Notre Dame at #3 Louisville
If you have this one sitting on your DVR, and haven’t gotten around to watching it yet, let me help you out. Start the recording. You’ll see Marina Mabrey hit a three on the opening possession, Louisville’s Myisha Hines-Allen answer with a jumper, and then Kathryn Westbeld hit a three to take the 6-2 lead for the Irish. Then delete the recording. It was all downhill from there.
Louisville pulled ahead to a 21-9 lead before the Irish even knew what hit them. The team could not find an answer for Asia Durr, and Louisville couldn’t seem to miss a shot. Meanwhile, the Notre Dame offense just couldn’t get things clicking. Louisville led 33-16 after the first quarter. After a little run to cut the deficit to 38-24, ND’s struggles continued on both ends of the floor. By halftime, the Irish trailed 56-28, and had given up 20 points to Durr and 19 to Hines-Allen (or Allen-Hines, as the studio analyst repeatedly called her at halftime). The Cardinals shot an impressive 71.4% in the first half, compared to 40% for the Irsh.
Things did not improve in the second half. The small roster came into play again, as Notre Dame’s players just started to look tired down the stretch. With such a huge deficit, they had trouble maintaining their energy. Louisville led by as much as 44 points in the fourth quarter before cruising to a final score of 100-67. This was the first time McGraw’s team had allowed an opponent to score 100 points since 1998. The team missed Lili Thompson’s defensive skills in this one for sure. Not that she could have single handedly prevented Durr and Hines-Allen from scoring a combined 67 points, but her intensity might have changed the tone of the game. The Irish also struggled to score in this one themselves. Arike Ogunbowale, who came in averaging more than 20 points a game, was held to five points. The Irish bench only provided four points – two apiece for Patterson and Nelson. Looking for a bright spot in this game, I would point to Jackie Young’s performance. She had a good stat line, with 23 points and seven rebounds. It’s too bad it didn’t come in a better game.
This was certainly a discouraging game. I’m not sure what the takeaway is here – hopefully it was a fluke, or a sign of overconfidence, and the team will remember this feeling and work hard to avoid it going forward.
Game 2: Boston College at #2 Notre Dame
The Irish returned home on Sunday to take on the Boston College Eagles in the first of two games between the teams this ACC regular season. The Irish will visit BC in February. Looking eager to get the taste of Thursday’s debacle out of their mouths, Notre Dame jumped out to a quick 9-0 lead to force the BC timeout. They grew the lead to 21-12 by the end of the first quarter. ND then opened the second quarter with a 14-4 run to take the 35-16 lead. By halftime, they were up by 20.
The Irish showed no mercy, opening the third quarter on a 10-0 run to stretch their lead to 52-22. BC’s efforts to cut into the lead were hampered by foul trouble, as two of their starters would foul out before the end of the second half. Before the end of the third quarter, walk-on Kaitlin Cole entered the game. She collected a rebound and hit a shot to give the Irish a 40 point lead at 71-31. Despite a strong three-point shooting performance by BC’s Bolden-Morris in the fourth quarter, when she connected on five in a row, BC was never able to make this competitive. The two additional ND walk-ons entered the game late in the fourth quarter, and the Irish collected the win with a final score of 89-60.
Jessica Shepard and Arike Ogunbowale both really shone in this game, scoring 24 and 18 points respectively and each collecting eight rebounds. The Irish didn’t shoot very efficiently in this game, once again only connecting on 40% in the first half, but the sheer volume of shot attempts made the difference. ND had 45 shot attempts in the first half – BC only attempted 50 the entire game. ND outrebounded BC 54-22, collecting 26 second chance points to BC’s zero. The game was a nice way to bounce back, and hopefully helped the team find their feet again before another tough game against Tennessee this Thursday.
Burger Basket Leaderboard (Season 2)
(At Notre Dame home games where the Irish score 88 points or more, the fans in attendance receive coupons for a free burger. I’m tracking which player is responsible for feeding the fans the most often over the course of the season).
Marina Mabrey took the lead this week, hitting a layup with 48 seconds left in Sunday’s game to put the Irish over 88 points.
Marina Mabrey – 2
Kristina Nelson – 1
Arike Ogunbowale – 1
Lili Thompson – 1
Coming Up
The Irish get a chance at redemption this week. On Thursday, they will face another ranked opponent in a primetime nationally televised game when they host #6 Tennessee. Tennessee holds a 16-1 record that includes wins over Texas, Stanford, and South Carolina. Their lone loss came in overtime against #17 Texas A&M the same night ND lost to Louisville. This will be the Lady Vols’ third game of four in a row against ranked opponents.
On Sunday, the Irish will continue their home stand when Clemson visits Purcell Pavilion. Clemson has struggled of late. They stand at 10-8 but have lost five in a row since ACC play started. They have a chance to pick up their first conference win against BC on Thursday before traveling to South Bend.
Boy, is there something on the ND basketball teams’ training tables that is causing the rash of injuries to both the men and the women? It has certainly affected the women longer, as they seem to have gotten killed with injuries at critical times the last 4-5 years running.