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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE WOMEN'S BASKETBALL TOURNAMENTMarch 2, 2018Joanne BoyleAliyah Huland ElGreensboro, North Carolina Notre Dame 83, Virginia 57 MIKE FINN: We'll begin with a brief opening statement from Coach Boyle. JOANNE BOYLE: Yeah, just disappointed in just our -- just the game in general. I just felt like we were better than that. We've played Notre Dame tighter and tougher in the past and I just don't feel like we really challenged ourselves tonight, and just -- we just have to be -- we weren't as tough as we've seen in the past, and that obviously played out in the score as it is tonight. Q. That was a pretty lengthy postgame with the team. Is that why you took so long there? JOANNE BOYLE: Yeah, just challenging, and just asking, like, you know, we're getting ready for postseason play and we've played some great teams this year. We've played a ton of Top-25 teams, a ton of Top 15, 10 teams and to come out tonight and not be the -- see the fight that we've seen in some of those other games, you know, that was a disappointing piece because we're just better than them. Q. Did they do certain things offensively, defensively, to make it a tough day for you guys? ALIYAH HULAND EL: Absolutely. They are an efficient covering team and they are a disciplined scoring team. And we knew all the plays that they ran. They just did a good job of running them. We didn't take much away from them at all and we didn't take a lot of transition away from them which they average over 20 points in. We didn't do what we needed to do defensively. Q. You had a tough February with a lot of tough games. Do you think you were -- if beaten down is the phrase, but IS there anything that's cumulative of what you've gone through in the last month? JOANNE BOYLE: I definitely think we're battle tested. It just showed out that way. There wasn't a lot of balance in our schedule, but again, good can come out of that, too, having to play back-to-back teams. But tonight, I don't know that it's just, oh, we're weary. We really fought hard last night. It's just I guess when you come and you're playing like one of the top five teams in the country, there's just a mindset that you have to have. You know, there's a fight. There just has to be a mindset and I felt we've got to get to that point to take the program -- we have to be consistent in just that determination to -- and we've had it this year. We got down, we had a bad first quarter against Notre Dame when we played them but then the three quarters we played them pretty even after that, you know. So we're capable of it's just we've got to be consistent and show up every night. Q. What were you guys hoping to do against Notre Dame that you weren't able to do as well as kind you game-planned? ALIYAH HULAND EL: I don't know if there was anything different that we would hoped to do offensively or defensively. We wanted to stay true to ourselves, stay true to our identity as a team. We wanted to run our offense and be disciplined and as efficient as we were last night, and in the last few games prior. But you know, we weren't who we are today, who we were supposed to be today. Q. Just a general question. On a game like this, I assume part of you, you just want to flush it away and forget about it but you also have to learn from it, so that it doesn't happen again in a couple weeks. How do you balance those two imperatives and what are the big lessons from this game? JOANNE BOYLE: Yeah, I just think, you know, teams moving forward, everybody is good. Everybody, if anybody that's getting into the tournament, they are a great team. So it's no warm-up games. You're not going in there -- it's win or lose. Win, stay. Lose, go home. So again, just approaching a game and being -- again, I think everything happens in practice. If you're consistent -- if you're consistent in practice and the things that you're drilling, you have to do it every day for it to be consistent in games. You know, and I think when you're not disciplined, and just have that mindset said every day in practice, it will reveal its ugly head in games. And again, we did not shoot the ball well tonight. That definitely hurt our cause but I also think we weren't sharp with our cuts. We were trying to manufacture points from the sideline, and that's -- that's not good. I want my teams to feel confident, like, okay, this is what we're running and you're running it and you're cut and you're flash and you see the openings and we keep the ball moving, and when you have to come down and manufacture points, that's just not a good thing. So we have to be confident -- we always talk about the defensive end of the floor, but we have to know that we can score the basketball. We've been very iffy the last couple of games and there's no reason to be. We've shot the ball well in past games the first half of the season. Are we a little worn out from that? Maybe. But we're better than what we were tonight. Q. You talked after the game yesterday about in terms of the keys for playing Notre Dame, kind of the identity of this team being effort, defense, rebounding. None of those to your liking today I guess? JOANNE BOYLE: No. When you're not scoring -- again, it goes back to Notre Dame. What are they going to do to you. If you can't score the basketball, they are going to come a hundred Miles out and there's not a lot you can do, but they got 42 points in the paint and they pounded us. Maybe we should have gone a little bit more zone, but as we were going zone, I just felt we were so flat when we showed some of our zone, so we tried to man up a little bit more than we probably should have but they just pounded us inside. Again, I don't think we -- we didn't stand some people out. We were looking to trap and double-team, which I thought we did a decent job in the first half, and the second half we just got a way from it. You know, so I guess, again, that discipline that just carry over to be able to take assignments and carry them out throughout the entire game. Q. Did their defense do certain things to make it a tough shooting day for you guys to limit your offense? ALIYAH HULAND EL: You know, they played their typical defense. This were physical. They did a good job, like Coach said of standing us up and when it came down to it, we weren't as tough as they were on defense offensively. Q. Notre Dame was called for five fouls. That's extraordinarily low. Is that just a lack of aggression on the part of your team? JOANNE BOYLE: Notre Dame being called for five fouls? Well, they sit in the two-three zone. They sit in a match-up zone. So they play -- they really like to stay with their six, and so they are not going to foul because they are trying to keep those six in the game. So that's, I'm sure, one of the reasons why they are playing a lot of zone this year. MIKE FINN: Thanks, Coach. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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