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NCAA WOMEN'S REGIONAL SEMIFINALS AND FINALS: SPOKANEMarch 25, 2018Muffet McGrawKathryn WestbeldJackie YoungJessica ShepardArike OgunbowaleMarina MabreySpokane, Washington THE MODERATOR: We are joined by Notre Dame. We will begin with questions for the student-athletes. Q. Arike and Marina, what have you learned about Oregon during this brief prep time, Sabrina and their guards specifically? Do they remind you of anyone you played this year? ARIKE OGUNBOWALE: They're a great team. I mean, we watched film on them. We went through practice. We just have to be ready for anything. They can score at all different positions, so we don't have to focus on one person, focus on everybody. It's going to be a team defensive game. MARINA MABREY: They're great in the ball screen. We need to try to control Sabrina and make her take tough shots. As Arike said, we need to play a good team defense. Q. Jessica, how tough of a matchup will it be facing against a player like Ruthy? JESSICA SHEPARD: I think like they said, it's definitely going to be a team effort. They have a great inside presence, too. For us it's going to be important on the defensive end to control them on defense. We know that will lead to easy offense. Q. Kathryn, how has the process been with your ankle this week? What kind of feeling did you have hitting that jumper yesterday that put the game away? KATHRYN WESTBELD: I mean, it feels a little bit better each day. The swelling goes down. Bruising kind of turns color. It's kind of interesting to see what it looks like the next day. Honestly, I was just in the flow of the game. It felt like any other shot to me honestly. I just hit it, got back on D, finished off the game, so... THE MODERATOR: At this time we'll dismiss the student-athletes. We'll now move on to questions for coach. Q. You have played a really hard schedule. Does Oregon remind you of anyone you faced? What's it been like getting ready for them in such a short period of time? MUFFET McGRAW: Very difficult to get ready in a short period of time. Think Sabrina is just a phenomenal player, just phenomenal. So difficult to guard. I've never seen a player, especially so young, already got the record for triple-doubles, but the assists is what's so impressive to me. I've had some pretty good point guards, some good guards, but to look at the number of assists she has, really it's a challenge to figure out how to defend them. She can just pick you apart. I mean, she's just so smart and crafty with the ball. It's fun watching her when you're not on the other bench. Q. You guys have been among the sports elites for a long time. Oregon is new to that, relatively the last couple years. What is your perception of the Oregon program, what you think it might be like for their team being so new on this big stage? MUFFET McGRAW: You know, great program. Kelly has done a tremendous job with the recruiting. Sabrina just makes everybody better. She's definitely the key to their team, what she can do. They got good players all around her. I think they're in the stage of, you know, kind of the rise. It's got to be a lot of fun for them. Last year I think a 10 seed, got to the Elite 8. This year a 2 seed, so they've made tremendous strides in a short period of time. He's really turned the program around. They are now one of the best programs in the country. Q. Sabrina gets a lot of the attention. Ruthy set the NCAA record for consecutive field goals, 33. Do you like the matchup with your players in trying to limit her? MUFFET McGRAW: She is a really tough matchup because she's able to score around the basket, it seems easily. She gets a lot of great shots, again I think because Sabrina finds her, puts her in a great position to score. To have that kind of record, I think that's really phenomenal. She's probably shattered the record. I think it's amazing how she can score her field goal percentage. You know she's going to score when she gets the ball. The question is, can you stop her from getting it. That's going to be the challenge. Q. You've talked about Sabrina and Ruthy. Just overall what kind of key areas do you feel like you have to limit Oregon in to be successful tomorrow? MUFFET McGRAW: Well, they're the best three-point shooting team in the country. We've got to figure out a way to guard the three-point line. We haven't had a lot of success just playing Villanova a couple games ago, who was another great three-point shooting team. I don't think we guarded them that well. This is going to be yet another challenge for us, especially with our lineup. We're playing more bigs than we want to, which makes it even more difficult to guard the three-point line. Q. In the first round you talked about you started pretty badly on defense. You talked about maybe you gave too much attention early on. Against Texas A&M yesterday, not a great defensive start. Too much attention to Carter early on. Other players were able to make some shots. This Oregon team, Sabrina is so good, how do you get that balance right between star player and the rest of the team? MUFFET McGRAW: Yeah, we didn't have a lot of success guarding the star player yesterday. She had 31. So I think we've got to do a better job individually just on the ball, man-to-man wise. Then team defense, being more aware of where people are. I don't think we can focus on one person because they have such a good, well-rounded team. Q. With two such efficient offensive teams, do you look at this kind of similar to the Texas A&M game, where that one quarter of strong defense you had in the third can make the difference? MUFFET McGRAW: Whew, I hope so. It would be great if we could have a strong defensive game throughout. But we're not a great defensive team. We need to really battle a little bit more. But I think with the limited bench that we have, it makes it difficult for them. So I think defense is going to be a key to the game. Both teams have high-powered offense. It's going to be a matter of who can get some stops. Q. Considering you guys have high skill level on offense, too, would you mind at all if it was an up-tempo, high-scoring game? MUFFET McGRAW: We are a high-tempo type of team. I think that's when we're at our best. THE MODERATOR: Thank you for your time, coach. MUFFET McGRAW: Thanks. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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