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NCAA WOMEN'S 1ST & 2ND ROUNDS: IOWA CITYMarch 24, 2013Natalie AchonwaJewell LloydKayla McBrideMuffet McGrawIOWA CITY, IOWA NOTRE DAME 97 COACH McGRAW: I thought Butler had probably the best individual game anybody's had against us all year long. She was phenomenal, 37 points. We went to the triangle too late in the first half to try to contain her for a little bit. I think we slowed her down for four minutes but she played extremely well. What a great performance by her. I was really pleased with our offensive play today. I felt we got great balance in the scoring column with Natalie Achonwa, Jewell Lloyd, getting their career high, Kayla McBride getting a double‑double. Really pleased what we were able to do offensively. Shot the ball extremely well. I thought we got a lot of good shots, a lot of good layups and attacked their zone very efficiently. Q. Jewell, can you talk a little about today's game? It seemed like you scored every possible way there was to score. Can you just talk about what you took advantage of out there? JEWELL LLOYD: Think we are a very unselfish team and we move the ball really well and we find the open person, so I moved and cut and we had great passers and they found me right under the basket and my shots would just fall in. Q. For any of the players; they got within four points of you guys twice in the first half there, and then you just sort of jetted away from them, what was the difference there? THE MODERATOR: Kayla, will you tackle that one? KAYLA McBRIDE: I think it was just getting our transition game going, and it started on defense. They missed a couple shots and they got our transition game going and getting easy layups. Q. Natalie, can you talk about the accomplishment of reaching the 1,000‑point mark for your career? And second, just talk about the rebounding margin today. NATALIE ACHONWA: I'm really happy to have the opportunity to reach 1,000 points. I didn't even know until someone told me after the game. And in terms of rebounding, I think that was one of the things we wanted to take advantage of. We wanted to make sure that we picked up as many offensive rebounds as we could, as well as on the defensive end. I know K‑Mac had a double‑double so she did a great job on cutting even from the three‑point, to get a couple rebounds. Q. Kayla, just talk about trying to guard Butler? I know you were one of the players‑‑ how frustrating that was, she banked in two three‑pointers, she had a four‑point play; can you talk about what that was like to try to slow her down? KAYLA McBRIDE: She's the top scorer in the nation for a reason. She can score in a lot of different ways. She's very quick off the ball screen and she knows when to pull up and when to shoot the three and when to go all the way to the basket. She's a great player. We had a lot of trouble with her as everyone saw. So you know, give her a lot of credit, she plays hard and she's just a great player. Q. Can you talk about what Jewell did out there today, alley‑oops, 3‑pointers, put backs, all the different ways she can score? KAYLA McBRIDE: Yeah, I think Jewell can score in pretty much any way possible. She knows when to cut. She's learning. She's a quick learner. She can hit the three. She can shoot the pull‑up. She's a bigger guard and she can post smaller guards up. She can score in a lot of different ways. She is moving without the ball, cutting, getting offensive rebounds, she did it all. I think she had a really strong game tonight. Q. Can you just talk about, obviously Butler goes off with this monster game and yet you guys still win by 33 and there was really never a point in the second half where the game was in doubt. Can you just talk about how good your team is that despite this monster effort of hers, you were able to win pretty decisively. JEWELL LLOYD: We just had to stay together and when we come together as a team, we play really strong and defensively. You know, talk and communication is always a big thing. We get better at talking and stuff like that, but we played really a tough defense and stay together‑‑ I think, you know, we can be one of the best teams around. Q. Can you talk about the rebounding today, just having a margin like that? COACH McGRAW: Huge, 49‑14, honestly I didn't even see the numbers until afterwards. I knew we were doing a pretty good job. I thought offensively we really went after it. Aerial Braker I thought did a really nice job inside. You know, I think that we're capable of getting to the back board and boxing out, and I thought we did a really good job defensively. They only got five offensive rebounds and so that was definitely one of our goals tonight. Really pleased with that. Q. Can you elaborate a little bit about Jewell Lloyd, career high, and just the different ways she can score? COACH McGRAW: You know, you go into your first NCAA Tournament game and you wonder how the freshman is going to do. You look back at her previous career high against Baylor, and you think, she's definitely a gamer. I think she'll be ready. But you never know if she's going to come out nervous, and she did not. She had a phenomonal game. The thing she's going doing really well is moving without the ball, and that is a hard thing for a freshman to learn. And she's really doing a great job of cutting and moving when Sky has got it, and they are finding her around the rim which is something that we want to take advantage of more. We worked on looking at her for the lob, especially against the 1‑3‑1 and I thought we were really effective in that but she did a really good job offensive rebounding, which she's really been working on that, as well. So I was really pleased with her overall effort and just how she didn't stand around and settle for jumpers. She really went after the basket and I thought she was really efficient. Q. Can you talk about Natalie reaching 1,000 points? And then can you talk about McBride, she's really been on a tear here at the end of the season. COACH McGRAW: Yeah, Natalie, I was so happy for her to get her thousandth point. Looked at that earlier in the season and wondered if it would happen in the Tournament. She's doing a really good job of scoring around the basket. I think she's looking to post up a lot more. She's rebounding more, offensive rebounding put backs and doing a great job from the free throw line. So it's nice to get that out of the way, because I know that she knew she was close, she didn't know how many she had, but it's nice to get that done so that we can really focus on our next opponent. And Kayla McBride, she's an All‑American. She's playing great basketball. She's played well all year long, very steady, very consistent and did it all tonight, really happy, mostly with the rebounds for me, and that was the biggest thing for her. Q. When you look at Jewell's game, 15 shots on the 27 points, some people might look at Butler's 37 on 30 shots; but talk about her efficiency on the offensive end. COACH McGRAW: Yeah, she really got great looks. She took two threes but the rest of her shots were right around the basket. She's starting to use her jumping ability. She's posting up a little bit more which is something we've been working on with her, so if she can shoot the ball that efficiently, we can get her the ball more and get her more shots. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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