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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE WOMEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 9, 2014Kayla McBrideMuffet McGrawGREENSBORO, NORTH CAROLINA Notre Dame – 69 COACH MUFFET McGRAW: I was really pleased with the second half. I thought we came out of the locker room and had kind of a renewed energy. I thought we played our game. I thought we played a little bit harder. The first half I felt like we weren't rebounding. Elizabeth Williams is a really difficult match‑up. She's a great player and just really hard for us to handle inside. She had a fantastic game. I thought Jewell and Kayla McBride were just unstoppable. The second half Jewell had a stretch where she took over and did so many great things. And Kayla is so dependable all year long, so steady, so consistent. We got some stops, we got the break going, an I thought our transition game really took off in the second half. Q. Obviously the undefeated record at this point is really impressive. Coming into the conference you played 8 teams in the top 15 and only one game was really close. How well has your team gone through all this? COACH MUFFET McGRAW: They really have played well. It's a credit to our senior leadership. They have this team ready every single day of practice. They're mentally tough. They have a competitive spirit. They just came in every day willing to work hard, ready to do whatever it takes. It would have been easy to watch a little game film and pat ourselves on the back and talk about how good we are. But we watched film, critiqued ourselves and asked ourselves: How good can we be? And that was a real credit to our senior class. Q. Were there some specific adjustments at halftime or some target areas that led you to that 19‑4 run? COACH MUFFET McGRAW: We put Kayla inside in the zone offense. I thought we were getting a lot of free throw jumper area shots. And she's just so steady from there. We wanted her inside. We did that. We put Ace on the wing. We came up and pressured a little bit more, and I thought that was ‑‑ (video feed lost) COACH MUFFET McGRAW: The second half I thought we did a much better job of really getting out on the break and running and doing the things we do in the transition game. Defensively I thought did a little bit more, tried to trap them a little bit more and get some turnovers, and I thought we were able to do that. Generally when we rebounded that was just the biggest key. Q. Kayla, coach alluded to the senior leadership. Specifically what do you think this group of seniors has done for this team this season? KAYLA McBRIDE: We have a lot of experience in the Big East, we had a lot of success going to the Final Four. We've been here before, we know what it takes to win these type of games. I credit Ace and Ariel. I think they're always ready.  I try to feed off of them. We know what we're doing with each one of our players, and how we can get them going. It's combined effort and we feed off coach and we just pass it on down. Q. There will be two undefeated teams going into the National Tournament. That's where the attention will be. How will you keep your team focused not on that but on each game? COACH MUFFET McGRAW: I don't think they'll put us together in the first round. I think we'll be pretty focused on our opponent, whoever that turns out to be. Q. Kayla, in this game and Tennessee was another game like this (video feed lost)? KAYLA McBRIDE: What we had to do for every game and how we're going to win, we focus on that game. We focus on each possession, and each 40 minutes of each game. Q. Coach, can you talk about the perimeter game, just what you were able to do with the 3‑pointers, and also what you were able to take away from Duke? COACH MUFFET McGRAW: I thought Jewell did a tremendous job on Liston. I was really pleased with her stats. I think our perimeter. We stood around a lot in the first half. We talked about that at halftime. We needed more motion in the offense, ran some different sets in the second half, put some people in different spots. We were really perimeter oriented. We didn't get anything going inside. I thought the second half we were able to get inside a lot more. That was the key for us, because we missed shots early in the first half, and then the second half we made them and that always makes us look better and opens up the inside game. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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