Notre Dame women's basketball: Exposed by Connecticut, Irish try to regroup

STORRS, Conn. - It’s tough to ignore the giant casting a massive shadow over your neighborhood, but that’s the challenge for the Notre Dame women’s basketball team. Notre Dame, ranked No. 3 in the nation, must put aside Saturday night’s 70-46 loss to No. 1 and defending national champion Connecticut. The Irish must forget the seven blocked shots, 3-of-19 shooting from 3-point range and 19 turnovers compared to only 18 baskets. They must block out thoughts of a March 1 game in South Bend against the Huskies, who with their 56-game winning streak are poised to become a team that sets the gold standard in college women’s basketball. The Huskies own the record for the most consecutive wins in college women’s basketball at 70 (2001-2003), and would be gunning for victory No. 69 if they take care of business before arriving in South Bend. But Notre Dame (15-1 overall, 2-1 Big East) must put on blinders and take aim at Louisville on Tuesday night, and ignore the lone towering skyscraper on the landscape. “Our focus, really is on Louisville right now,” said Irish head coach Muffet McGraw. “We can’t think ahead to March. We’ve got a lot of important stuff to do before we get to March. The Big East is going to be a challenge for us. We’ve got some tough road games coming up. Notre Dame’s first order of business is handling pressure, something that didn’t happen Saturday night at Gampel Pavilion. It took the Irish nearly 10 minutes to score a basket out of their half-court offense, and that was on an offensive rebound. “I thought they really pressured the ball and pressured the point guard, and we couldn’t get into our offense,” McGraw said. “We have some back-door options in the offense. We weren’t able to execute those. They pressured on the wing. We really couldn’t get anything going at all. We couldn’t get anything going in transition. They did a nice job of getting back.” Notre Dame must also figure out a way to stop a powerful post. Connecticut’s Tina Charles, one of the first names mentioned in player of the year talk, scored 23 points against the Irish - 17 in the first half. Charles, a 6-foot-4 post, hit 9-of-12 field-goal attempts. “We were trying to push her off the block and then double-team her once she got it, and we weren’t quite as effective,” McGraw said. “We wanted to force her back into the middle into the double-team. Obviously, we didn’t have the start that we needed, or wanted, or were planning on having. They just came out and went right into Charles. They set the tone early on, ‘Here’s our game plan, we’re going inside, try and stop us,’” and we weren’t able to stop her.” Another critical area for the Irish is not to let playing small become a liability. After having two shots blocked in the first two minutes, the Irish altered their shots. “We kept talking about that in the huddle, ‘Just take your normal shot. It’s OK if (Charles) blocks it, but let’s really try to score,’” McGraw said. “I thought that she made us think about it. She made us hesitate, shoot it a little bit harder, shoot it a little bit farther off than it normally would have gone.” UConn’s Maya Moore, last season’s collegiate player of the year, saw the effect the shot-blocking had on Notre Dame. “Any time you get your shot blocked, it takes a little out of you,” Moore said. “If you continually do that, it definitely takes some confidence away from the other team.” Devereaux Peters, like McGraw, is confident the Irish can improve their game. They eventually did that against the Huskies, as they were only outscored, 28-27, in the second half. “I think we weren’t as intimidated in the second half,” Peters said. “We were trying to run our stuff more. We tried to get a little bit more flow, but it wasn’t quite there, still. UConn is a great team. We know what we have to work on.”

GameDay blues

Notre Dame participated in the first women’s game showcased on ESPN’s GameDay, but it wasn’t the way McGraw wanted her Irish to be in the spotlight. When asked if the GameDay spotlight would help her program, McGraw said, “Only if the electricity went out in all of our recruits’ houses (and they didn’t see the game). I’m not sure that’s going to have a real favorable impact on our program right now. But certainly being a part of the GameDay, that was great to be in this historic day. We’re just real disappointed right now.”