SOUTH BEND, Ind. – The answers may be there.
Notre Dame women’s basketball coach Niele Ivey is certain they are.
But if so, they’re hiding under a lot of frustrating and empty offensive possessions right now.
With first place in the Atlantic Coast Conference on the line, the Irish, a team with too few scoring options, succumbed to the strong defensive talents of Duke in a 57-52 loss at sold-out Purcell Pavilion Sunday afternoon.
Duke, ranked 16th in the country, limited No. 9 Notre Dame to 2-for-13 shooting in the fourth quarter and just 40% for the game to improve to 20-3 and 10-2 in the ACC, a game ahead of Florida State and Notre Dame (18-4, 9-3).
SUBSCRIBE TO INSIDE ND SPORTS TO STAY IN THE KNOW ON NOTRE DAME ATHLETICS
JOIN THE CONVERSATION ON THE INSIDER LOUNGE MESSAGE BOARD
Sunday’s performance in front of 9,149 fans was Notre Dame’s worst offensive output at home and second to a 60-50 loss on the road to North Carolina on Jan. 8. It never figured to be easy with Duke fourth in the country coming into the game with a defense allowing 51.7 points a game.
“It's part of our growth,” Ivey said after a loss that included a 3-for-11 performance from the 3-point line. “It's part of our journey. And sometimes that journey, when you lose the way that we lost, it's never easy, but there’s always something that you can take from it. That's what we're gonna do.”
Notre Dame has lost two starters totaling nearly 20 points combined since Jan. 22. Grad student guard Dara Mabrey (knee) won’t return and it’s uncertain when, or if, 6-4 grad student Lauren Ebo will return.
Ivey has been guarded with releasing any specific information on her injury. Ebo, who has missed three games, was on the floor Sunday, walking without crutches with a boot on her right foot.
Two of Notre Dame’s four losses have come without Ebo as the Notre Dame offense, which came in averaging 78 points a game, hasn’t looked itself without her 10 points and seven rebounds a game.
What the loss of Mabrey and Ebo has meant when facing stronger teams has begun to crystallize – Duke outscored Notre Dame 21-4 in bench points and 26-22 in the paint. The Irish also were outrebounded, 37-33, after coming into the game with a significant 12.2 average rebounding edge. Junior forward Maddy Westbeld, who led the Irish with seven rebounds, never left the floor.
Ebo could absorb a lot of that with her minutes (23 a game), her presence and experience in the lane, but Ivey delivered no specifics on her progress except to reiterate her status as day-to-day.
Maybe, in the long run of a long season, it could work to Notre Dame’s advantage in finding more scoring help, but right now that help is hard to find.
Good teams can reduce the impact of stars – if there aren’t too many – and Duke did exactly that Sunday, limiting Olivia Miles (11), Sonia Citron (14) and Westbeld (15) to a combined 17-for-38. The rest of the club? Just 4-for-14.
“They’re hard to guard – and my brain hurts,” joked Duke coach Kara Lawson, whose team beat the Irish, 72-70, in Durham, N.C. last year and has built the program on transfers – 11 of the current 16 players on the roster started their careers at other schools.
“We talk about staying disciplined defensively,” Lawson said of the fourth quarter. “We challenged shots and didn’t give up easy shots to the players who had been scoring and forced some other people to take some shots.”
Five players had eight or more points for the Blue Devils.
ND had just the three.
ND’s Kylee Watson, a 6-4 starting forward averaging six points a game, never took an official shot from the field and was 2-for-4 from the free throw line.
Much of Ivey’s belief is that her freshmen, KK Bransford (2-for-5) and Cass Prosper (1-for-8 and 0-5 in the fourth quarter) will begin to deliver with consistency, but it’s asking a lot of first-year players under fire.
“You learn a lot (under pressure) in just having the confidence to be in those moments,” Ivey said. “They're gaining that, even with a loss. You're still gaining my trust – they know that I trust them. Those opportunities that are going to present themselves again, they'll have been in those moments, so it's going to help us down the road.”
Because of Notre Dame’s equally stout defensive effort – Duke shot 40% for the game and 25% from the 3-point line (4-for-16) – it was a final-quarter slugfest.
After a Miles bank shot from about eight feet in the lane with 8:40 to play, the Irish went scoreless until the 3:16 mark.
Miles also broke the drought with a terrific play – a blocked shot she turned into a 3-pointer on the offensive end that electrified a full house and got the Irish to within 53-52 with 3:16 to play.
That’s when Duke turned up its pressure one more notch.
After a Jordyn Oliver layup made it 55-52 with 2:44 to play, Prosper missed a three with a couple minutes to go and Westbeld missed a desperate 15-footer under heavy pressure a minute later.
ND’s defense was a wall on the other end, but the Irish failed to corral a rebound after Elizabeth Balogun’s missed jumper with 55 seconds to go.
“Defensively, we had some lapses that really cost us the game, and (allowing) the offensive rebound, when we finally got the stop, and not being able to capitalize in transition,” Ivey said about the critical points.
After the Irish couldn’t grab that late defensive rebound, Duke burned the clock down to 15.4 seconds. After Shayeann Day-Wilson’s mid-range jumper was off the mark, Watson got the rebound for an ND possession.
Down three, with 15 seconds to go, Ivey had Miles go coast-to-coast with the ball. She got into the lane but passed up a shot for a pass through the lane intended for Prosper, and it was picked off by Reigan Richardson.
“I wanted to get Liv to drive it down,” Ivey said. “We had 15 seconds. She got there in about three seconds. So I was trying to go for two (points) first before I went for the three.”
After the turnover, Duke maintained possession until 5.6 seconds remained when Balogun dropped in two free throws to basically end it.
Notre Dame, which won’t face Duke again in the regular season, can look back at a lot of missed chances in a game it led by eight in the second quarter. It left some points at the free throw line, going 7-for-14 to Duke’s 9-for-12, and it got off to a rough start with the ball when every possession was precious.
Notre Dame, averaging 16 turnovers a game, gave away nine turnovers in the first half and finished with 14 – significant in a slower-paced game that featured 10 lead changes and five ties.
“You know, offensively, we're gonna get better,” Ivey said. “We're always working on taking care of the ball. We're gonna get better on both sides of the ball.”
Notre Dame’s home stand continues Thursday when Pittsburgh (8-15, 1-11 ACC) visits for a 6 p.m. EST contest.
---------------------------------------------------------------
• Talk with Notre Dame fans on The Insider Lounge.
• Subscribe to the Inside ND Sports podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, SoundCloud, Podbean or Pocket Casts.
• Subscribe to the Inside ND Sports channel on YouTube.
• Follow us on Twitter: @insideNDsports, @EHansenND, @TJamesND and @ByKyleKelly.
• Like us on Facebook: Inside ND Sports
• Follow us on Instagram: @insideNDsports
