Irish regress in 73-47 rout at Louisville, but will it define them?
Niele Ivey waded through the shell shock of her 18th-ranked Notre Dame women’s basketball team’s slide off the big stage Sunday and suddenly remembered a valuable history lesson.
Now if only the second-year Irish head coach can concoct the magic formula to get that piece of history to repeat itself in a sense.
What she can’t afford is for the 73-47 loss Sunday to No. 3 Louisville to linger, with a road date at 11th-ranked Georgia Tech next up Thursday night. A high enough NCAA Tourney seeding to get home court in the early rounds and a possible ACC Tourney double-bye both are both at stake in that game especially, and with each succeeding game.
Other than the first six minutes of the first quarter Sunday at the KFC Yum! Center in Louisville, Ky., Notre Dame (19-6, 10-4 ACC) didn’t look like a team capable of either, as the Cardinals (22-2, 13-1) extended the longest active Irish series losing streak to any team to five games.
“The one thing that we have to bring is our competitiveness and our toughness and our willingness to fight,” Ivey said. “And I didn’t think that we had that.”
The 2018 Irish national championship team, for which Ivey was an assistant coach, had one of those nights in Louisville, too.
In fact, it was worse. A 100-67 by a No. 2-ranked Irish team to a No. 3 Cardinal squad set the record for most lopsided loss in the now 27-game series. Louisville won the rematch in March, but by two points, in the ACC Championship Game. The Irish then proceeded on their six-game run in the NCAA Tournament to win the national championship.
“In 2018, we didn’t play well here, and we didn’t let it define us,” Ivey said. “We fought back. We got better. We learned from it. We used it as motivation, and that’s what we’re going to use now.
“We have a really great opportunity to finish strong. It’s not easy to go through a game like this, but just knowing as a coach, we’ve been in this situation before. We’ve just got to keep their confidence and keep working, got to get back to work. And that’s the goal.
“We didn’t play well today, but we’ll get another opportunity. Thankful for that. Pray that Sam’s healthy, and we’ve got to move on.”
Sam is junior forward Sam Brunelle. She had a quick four points in three minutes off the bench, then left the game, not to return, with a right shoulder sprain. Ivey said she isn’t sure about Brunelle’s availability Thursday night, but she did say the medical staff believed it was not a long-term injury and that X-rays revealed no structural damage.
Ivey said Brunelle suffered the injury trying to jostle for position playing post defense and took some hard contact from Louisville’s Emily Engstler.
“Just a basketball play — nothing intentional,” Ivey said.
The Irish have been without another key rotational player, injured senior guard Abby Prohaska, for the past four games and most of a fifth, the upset victory over NC State on Feb. 1. Ivey said the timeline for Prohaska’s return is two weeks.
That would coincide with the Feb. 27 rematch with Louisville in South Bend, the final game of the regular season.
“I talked to (the team) about no matter what happens — foul trouble, six people healthy, five people healthy — the one thing that we have to bring is our competitiveness,” Ivey said, “and our toughness and our willingness to fight.”
The Irish were actually doing a pretty good job of it in the game’s opening minutes, down just 21-19 when grad senior Maya Dodson picked up her second foul of the game and went to the bench.
Louisville finished the half with an 11-2 surge, then scored the first 11 points of the third quarter to put the Irish in a hole that couldn’t make much headway climbing out of the rest of the game.
“That was a real tough stretch,” Ivey said. “We hit a lot of adversity with Sam and then Maya. Then after that, we lost our composure. And they just really came after us. They did a great job of really attacking us.”
Especially on defense.
The nation’s No. 16 team in scoring defense on Sunday held an opponent to its season-low point total for the 10th time this season. ND’s previous low was 54 in an 18-point loss to UConn.
“They pressured us,” Ivey said. “They got us out of our spots. They did a great job with their defense of trying to make us play really fast.”
Kianna Smith led a balanced Louisville offensive attack with 17 points as the Cardinals won at home for the 73rd time in their past 77 home games.
Freshman Sonia Citron led the Irish with 13 points, with classmate Olivia Miles adding 11 and sophomore Maddy Wesbeld chipping in 10.
As a team, the Irish shot 33% from the field, 9% (2-for-22) from the arc and 50% from the free-throw line. They were outrebounded, 50-32.
Senior guard Dara Mabrey continued her recent shooting funk, missing all eight field goal attempts from the field Sunday, including 0-of-5 from 3-point range..
Since reeling off five straight double-digit scoring performances in January. Mabrey hasn’t reached double figures in any of the six games since, including going scoreless in two of the past three games.
During those six games, she’s a combined 9-of-43 from the field (21%) and 5-of-28 from 3 (18 percent).
“She knows she (still) has the green light,” Ivey said. “As shooters, you’ve got to keep shooting. You’ve got to shoot with confidence. She’ll find it again.”
But can the Irish find themselves collectively again?
“That was my message,” Ivey said. “We’ve got to learn from it and we have three or four games left to finish strong.”
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