Irish start slow, finish strong against Broncos behind Westbeld, defense
SOUTH BEND, Ind. — Niele Ivey’s thin and raspy voice was about gone.
She wouldn’t confirm that it came from some halftime dialogue with her No. 5-ranked women’s basketball team after it was out-worked for 20 minutes by an out-sized 5-6 Western Michigan team.
No doubt, that chat didn’t help her voice, but it did her club.
Notre Dame, 10-1, led 38-30 at halftime, then went on a 17-0 run through the first 5:48 of the second half to eventually perform as expected in an 85-57 victory in front of a Wednesday noon crowd at Purcell Pavilion, listed at 4,772, but significantly less.
“Yeah, we definitely did start out a little slow,” said 6-foot-3 junior Maddy Westbeld, who led the Irish with a season-high 23 points, 19 in the second half. “Personally, as an upperclassman, I think me, Dara (Mabrey), Sonia (Citron) and Liv (Miles), we all need to take it on ourselves to just hold that standard from the beginning of the game.
“Coach just reiterated that a little bit for us,” she added with a smile.
Led by Westbeld, the Irish got ultra-serious after halftime, ramping up the man-to-man defensive pressure and becoming much more active offensively.
Entering the game with a 9.0 scoring average, Westbeld scored from a variety of spots — a few times on easy layups, once on an alley-oop from Mabry and three times on 3-pointers in six attempts.
“And defensively, she's just been a terror all season,” Ivey said.
That’s been the case for all of the Irish for the most part this season, allowing an average of 60 points and 35% field goal shooting to date.
Citron and KK Bransford spent a lot of time chasing and harassing Western Michigan’s 22-point scorer Lauren Ross, limiting her to 5-for-15 shooting and 14 points.
This season already, the 5-10 sophomore guard is a three-time Mid-American Conference Player of the Week selection.
“We tried to deny her the ball a little bit more and make her a little bit uncomfortable, pushing her off the 3-point line and not allowing her to get hot,” Ivey said. “She had a couple of really big shots and then she had that big NBA 3, so she's really tough. But I thought we did a really good job.”
The Irish made it look easy at times in the first half, with Kylee Watson getting all eight of her points on layups, but some defensive breakdowns and reckless passing, that led to 10 first-half turnovers (17 for the game), kept the Broncos hanging around.
Ivey called her team’s first-half effort “sluggish.”
They got back on track with an obvious uptick in the defensive intensity that didn’t allow a Bronco field goal in the third quarter until three minutes remained.
The Irish also crushed Western Michigan on the boards, 44-20, for the contest and wound up with 48 points in the paint to the Broncos’ 20, not surprising considering Notre Dame’s significant height advantage.
Irish leading scorer Olivia Miles didn’t spend much time hunting for her shot. The sophomore guard went 3-for-6 and totaled eight points, but she dazzled as usual with her passing and delivered 12 assists of the team’s 23, and had seven rebounds.
“I didn’t even realize that Liv had 12 assists,“ Ivey said. “It's amazing. But they're very unselfish. They’re trying to make the right play, trying to share the ball and finding the open person — so this team is extremely unselfish.“
Mabrey was four points under her average with eight, but had five assists.
Besides strong defense on Ross, Citron totaled 16 points, which included a couple of 3s, and six rebounds. Notre Dame shot 55% for the game and 50% from the 3-point line (8-for-16).
With the Irish off until Dec. 29 — at Atlantic Coast Conference foe Miami — it was a good time for Ivey to take stock of where her club stands.
“This group is pretty special and excited for us returning after Christmas, getting into ACC play and extremely proud of this group of where we are at this point,” Ivey said.
“I think this year, year three (for Ivey), and this non-conference schedule has been fantastic,” she said. “I feel like we have had a lot of maturation, a lot of growth this season. We’ve had some amazing matchups on the road, (and) we beat UConn at home.
“So, we’re exactly where I wanted us to be. And still again, we're not satisfied. We want to continue to grow and continue to get better.”
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