Jan. 13, 2004

Recap?|? Box Score?|? Notes?|? Photo Gallery

Coach Muffet McGraw

On the game …
“Any time you can beat a great team – and they are a great team – it is a big confidence boost for your program.”

“We executed our gameplan. We played with poise down the stretch when they made their run. I am just so proud of this team right now.”

On her team’s defense …
“I was excited about our defense. We really worked hard on our zone. We played a great [defensive] game against Virginia Tech, and today we played another great defensive game. We had to go out and win the battle of the boards and, even though we only won by one, I thought we did an outstanding job.”

“I think our zone frustrated them a little bit. We thought about going man-to-man down the stretch, but the zone was so effective that we stayed with it.”

“We’ve been trying to focus on our defense for the past month, and we’ve been a little more successful lately. I think we saw what we could do Saturday when we beat Virginia Tech and held them to 40. We realized we could be a better team. I think we’re finally starting to believe in the zone.”

On the play of Jacqueline Batteast …
“I am so impressed with Jackie Batteast right now. I think she played like the national player of the year [today]. She had an outstanding game. Every time we needed to score, she was there.”

On her team’s gameplan …
“We were trying to slow the game down a little bit and keep the score in the 60s. We felt like we had a better chance to win if we could walk it up sometimes. We wanted to use more time on offense and press on defense, so they would use more time bringing the ball up the court and would only have 20 seconds to attack our zone instead of 30. I thought we executed that well.”

On Jacqueline Batteast’s blocked shot against Diana Taurasi with 3:17 remaining …
“I think that deflated Connecticut. I think they felt that Diana would save the day. That is when the crowd really got into it. I think we really felt good about the chance to use another 30 seconds late in the game. It was a big turnaround, but she made so many big plays today.”

Junior F Jacqueline Batteast

On her performance …
“Since the beginning of the season, coach has told me to keep being aggressive and being positive even if the shots aren’t falling. I just continued to do that and tonight they fell.”

On the victory …
“This is a big win for us. It was a team effort. We came in, believed, and played defense. It just feels great right now.”

On her blocked shot against Diana Taurasi with 3:17 remaining …
“I didn’t want her to shoot that in my face. I thought if she hit that shot it would turn momentum to their side. I just put my hand straight up, and she shot right into it.”

“[Having] four fouls didn’t come into my mind; two points did. I didn’t want Taurasi to hit that shot. I just jumped as high as I could, and I got all ball.”

Senior G Le’Tania Severe

On the team’s mindset …
“We focused on keeping our composure when we got ahead. At every timeout, we would keep saying that there was a lot of time left. The game was never over until the buzzer went off. We just focused on not losing our heads. I thought we did a great job of keeping our composure.”

“Coming off our win on Saturday, we were definitely up for this game. We believed in ourselves, and the fans were behind us, and the coaches were behind us. We were very confident coming into the game.”

Sophomore G Megan Duffy

On the Joyce Center crowd …
“It’s so much fun playing at home. The kind of crowd we got tonight just made us want to play even harder. It made us want to make the big plays and come out with the win. On every big play and every rebound we got, the crowd was into it. That was huge in keeping us inspired and keeping us playing hard.”

Connecticut Head Coach Geno Auriemma Quotes
On the loss…
“A loss like this could do anything. It could make us think we’ll never win again or (have the opposite effect). Notre Dame’s big players kicked our butts tonight.”

On senior forward Diana Taurasi…
“We rely on Diana to do so many things and that’s just not possible for her right now. I don’t know if anyone could do what Diana did the last two years. She made something really hard look easy.”

On Notre Dame…
“Notre Dame never let us get the lead. Against any other team, we would have made our run and won.”

On Notre Dame junior forward Jacqueline Batteast…
“Notre Dame played really well. Jaqueline Batteast was the best player on the court tonight.”

Connecticut Player Quotes

Senior G Diana Taurasi
On the defeat…
“[Throughout] the whole game, we couldn’t get over the hump. We pulled to within three points, and one point a couple of times, but then we just couldn’t get anything going offensively. Then defensively, every time we got some momentum we would foul, and they would make the free throws.”

On Notre Dame’s defensive effort…
“They’re not the first team to play a zone against us. We’ve seen it before, we played against it last year, and we just didn’t execute today. No one, including myself, stepped up to make shots, or took it upon herself to get us going.”

On Jacqueline Batteast’s block against her with 3:17 left in the game…
“If the shot had gone in, we would have been down two, but the plays hadn’t been going our way the entire game, so I don’t think that any one play changed the whole game.”

On what Connecticut needs to do to improve…
“There’s nothing we can fix with our fundamentals. We need to find something inside of us. Right now we’re all floating around out there, and we need to pull it together and play as a team. It’s something that could take a while, but it’s a long season and we’re here for the long haul.”

Junior C Jessica Moore
On Jacqueline Batteast’s performance…
“She is a very good and athletic player, and she did a great job of using that against us.”

On Connecticut’s second-half charge…
“For that small part of the game, we finally did what we were trying to do the entire game, and that was to have control within the post.”