Notre Dame Women's Basketball Notebook After a Road Win Over Boston College

Notre Dame women’s basketball did something Thursday night that it had not done in nearly four calendar years – win at Conte Forum. Boston College’s home court had been a bit of a house of horrors for the Fighting Irish in recent seasons.

The last three meetings between the Fighting Irish and Eagles at Conte Forum were decided by a grand total of six points, with BC winning all three. The Irish saw a 12-point lead slip away in the fourth quarter two years ago and last year’s 17th ranked team blew a 14-point lead in the third quarter. Both turned into two-point defeats.

This year’s team was up by 11 in the first half only to see the Eagles tie the score at 43-all in the third quarter. Boston College could never take the lead and a 14-0 Irish run in the fourth quarter propelled the No. 9 Irish to a 72-59 victory to earn the program’s first win at Conte since Feb. 13, 2019.

“For whatever reason, our team was asking like, how did Florida State lose here, how did NC State,” Notre Dame associate head coach Carol Owens told the Notre Dame Radio Network after the win. “It's just, it's kind of a eerie feeling. I don't know. The way we shoot we get up and then they start chipping away. But we knew Boston College is a really good team. They're a really good team and they're young and they have no fear because they're young. But they've always seemed to play very well at home, and we knew that coming in. As coaches we knew that it was going to be a battle throughout.”

Fighting Through Adversity

Notre Dame used the same starting lineup for the first 19 games of the season, but they’re without former starter Dara Mabrey for the remainder of the season with a knee injury. Primary sixth person Lauren Ebo has also been out the last two games with a lower leg injury.

Losing those to primary players, both graduate students, has caused a lack of synchronicity for the Irish, especially at the offensive end of the floor.

“When you lose two people in one week, it takes some time to adjust to that mentally and then on the court position wise,” Owens remarked. “And I think our team is fighting through that. And this was such a huge win. BC beat Florida State here, they beat NC State here, and we haven't won here since 2019. So I'm just really proud of our team. We had a little adversity throughout the game, but we found a way in the second half to play the way we needed to play.”

Doing It With Defense

Notre Dame held Boston College to 36% from the field and kept an Eagle team that had averaged 7.5 three pointers over its previous four games to 3 for 17 shooting from beyond the arc.

The Fighting Irish are now allowing the third-fewest points per game (58.0) and they also have the No. 2 field goal percentage defense (35%) in the ACC.

They ranked No. 10 and No. 9 in those respective categories last season, but spent the offseason with a defensive mindset.

“Our defense has been really good,” said Owens. “Sometimes, some nights your shots not falling, but it gives us the opportunity to go in transition. And I think we got some good layups, (Olivia Miles) and (Sonia Citron) working together. It's just spectacular and Liv almost got a triple double today. But she's a good rebounding guard. She gets she gets on the boards and she's active there, which helps but transition wise, that's our bread and butter, and we want to play up tempo type games.

“This year that's been our emphasis is our defense. And I thought we did some great things defensively,” Owens continued. “We put on our full court press, our three-quarter court press, with Cass Prosper at the top of it and she's just so long, and she's active. But if we didn't get a steal, we shortened the shot clock, which is what we wanted, and I thought we did a great job with that.

“We worked on it a lot this summer. We talked about them individually making a commitment to defense and they didn't have to do it by themselves individually, but collectively. We had to be a very good defensive team. So, I think we've committed to that, and I think we see the results statistically, where we are. I can't tell you when we've been high on the stairs defensively. We're playing a lot more man the man and Cassandre makes a difference because she adds to that as well. But Sonia Citron, the stats don't show the little things that she does. Off the ball or on the ball, she's always guarding usually somebody's best player. And now we have Cassandre that is kind of stepping in that. We have the utmost confidence in her as a 17-year-old to come out defensively and help us. And then KK Bradford has been a consistent defender that we trust out there, too, from the perimeter. And then Maddy (Westbeld) and Kylee (Watson), they have great posts defense. They block shots. We tried to block too many (and) Maddy got a little trouble but, we're confident in how they are inside as well. And of course, when (Lauren) Ebo comes back her presence defensively and her ability to rebound has been really, really good.”

Nat Marshall

With Ebo out the last two games, junior forward Natalija Marshall has been called upon for more minutes. She has averaged 10.1 minutes per game this season, but she gave the Irish 17 quality minutes, especially at the defensive end, in Thursday’s victory.

“Huge, huge, huge minutes from Nat and I'm really proud of her,” Owens proclaimed. “And she's trying to do whatever she can to help his team and she's done a great job. The last couple of games (she) was giving us some great minutes and she's going to continue to improve and get better. I really love her defense and her ability to hit the shot. You know, 10 foot and out. She can hit that shot, which poses a threat to the defense.”

The Next Big Challenge

Notre Dame begins a four-game home stretch with Sunday’s game against No. 16/15 Duke. The Irish and Blue Devils are tied with 9-2 records atop the ACC standings heading into their first and only regular season meeting. The winner will hold sole possession of first place with six games to go for Notre Dame after that.

“Duke is a really very good team,” said Owens. “They're coming in. This is the first time we're seeing them on our home floor. We want to keep playing well defensively, because that's what's gotten us to this point in the season. We have to do it on defense, we have to rebound. We just have to do the little things and that's what we've been preaching with our team is the little things that matter.”

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