The student news site of Marquette University

Marquette Wire

The student news site of Marquette University

Marquette Wire

The student news site of Marquette University

Marquette Wire

Notre Dame’s hot shooters ruin any plans of comeback

,”SOUTH BEND, Ind.—No. 16 Notre Dame shot an impressive 62.1 percent from the field in the first half of Wednesday night's win over Marquette.

While this may have roused recent memories of last week's 19-point come-from-behind win over Cincinnati, in which the Bearcats hit 66.7 percent in the first half, this game was a different story.

Unlike Cincinnati, Notre Dame was able to sustain that shooting percentage for the duration of the game. In fact, the Fighting Irish improved on that mark, shooting 66.7 percent in the second half.

But a mere glance at the box score doesn't do justice Notre Dame's performance.

Cincinnati managed to shoot well while throwing up contested shots and attempting ill-advised three-pointers. The Fighting Irish, on the other hand, were able to get any and every look they pleased off of dribble penetration.

"We talked about it a thousand times," Marquette head coach Terri Mitchell said. "You can blame the coaching. We knew exactly what they were doing. We showed it. We practiced it. We didn't do it."

Marquette held a decent size advantage in the post, but Golden Eagles forwards Paige Fiedorowicz and Svetlana Kovalenko were not able to capitalize. They combined for 16 points and only seven rebounds.

"We really needed to outrebound them after getting crushed by (Pittsburgh)," Notre Dame head coach Muffet McGraw said. "That was something that we talked about."

Although the Golden Eagles continued their trend of dominating the offensive boards, the Fighting Irish ended up winning the rebounding war 36-26.

Of Notre Dame's 99 points, 52 of them came in the paint. Marquette scored only 24 points in the paint.

"I think it's a little deceiving, though, in the paint," McGraw said. "We were getting layups from a lot of the guards. It wasn't like our post game was scoring all of the points."

With Notre Dame's four-guard offense, post players Erica Williamson and Becca Bruszewski are not expected to put up big point totals.

Notre Dame was able to get to the basket at will and sank 26-of-28 free throws.

"They had help defense sometimes," Notre Dame junior guard Lindsay Schrader said. "So we just had to look if they had help defense or not. And plus throwing it high to the post players."

Also noteworthy is the fact that the Irish were without freshman forward Devereaux Peters. She was forced out of Saturday's game against Pittsburgh with what was later confirmed as a torn left ACL.

Peters had been averaging 9.0 points per game and 5.6 rebounds per game.

While the Fighting Irish rarely call plays for Peters, she provides valuable interior defense, and her athleticism helps her grab her share of offensive rebounds.

The point being, although teams don't often shoot 64.3 percent in a game, Marquette's 99-76 loss could have been worse.

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