Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/462058
BY LOU SOMOGYI I n a span of one month, Notre Dame went from crisis mode to having the look of a program primed to le- gitimately vie for its fifth consecu- tive Final Four appearance this spring. On Jan. 8, its NCAA-record-tying 30-game road winning streak was snapped with a 78-63 defeat at Miami in which a shaken Irish team fell be- hind 40-20 at halftime. Starting sopho- more forward Taya Reimer had left the team a few days earlier and reportedly was on the brink of leaving school. Top-10 foes North Carolina and Ten- nessee were looming on the horizon in back-to-back games, and junior guard Jewell Loyd — perhaps the front- runner for National Player of the Year — would come down with an illness prior to the game at Chapel Hill. "We're just so darn young some- times that we needed maybe a kick in the pants to kind of say we need to come out ready," lamented Notre Dame head coach Muffet McGraw af- ter the setback at Miami. Fast forward to a month later (Feb. 8), Notre Dame had just posted an 89- 56 romp at Boston College and entered its bye week in the Atlantic Coast Con- ference on a roll. The Irish train that at one point appeared to be running low on steam was on track to be a No. 1 seed again this March. The Irish had won nine in a row, to sport a 23-2 overall record and a 10-1 mark in the ACC. The lineup, with five of the top eight players being freshmen or sophomores, was begin- ning to mesh on both ends of the floor. Most encouraging to McGraw was the squad was on an uptick with plenty more room to grow. "We're playing pretty well," Mc- Graw admitted after a 75-54 win at home Feb. 4 against Virginia in which the second-half defense was suffocat- ing after a rough start. "I'm happy with where we are right now." Numerous factors have led to the turnaround for the No. 4 Irish. Those factors included: • Reimer's Return/Westbeld's Prog- ress — Prior to the start of the second semester, Reimer took a leave of ab- sence to re-evaluate her role on the team and her future. With her strong 6-2 frame, the ROUNDING INTO SHAPE Irish developing the look of another deep run in March