Blue and Gold Illustrated

December 2017

Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football

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40 DECEMBER 2017 BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED WOMEN'S BASKETBALL BY LOU SOMOGYI R obert Frost's poem The Road Not Taken isn't something Notre Dame women's pro- gram is living this month. An arduous seven-game road slate began Nov. 14 with a 78-65 win at Western Kentucky, which drew more than 5,000 for the game and is one of 11 programs with a winning percent- age better than .800 in its home city. Five days later, the No. 6-ranked Irish rallied from an 11-point second- half deficit to emerge with a 72-67 victory versus No. 18 Oregon State in front of a raucous crowd of 7,570. OSU advanced to the Final Four in 2016, was a No. 2 seed last year and is 62-7 at home since the 2013-14 season — but is 0-2 there versus the Irish. Up next was a three-game slate for the Gulf Coast Classic, Nov. 24-26 in Estero, Fla., in which the Irish were projected to meet reigning national champ South Carolina in the final, with the possibility of playing top-20 ranked South Florida the day prior. Following that tournament, Notre Dame will visit Michigan Nov. 29 for the ACC-Big Ten challenge and then finish the road odyssey at No. 1 Con- necticut Dec. 3, the overwhelming favorite to win its fifth national title in the past six years and 12th overall since 1995. ESCAPING AT OREGON STATE Sophomore guard Jackie Young's career-high 21 points and eight re- bounds overcame nine three-pointers by the Beavers in Gill Coliseum. The team identity is under construction right now, and the purpose of the challenging non-conference sched- ule is to formulate one by the time league play in the ACC commences in January. "It's a great feeling because we learned so much about ourselves in a game like that," head coach Muffet McGraw said of the victory at Or- egon State. "We got into some situ- ations where we're still trying to fig- ure out what exactly are we going to do right now? "Last year it was Lindsay Allen, Brianna Turner and the pick and roll. Both of them are gone, so how do we get Arike [Ogunbowale] the ball? What do we do with Jackie Young? "Do we want to go inside? … We have so many options — almost too many options — that we haven't settled on that one thing we need to do yet." With fifth-year senior Lili Thomp- son's leadership at point guard, Notre Dame had only seven turn- overs in the contest, but had to over- come a quick 11-2 OSU lead. The Irish trailed 37-29 at halftime and were down as much as 11 with 8:11 left in the third quarter. Young scored 17 of her points in the second half when she was 8 of 12 from the field. Juniors Ogunbowale and Marina Mabrey chipped in with 15 and 10 points, respectively. Junior forward Jessica Shepard struggled with her shot (2 of 11), but added nine rebounds. Freshman Mi- kayla Vaughn had another strong ef- fort off the bench with eight points and seven rebounds in 16 minutes. The 72 points especially were no- table because the hallmark of the Bea- vers is stout defense. Last year, Mar- Junior forward Jessica Shepard averaged 14.0 points and a team-best 10.7 rebounds per game to help the Irish get off to a 3-0 start. PHOTO BY JOE RAYMOND A SHOW ON THE ROAD Seven straight games away from home are providing early lessons

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