Youngsters show promise despite 27-point loss
Noah Amstadter
Sports Editor
HARTFORD, Conn.
The 16,294 Husky sweatshirt-wearing faithful who made it to the Hartford Civic Center Monday afternoon probably thought that they saw the price Notre Dame is paying after topping UConn twice in three tries en route to a NCAA title last season.
And I'll bet the kids all around the country sitting in front of ESPN on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day thoroughly enjoyed the high-speed acrobatics Sue Bird and Tamika Williams performed at Notre Dame's expense.
But me? I looked at the game through my crystal ball and I saw next season's Big East champion, and I don't mean the team with the guy running around in the dog suit.
No, I'm not kidding. The Irish might be 10-7 after the 80-53 Huskies win, but even in the loss they showed the talent and versatility a team needs to win these days. And Irish head coach Muffet McGraw saw those same things.
"This whole season is preparation for the future," McGraw said after the game. "Everything we do is preparation for next year, and this is going to be a very good team next year."
Then she paused for a second, not wanting to throw the current campaign to the wayside.
"We're going to be a very good team this year," she added.
Maybe so, because with the learning curve this team has exhibited since early December, they could be quite good by early March. Back in early December, Notre Dame met then-No. 19 Michigan on a neutral court in Grand Rapids and looked confused and intimidated, falling 78-63 and shooting just 37.3 percent.
After that game I wrote a column suggesting that for this team to compete this year, the freshman must contribute — now. Some people told me I was expecting too much from a group of 18-year olds who had never played together before. They told me to give the kids time to develop, to learn to play with one another.
Well I don't expect a repeat championship this year, but after watching this team mature over the last six weeks I'm sticking to my guns, and here's why:
This team's best athlete, a player who can beat offenses inside and outside with moves that are physically impossible to defend, is a freshman: Jacqueline Batteast.
This team's best scorer in the low post, the one who can give the Irish an edge in rebounding and second-chance points, is also a freshman: Teresa Borton.
The one player who can come into a game and completely alter a defense with her ability to play all five positions? You guessed it, freshman Kelsey Wicks.
And the shooter who can punish a team for zeroing in on Batteast and Alicia Ratay? That would be Allison Bustamante, a freshman.
Oh yeah, sophomore point guard Le'Tania Severe, the only true point guard on the roster and the slasher and defensive whiz who best resembles Niele Ivey, counts as a freshman here too after averaging less than five minutes a game while nursing leg injuries last season.
And Monday, the kids showed glimpses of greatness against a UConn team that's obviously the best in the country. They may have lost by 27, but No. 2 Tennessee and No. 3 Oklahoma could barely stay within 20.
First there was Wicks, coming off the bench to score a team-high 16 points in 27 minutes. The Wyoming native didn't seem to notice the All-Americans in her face, the loud, nearly-capacity arena or the offensive struggles of her teammates. She just put 14 shots up, saw half of them go in and helped the Irish keep the gap under 30.
"Pretty much the open shots that I had I was like, `Oh, it's open, I'll just shoot it,'" Wicks said. "I like to keep things very simple. I don't think too much, I just play."
That's an attitude also exhibited by Bustamante, who was forced into her first minutes at point guard when Severe picked up her fourth foul early in
the second half. The Miami native collected three assists to only one turnover, keeping the offense in flow while learning on the fly.
And Batteast, who made only two of 10 shots, had a valid excuse. A front court featuring three future WNBA players was told to focus in on her. But while she struggled to put the ball in the basket, she didn't carry her struggles over to the defensive end, picking up a steal and three blocked shots while helping to hold Swin Cash to 4-14 shooting.
As for the sophomore, Severe, she only collected four steals and seven assists against Sue Bird, a Naismith Award candidate and undoubtedly the best point guard in the country.
So what do the Irish still need to do this season? For starters, take something away from every game. On Monday, the Irish played together for the first time in front of a hostile environment and ESPN cameras.
"You come into a game like this, it's preparation for the Big East tournament, for the NCAA tournament," McGraw said. "It's a big game atmosphere. The crowd is tremendous."
The youngsters also need to take a cue from Wicks and remain unflustered, no matter what the surroundings. This team is undefeated at home, but just 2-6 away from the Joyce Center.
"I think maybe just mentally when we're faced with the hostile environment of somebody else's house, we haven't had that killer instinct where we respond with the fierceness that you need to be a competitor," Wicks said. "I think that's kind of cost us a little bit, but we are developing and we're getting a lot better."
Each player also needs to settle into a role within the team, as they have begun to in recent weeks. McGraw pointed out Sunday afternoon that although the Irish go 10 deep in their rotation, teams with a solid core of veterans like UConn have the advantage of knowing how each teammate moves and thinks.
And last, the team needs to remain positive. After Saturday's home game against Virginia Tech, it wouldn't be overestimating the Irish to expect them to win out the Big East season. But even if they don't, they need to remember that there's only one senior on this year's roster. After all, the Irish were only 11-5 through 15 games in 1997-98, Riley's freshman year and Ivey's first full season.
"We're young. We're still growing. And if we continue to develop, we're going to be so much better and it's going to show the next time," Wicks said with a smile after the game.
Smart kid.
Contact Noah Amstadter at namstadt@nd.edu. The views of this column are those of the author and are not necessarily those of The Observer.
All Sports Stories for Tuesday, January 22, 2002
