Irish roll to easy win over Hoyas
By TIM CASEY
Sports Writer
Muffet McGraw sat at the press conference with point guard Niele Ivey to her right answering questions from the sparse media representation after Notre Dame's 87-56 victory over Georg-etown on Saturday night.
Her team had just won its 13th straight game, but the Irish head coach was not ready to boast.
"We don't really talk about the winning streak because we know it doesn't really matter," McGraw said. "We try to take it one game at a time. I don't worry about it with this team. They're focused — they don't look ahead."
"If we were undefeated at this point, I'd be really happy," added McGraw. "Right now we're beating the teams we're supposed to beat."
Saturday's victim was Georgetown.
Behind 18 points and seven assists from point guard Ivey, the Irish (17-2, 8-0) coasted to a 31-point victory over the Hoyas (11-8, 5-3 Big East) at the Joyce Center. The victory represented the largest winning margin for the Irish all season.
Danielle Green added 14 points for the victors, while center Ruth Riley had 12 points and four blocked shots despite sitting out most of the second half.
Notre Dame raced out to a 20-7 lead with 13 minutes, 32 seconds remaining in the first half and never looked back. A lay-up by freshman forward Amanda Barksdale with 6:46 remaining in the game gave the Irish a 40-point lead at 79-39, their biggest of the game. The Hoyas' Katie Smrcka-Duffy scored nine points in the final 6 minutes to cut into the Irish lead.
The fifth-ranked Irish shot 63.3 percent from the field for the game; the Hoyas shot just 26.9 percent.
Smrcka-Duffy led Georgetown with 23 points on six of 14 shooting, including four for seven from three-point range. The junior guard also had a school-record 10 steals. Georgetown, which had won four straight games prior to Saturday's loss, also committed 30 turnovers for the game.
"It was Notre Dame's night," Georgetown head coach Patrick Knapp said. "We ran into a team that shot very, very well today. They didn't miss many shots.
"I thought in the second half we worked hard to sustain a strong effort," Knapp continued, "But nothing went in for long stretches of time."
With the game in hand by halftime, McGraw was able to give the bench players quality minutes in the second half. For the game, 11 of the 12 Notre Dame players scored.
"I think it's important we play our bench and get them some time," McGraw said. "It would have been better if they could finish the game not turning the ball over or fouling as much but they played pretty well."
McGraw was especially pleased with the performance of two reserves, freshman Amanda Barksdale (eight points, eight rebounds, five blocks) and junior Kelley Siemon (six points, five rebounds).
"We need to go eight deep [off the bench]," McGraw said. "Right now we have six players that could be starting and two or three more who are going to help us."
The last defeat for the Irish came on Dec. 8 when they lost 71-61 to Purdue. Notre Dame returns to action on Tuesday when they travel to Providence to take on the Lady Friars.
Though she maintains that the winning streak is not of major importance, McGraw admitted she can see improvement from her squad.
"I think this is the best game we've played in a while," McGraw said. "Michigan State [an 84-54 victory on Dec. 11] was the best game we've played all year, but I think this one is right up there.
"From the start we came out hard and got them down and kept increasing the lead," added McGraw. "We really kept expanding the lead and that was important."
All Sports Stories for Tuesday, February 1, 2000
