The most exciting part of Wednesday's game between Notre Dame and St. John's may have been the "Kiss a Pig" contest during halftime, but the Irish are just fine with that. After a January full of tough home losses and a recent nail biter against Virginia Tech, the easy 76-48 win against St. John's came as a welcome relief.

There were a few tense moments when the Red Storm came within one, but then the Irish pulled ahead from 4-3 to 6-3 and the nervousness ended along with any St. John's hopes of victory.

"I thought we did a lot of good things today," Irish coach Muffet McGraw said. "I was overall pretty pleased with the performance of the whole team. I thought that everybody who came in did a good job contributing."

Although the Irish did not claim any extraordinary numbers, they played two solid halves of basketball and found success where, until recently, it had been lacking. Notre Dame out-rebounded the Red Storm 33-29 and managed a positive assist to turnover ratio, thanks to a first half that was focused on protecting the ball.

"Four turnovers in the first half, I figured the statistician made a lot of mistakes," McGraw said. "It was nice to see that low number. That was a really great thing."

Jacqueline Batteast and Alicia Ratay led a potent Irish offense that finished with four players in double figures and a total of 16 assists, including a career-high five for Katy Flecky. Despite Ratay's nine points off 3-pointers and another trey from Courtney LaVere, it was in the paint that the Irish really found success.

Batteast paired up with teammate Teresa Borton to work the ball inside against a slightly smaller St. John's team. All three of Batteast's assists went to Borton for some easy layups in the paint as Notre Dame outscored St. John's 40-8 inside.

"Our game plan was try to stop them inside and obviously we didn't do too good of a job of that," Red Storm coach Kim Barnes Airco said. "They have a powerful team inside. … That's the strength of their team and we tried to take it away and we couldn't."

Notre Dame's defense didn't have a bad showing either. For the fourth time in their last six games, the Irish have held their opponent to less than 60 points. As a team, Notre Dame recorded 14 steals against the Red Storm. Four were Flecky's — another career-high for the sophomore post player. McGraw credits her team's new 1-3-1 zone defense for some of Notre Dame's recent defensive success. Until recently, the Irish had been playing a 2-3 zone that their opponents prepared for. But opponents aren't quite sure what they'll see now.

"We have a new zone that's pretty good," McGraw said. "I think that it's a little bit different and I think it's sort of surprising the other team a little bit."

But McGraw also admitted that the 34.7 percent St. John's shot from the floor could not be attributed wholly to Notre Dame's defense. It was also a result of bad shooting for the Red Storm. Aside from guard Shemika Stevens, who tallied 20 points in Wednesday night's contest, only one member of the St. John's team scored more than five points.

"I didn't think [our defense] was quite as good tonight, I think [St. John's] missed some shots," McGraw said.

And without any defense inside the paint, St. John's was doomed for defeat.

"We're not a very potent offensive team," Barnes Airco said. "So if we can't stop these teams and hold them to 50s, low 60s, we're in trouble. They did a good job tonight, found the open person, moved the ball around."

The Irish took the lead just 15 seconds into the game when Borton scored on an assist from Batteast. A lay-up by Le'Tania Severe gave them a 10-point lead they never relinquished, leaving them with a 35-20 lead at the half.

Note:

uSt. John's senior Danielle Rainey was declared ineligible and did not play on Wednesday night. The University realized through an administrative error that Rainey's eligibility had expired at the end of first semester. The team is currently awaiting a decision from the NCAA as to whether it will extend Rainey's eligibility.

• Belles get rung again
  
• Belles get rung again
  
• Irish breeze through Red Storm