Women's Big East Tournament: Irish roll to 89-33 victory in quarterfinals
By TIM CASEY
Assistant Sports Editor
STORRS, Conn.
Where to begin?
How about here — combine No. 2 Notre Dame's 89-33 victory over Georgetown on Sunday afternoon with No. 1 Tennessee's 77-74 loss to Vander-bilt one day earlier and the Irish seem destined to return to the top of the national rankings. Both the Associated Press and ESPN/USA TODAY polls will be released today.
"Obviously that would be great," said forward Kelley Siemon, who played on Sunday without a wrap on her left wrist for the first time since Jan. 13. "But that's where we want to be at the end of March."
Siemon could not script the beginning of the month any better.
Besides the imminent escalation to No. 1, several other subplots developed during Sunday's contest.
The most encouraging? Probably that the Irish (27-1 overall, 15-1 in Big East) still dominated while Ruth Riley, who was named the Big East player, defensive player and scholar-athlete of the year on Friday night, scored just nine points in 15 minutes.
When Riley left the game with 16:11 left in the first half, after committing her first foul, the Irish outscored the Hoyas 22-2 in the next eight minutes, before Riley re-entered the game.
Following his team's 66-53 loss to Notre Dame on Feb. 24, in which Riley scored 21 points, Georgetown coach Patrick Knapp commented how the Hoyas defended Riley well but struggled with Kelley Siemon (13 points), Niele Ivey (10 points) and Ratay (12 points).
Eight days later, the same trio combined for 44 points but their fellow teammates also turned in solid performances.
The reserves accounted for 25 points, all 11 players scored, and no starter played more than 25 minutes. Notre Dame set the Big East tournament record for largest margin of victory and fewest points allowed in the first half.
"To break (the game) down and analyze it right now, it's the last thing on my mind," Knapp said. "So I'm not going to address that."
Amanda Barksdale, who entered the game averaging less than seven minutes per game, turned in her best performance of the season. The sophomore center grabbed nine rebounds, blocked six shots and gave the Irish another presence in the middle on defense.
"They stopped shooting in the lane after a while," Irish coach Muffet McGraw said.
The Irish held the Hoyas to 24.5 percent shooting, 1-of-15 (16.0 percent) on 3-pointers, forced 22 turnovers and limited Hoyas star Katie Smrcka-Duffy to two points in 35 minutes.
On offense, Notre Dame shot 58.2 percent from the field, connected on 9-of-16 (56.3 percent) 3-pointers, and went on runs of 26-0 and 16-0.
"We accomplished everything that we wanted to in this game today," McGraw said. "I was very pleased with just about everything that went on."
Georgetown called three timeouts during the first 13 minutes of the game as Notre Dame opened up a 36-6 lead and went into halftime ahead 44-10.
In their final two home games of the regular season, the Irish shot just 4-for-13 and 3-for-13 on 3-pointers.
They still entered the conference tournament ranked first in the nation in 3-point field goal percentage.
And they showed their superior marksmanship early in the game. Ivey and Ratay both connected on a trio of 3s in the first 20 minutes.
McGraw had a chance to rest her starters in the second half. The reserves played the final 10 minutes and opened up an 84-22 lead with 5:39 left — the largest margin of the game.
"We're exactly where we want to be right now," McGraw said. "We feel really good about the way we're playing on both ends of the floor. I couldn't be happier with where we are."
All Sports Stories for Monday, March 5, 2001
