ND Women's Basketball: Inexperience leads to disappointing season
By: KATIE McVOY
Associate Sports Editor
The uniforms Notre Dame wore during their final loss of the season in round two of the NCAA tournament told the tale of the 2001-2002 Irish.
They were green.
For the Irish, who took home a national championship last year, this season was anything but a replay. It was a transition year. It was a year for a young team. It was a challenge.
With six freshmen and only one returning senior, the Irish knew they would have their work cut out for them heading into the 2001 season. Head coach Muffet McGraw, who knew she could count on her veterans last year, didn't know who or what she could count on this season.
"Because nothing is expected, when something good happens everybody gets excited about it because it's not like last year where we expected to win by 20," McGraw said at the beginning of the season. "This year we just have to play hard and see what happens."
It was a whole new Irish team that took the court in November. There was no Ruth Riley, no Kelly Siemon, no Niele Ivey. Instead, there was Jackie Batteast, who was named Big East Rookie of the Year, Kelsey Wicks, Alison Bustamante, Teresa Borton. It was a young group of women led by sophomore guards, a non-vocal Alicia Ratay and senior Ericka Haney who struggled with her own game in the first months of the season.
The beginning of the season was less than perfect. On Dec. 28, Notre Dame fell 72-61 to Rice, a school the 2000-2001 Irish had destroyed. The Irish were barely at .500. A game that was supposed to be a warm-up after Christmas break left the Irish cold. McGraw left the press conference in tears. Her young team just didn't seem to be getting the job done.
Just five days later, however, things began to turn around. With a 69-65 victory against Big East opponent Miami, the Irish had their first road win and found their groove.
If they weren't dominant in the Big East, the Irish were at least holding their own. After decisive victories against Virginia Tech, Syracuse and Boston College, the Irish managed to move to second place in the conference, hanging behind the Huskies, the undisputed best team in the country.
By Feb. 26 the Irish clinched a first-round bye in the Big East Tournament and were riding a nine-game winning streak. They had won 51 home games in a row, the longest active home win streak in the NCAA. But once they hit that peak, the young team found themselves at the bottom again. The win streak came to an end with a three point loss to Villanova as the regular season concluded.
Post-season play was less than a storybook ending. Notre Dame fell in the first round of the Big East tournament to Syracuse, after working its way up to second place in the Big East. The team fell in round two of the NCAA tournament, losing to Tennessee by the biggest margin in McGraw's career.
The season was over, but the transition had made serious progress and even the unsettling loss to Tennessee had its place in the learning process.
"Our team is young, this is a learning experience for us," McGraw said after the game. "This is how you grow as a team, to go through something like this. You go back, watch the film and figure out what you have to do to get better and how to get to where we want to be. That's what we're going to work on."
As the Irish look ahead to next year, they will find themselves feeling more like a team than they did at the beginning of this season. Haney graduated, and junior center Amanda Barksdale transferred, but the Irish are returning the rest of the team.
Notre Dame may be returning the green uniforms to celebrate St. Patrick's Day next year, but the team won't be quite as green.
All Sports Stories for Friday, May 17, 2002
