There’s no question Niele Ivey and her Notre Dame players will be wondering what could have been this season. Stacked with the most talent she’d had in her five years coaching the Irish, Ivey was well-positioned to lead the Irish to a national title.
Instead, Ivey and the Irish have exited the NCAA Tournament in the Sweet 16 for four consecutive seasons. Their latest one came in a 71-62 loss to TCU.
Advertisement
Afterwards, Ivey took to the postgame podium alongside three players, at least two of which have played their final games for the Irish. The other has to decide whether or not to jump to the WNBA now or wait another year.
Olivia Miles scored 10 points and led the Irish with three assists. Sonia Citron had nine points, and Maddy Westbeld added seven, though both players also finished with four fouls.
Here’s what all four had to say after the game:
Ivey’s opening statement
“Well, tough loss today. I want to start off thanking my seniors. Exactly what I said after the game in the locker room, these three believed in my vision and they are so loyal, amazing young women that have a lot of great basketball ahead of them. I am just really grateful for what they have done for me and for our program. It’s a resurgence of the program taking over, and they’ve left it better than what they came in with. I’m really grateful, such an incredible group of young women.
I’m really proud to be their coach. They know that I’ve got ’em for life. This is just an amazing group of young women that are so talented, so gifted. But more importantly, they are better humans than they are basketball players. I’m just really grateful I had this opportunity to be part of their journey. They’re very special to me. They mean so much.
Again, came up short today. I thought with the game, obviously a high game. A game of runs, we had a great stretch in that third quarter defensively that we went up, but unfortunately, tables turn, couldn’t make shots that we normally make. Couldn’t get the stops and just didn’t finish the game the way we wanted to.
For this group and for these three, like I said, just really, really grateful and looking forward to eventually trying to build this back up. Or not even build it back up, but, again, with Notre Dame women’s basketball, they put it in a great place, and I’m really grateful for that.”
Westbeld on guarding Sedona Price
“I think definitely the plan was to be as physical as possible with her. She is a great post player. She is the center of the offense. So being as physical as I could, really tried to push her off the block and make her try to work for everything.
So I think fouls here and there, but I think we tried to do just that.”
Miles on why the defense was so difficult
“I can comment on that. No offense to them, but it was really nothing they did to alter us. Obviously, Sedona is in there. She was blocking shots. That’s one factor. But we literally were just missing shots that we normally make, and that’s going to happen at times.
In those moments, we have to rely on our defense, and we tried to do that. I thought my team played extremely hard and fought to the end, so I’m very proud of them for that.
But it’s just shots that we should make that are on us at the end of the day.“
Westbeld on the legacy she created at Notre Dame
“I think that this group of girls is so special. Coming in with all of them you never – oh my goodness (tearing up). There’s truly no place on earth that I would want to play with. There’s no people that I would want to play with other than these two, other than Coach Niele, other than play for this university.
When you go around the locker room, it’s not about the basketball. It’s not about anything other than the people, and that’s why you do it. You do it for each other, and throughout my entire career, I have done it for them.
I know that they would say the same thing about me and I know they say the same thing about Coach Ivey and about this university.“
Miles on the legacy she created at Notre Dame
“When I think about legacy, I think more about the impact that I leave on people. Winning is great. Obviously, everyone wants to do it. But as Coach Ivey said, as long as you leave the place better than you found it, you left a really good impact. And these two sitting by my side and Coach Ivey not only had a big impact on my life, and I hoped that I had a big impact on their life.
At the end of the day, my goal coming to Notre Dame was to leave Notre Dame better than I found it, and I think I did a pretty good job of that. I hope so. Like Maddy said, I love all my teammates in that locker room.
We’ve stayed together. We’ve grown so much through this entire season. We are very proud of the work we’ve done, and ultimately, we have had fun. That’s really what this is all about. You sign up as a kid because it’s fun to throw a ball in a hoop, and look where it’s gotten us to at this point. Just love them a lot.“
Citron on the legacy she created at Notre Dame
“Hard to follow those two, but I think they hit it on the head. Again, I wanted to leave the program better than I found it, and Coach Ivey believed in us, and we believed in her. We committed to that, and four years later, here we are, and again, I think it’s better off than it was a couple years ago.
And then I think an important thing that Maddy said was just the people. Thinking now, I’m not even thinking about the game. I’m just thinking about the people that I’ve met here, the relationships that I’ve formed, the friendships that I’ve formed, and it truly is – Notre Dame is such a special place. We’re just so blessed to be able to play the sport that we love with the people that we love for the coaches and the university that we love. So I mean, reflecting on it, I’m just – we’re all truly blessed.”
Citron on what was different about this season
“I think we just had so much talent. Sometimes too much talent, you know, we didn’t even know what to do with. We got Liv. We got everybody.
So I think this year was just how talented we were.”
Westbeld on balancing aggressive play while in foul trouble
“Yeah, I’ve been trying to figure that out this whole season. I think just not thinking about the fouls. You go in a space where people are saying you’re in foul trouble, and then, you’re thinking about fouling, and you’re trying not to foul, and you can get in this space where it’s tough.
So just staying present, not focusing on it and just trying to play as aggressive as possible but as clean as possible. So just staying disciplined I think really is the key to that.“
Ivey on what it will take to finally get past the Sweet 16
“I think playing 40 minutes. We showed that stretch that really kind of catapulted us, went up nine, but you have to sustain that for 40 minutes.
So having the sustainability on this type of stage. Unfortunately our fourth exit, but knowing that you have to sustain that for 40 minutes because of this stage and how big the stage is.”
Ivey on defending Prince
“We were trying to be physical with her, I had more size, adding Liza (Karlen) and Maddy within the rotation. They weren’t available for us the first time around. So just wanted her to defend on the opposite end and be physical with her, wall her up and obviously try to limit her touches, but they did a good job of getting her the ball, and she had a really great game.”
Ivey on the talent of her senior class
“Special group. So talented coming into the season. Sonia and Liv are generational talents that I have had a chance to foster and help to develop and grow the last four or five years. So it’s been a blessing from the beginning, and Maddy Westbeld (is) super versatile.
It’s just been amazing. They’re amazing humans, and I feel like you got a chance to listen to who they are as people. They’re very caring, nurturing. They understand at some point, it’s bigger than basketball. They love each other, they love this group, they love this university, and I wouldn’t want to coach anyone else that didn’t recognize the beauty that is Notre Dame. They understand it. They understand that it’s bigger than the basketball piece, but talent-wise, they’re just so gifted. I’m excited to be able to watch them in their professional careers, but, again, they’re just special. They’re special young women outside of basketball.“
Ivey on getting production out of Miles with an injured ankle
“She was a little sore today, every day it feels differently for her. Last game against Michigan, she went off a lot of adrenaline, and today, she was a bit little sore, so just kind of watching. It’s more of a feel. We were in great communication, kinda knew before the game that she was a little bit sore.
And she fought through – she is resilient, so she was fighting through some things, but, again, just the awareness of how she was feeling. And I thought (Cassandre Prosper) was great. I thought Cass came in and gave us a great spark, like she always does, always ready, so just kind of saw how the game was dictating itself with her and how she was moving.”
Ivey on Hailey Van Lith
“She is a three-level scorer, a great player, and I feel like she saw the ball going in, and she kinda rose. You could tell her energy, her confidence was getting stronger, play by play. I thought she made some really good defensive plays as well. Yeah, this is that stage where great players emerge, I thought she had a really complete game. You know, she is a really good player.”
Ivey on Miles and Citron’s development
“We’re not in a collegiate landscape that you see that very often, so that kind of speaks to their loyalty to me, and I’m really grateful that I’ve the had the opportunity to watch both Sonia and Olivia grow and be their coach for four plus years. It’s special.
They will always have a special place in my heart, because they believed in me when I took over this program, and being a first-time head coach, we’ll always that special bond because of that. But, again, it just speaks to their loyalty, the vision that they were looking for, for the institution of their choice, being Notre Dame, and the vision I had with them being my premiere guards. I’m just grateful that they trusted in that, and, again, there is a bond that I will always have with both of those two.”
Ivey on whether Van Lith has grown as a player
“I think she has definitely grown with the experience she has had. Playing in the ACC (at Louisville), SEC (at LSU) and now the Big 12, she has all that experience under her belt. I think she is just – her composure has gotten a lot better and just, again, and being able to score with a lot of different defenses, I think, has been really helpful for her, as far as just the way she can dictate games and take games over. But you can tell with her experience, she has gotten more confident and has played against a lot of different type of styles with three different conferences, and you can tell it’s paid off with the way that she plays.”
This article originally appeared on Fighting Irish Wire: Niele Ivey, Notre Dame players speak after NCAA Tournament run ends
