Notre Dame Preview
January 16, 2004 02:50 PM | General
January 16, 2004
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – West Virginia couldn’t have picked a better time to play Notre Dame.
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| Yolanda Paige matched her career high with 14 assists at St. John's Tuesday night. (All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks) |
The Irish are coming off one of their biggest wins in school history, downing No. 4-ranked Connecticut, 66-51 at home Tuesday night.
Notre Dame got 23 points and 11 rebounds from Jacqueline Batteast and held the Huskies to 17 of 55 from the floor for 30.9 percent. UConn was just 3 of 18 from behind the three-point arc.
Notre Dame’s 9-6 record can be mainly attributed to playing one of the country’s toughest schedules. Notre Dame shows wins against Auburn, Valparaiso, Wisconsin, Dayton, USC, Colorado State, Marquette, Virginia Tech and Connecticut, and losses to Colorado, Michigan State, Tennessee, Washington, Purdue and Georgetown. All six of Notre Dame’s losses have come on the road and four were against teams ranked in the Top 25.
Batteast, a 6-foot-2 junior forward, has been a terror in the paint this year. The South Bend, Ind., resident is averaging 15.5 points and 8.1 rebounds per game. She also shows 19 blocks and 24 steals.
Five-seven guard Megan Duffy is averaging 12.3 points and 4.7 assists per game. Duffy is Notre Dame’s top three-point shooter making 45.9 percent of her three-point attempts.
Le’Tania Severe, a 5-foot-8 senior guard, scored 12 points in the UConn win and is averaging 8.7 points and 3.3 assists per game.
In addition to those three, Notre Dame coach Muffet McGraw started 6-foot-3 junior center Teresa Borton and 5-foot-9 senior guard Monique Hernandez against Connecticut.
Borton averages 7.6 points and has blocked a team-best 20 shots while Hernandez made just her second start of the year against UConn and averages 2.9 points and 15.4 minutes per game.
West Virginia (10-5, 2-2), meanwhile, is coming off its first conference road win in nearly two years after beating St. John’s, 69-67 in Jamaica, N.Y., on Tuesday.
Michelle Carter and Sherell Sowho scored 16 points each and Meg Bulger came off the bench to contribute a season-high 14 for the Mountaineers.
Kate Bulger is West Virginia’s top scorer averaging 14.7 points per game. Sowho is averaging 14.4 points and is shooting 47.5 percent from the field, while junior point guard Yolanda Paige is averaging 12.0 points and a conference-best 7.7 assists per game.
Paige, Sowho and Bulger each average more than 33 minutes per game.
Carter has boosted her average to 8.8 points per game and is grabbing 4.7 rebounds per game. Carter will be joined in the starting lineup up front by senior forward Janell Dunlap, who averages 6.4 points and a team-best 6.2 rebounds per game.
Notre Dame, 2-1 in conference play this year, has won all 11 games in the series including a pair last year. The Irish are 5-0 against the Mountaineers in Morgantown.
Game time is 4 pm and the contest will be televised by MSN on Charter 22 in Charleston, WVFX in Clarksburg and WJAL in Chambersburg, Pa.
MSN’s Internet radio coverage begins at 3:50 pm.
