Notre Dame 76, Michigan 55
KIM BARNES ARICO: Notre Dame is a really great team. We saw that today. I think they were able to jump on us right away. It took us a minute to get going. I think their pressure was great on the defensive end, and they were able to score on us. We gave up 32 points in the first quarter. Kind of put us in a whole this then we were battling back. The rest of the game was kind of even but it wasn't a great start for us.
So they have a great team. They were the No. 1 team in the country at some point, and they are playing exceptionally well right now, I think. And especially at home. So great job by them. And you know, overall, I thought we had an exceptional season, obviously led by these two seniors to my right, and it was a special season for us, as well.
Q. Can you go over what happened in the first quarter? What was the difference?
GRETA KAMPSCHROEDER: We were talking about that just a couple minutes ago. We just weren't ourselves. We couldn't figure out how to get ourselves situated, especially defensively. I felt like we were not really helping for each other and playing team defense.
We were all focusing on our own play, and they were getting easy buckets. I think we needed to focus a little bit better to start off the game.
Q. What do you guys think right now? Where are your heads at?
GRETA KAMPSCHROEDER: Obviously a bummer. Like a tough way to end our careers as Michigan basketball players.
But I think if you take that game away and just reflecting on the past season we've had, it's been a very special season. Nobody really thought we would be here. Nobody thought we would be a five seed doing into the Big Ten Tournament. Just reflecting on the year, it's one we will never forget and it was really special.
Getting to do it with this girl by my side was awesome, and seeing the freshmen step up, and you have the transfers step up. We didn't really know what to expect, and having the results we did was awesome. Definitely something to cherish for sure.
JORDAN HOBBS: The one thought that's going through my head is just gratitude. I'm going to cry the whole time (tearing up).
The fact that Coach took a chance on me after I decommitted from Rice, and she didn't know what I was going to look like for four years. But she knew I was going to continue to get better. Just so grateful that she called me that day when I decommitted, and that I was able to come here and put the Michigan uniform on and learn from some of the best people I've ever interacted with, whether it's the coaching staff or my teammates, or just the people at Michigan.
So I'm just so thankful for this experience, and Michigan is the best place on earth. I will be an advocate for it till the day I die.
Q. What was your message and mindset to your teammates after the first quarter to get back into the game?
GRETA KAMPSCHROEDER: We had seen other teams whether it's in the tournament or regular season, like Florida State earlier this year was down by 19 in the first quarter. We've seen it before with teams can come back.
We've been in that position before. We were down and we came back. So just letting them know to not get discouraged, stay with it, chip away and get back into it. We always give ourselves a goal, like let's cut it to this lead by this time in the game.
So just to stick with it. You never know what can happen in these games but obviously we couldn't chip away enough, and yeah, they are a good team. They were very consistent throughout the game.
Q. Was there anything in particular they were doing that made them hard to stop?
GRETA KAMPSCHROEDER: I would say ball screen defense was stuff. They were good at playing out of that whether it was getting downhill or finding a shooter. Three-point line, we struggled, especially me, struggled. One-on-one defense, they are all crafty players. That's what they want to do is go one-on-one, and so we weren't able to contain them very well.
Q. How do you two feel that you've grown this year, not just as basketball players, you've both reached career-highs in every category, but off the court, as well?
JORDAN HOBBS: I think our leadership took strides this year. I think off the court, we grew closer to each other than we thought we would. But just as people, I think our character grew and our resilience and perseverance through what we went through last year.
I mean, there's just so much to take away that I can't even think through all of it right now because this year held so many great moments and so many great learning lessons throughout the games and the practices, and everything in between.
We'll cherish what we learned, and I think we'll be able to use a lot of it in our lives following.
Q. You played alongside three very productive freshmen this year. Have you thought about what the future looks like with those three?
JORDAN HOBBS: Yeah, we were just talking about it in the hallway. I mean, it's up; they can do whatever they want. When they -- I don't even know. They could go to a Final Four. They will be in a Final Four and they will go win a Big Ten Championship. Those three are incredibly special and the experiences they got this year they will carry with them to the next three, and they will be able to learn from this.
They are so talented, and they taught Greta and I so much this year. We are really grateful for them and how they showed up, and yeah, they will be a special group for the next three years to come.
Q. As the players were alluding to, this is a special group of freshmen. What do you take away? What do you think they take away from this game that's going to prep them for next year and beyond?
KIM BARNES ARICO: Yeah, I mean, I tried to grab each one of them in the locker room and tried to spend a little bit of time with them before I came down. I tried to do that really with Mila all year long because she's so hard on herself.
But can you imagine being a freshman point guard that has led our team to this point, and having to play against Oliva Miles and Hannah Hidalgo? That's a heavy load. And she puts so much of it on herself.
I said to her many times, Like we have to go through this, as painful as it is, you have to go through this and understand what it takes.
I mean, Olivia Olson for us had a chance to go home last week to watch her high school team win the state championship and she's like, Oh my gosh, Coach, I was watching practice, and I felt like they were so slow and the pace was so slow.
I said, Yeah, that's one year here and how drastically it's changed. You just came from that not long ago to now being on the biggest stage of your life.
I think they have embraced it. They have done extremely well with it. They have had -- they have to have these experiences to learn from them but they are so competitive. You saw that tonight from all three of them. Syla, I was really proud of her because her voice and her leadership really shined tonight and it really came out when we were in tough spots.
I think Notre Dame really keyed on these two. It was a really challenging matchup for us. This year we have been able to put Greta on other team's post player, and Notre Dame didn't really have a back-to-the-basket post player, and from a defensive perspective, that she was always able to do offensively what she was able to do against other team's post players.
They keyed on them, and then you saw our freshmen step up and take that load and handle that load. You know, Syla's presence was felt throughout the whole gym.
I was proud of the way that they handled themselves, and you know, it's a compliment to these guys who have shown them that leadership and that culture through the whole season.
But yeah, they were amazing. They did a great job tonight.
Q. And then the environment today was just fantastic. Are you hoping to get more games? Are we going to see a home-and-home on the schedule?
KIM BARNES ARICO: The environment was great. I've been here in years past. It was really nice when we were here during COVID because I think we won and there were no fans in the stands (laughter). So I do recall that, that day.
You know it's such a challenge in women's basketball. Someone asked me yesterday, Do you prefer to have the home court or do you prefer for it to be opened up?
Our game is growing, and I guess we'll see what the next few years are in terms of the NCAA Tournament. It's so wonderful when you can host and have your fans like this, but it's so incredibly challenging for the opponent. You know, who knows? You'd just love to face somebody on a neutral court in this type of environment.
But moving forward, I think there's actually something in the works. I'm not sure if it's on either one of our home courts. I think there's something in the works where we would have an opportunity to play against each other again.
Q. Coach Ivey referenced that the three-point defense was a big part of their game plan. How quickly did you notice that was something they were emphasizing, and talk about what made that to effective for them?
KIM BARNES ARICO: I think their personnel made it effective. That's what I was alluding to before. We were always able to pick on the other team's post player from a defensive perspective.
It's in our game plan every time, and you guys have watched us all year. We try to put them in screening actions and we try to pick on them. They didn't have really a post player. King was phenomenal tonight and Westbeld is so experienced, and even when they did get stuck on anything, they switched. We had a lot of slips. I don't know if you guys saw the slips for layups. We hit a few of them. We missed about 75 percent of them.
The other thing with a young team -- here is the other thing. Our prep from winning that game the other night against a really great team to today was not as long as that youth needs. We could have used a lot more reps. Okay, when they take this away, when they jump this, what are you seeing? How are you seeing these slips, what are your reads?
A lot of times we are at our best when we have time to prepare. We played a lot of minutes the other night, and we needed recovery. So our prep time weren't as much as I would have liked. But it what it is. Welcome to the NCAA Tournament.
In the Big Ten, we did a great job of it but it's all about matchups. At this point, what are your matchups? And defensively, they really owned that matchup on us. It's a matchup that we really haven't faced all year long. We are the five guards. Tonight they gave us a defensive five-guard matchup, as well as Westbeld is a four, they gave us a defensive five-guard matchup.
Q. The on-ball defense, would you that's the most intense pressure you guys have faced on the ball this season?
KIM BARNES ARICO: We knew, Michigan State does a great job, too, and we faced it there. But it's a little bit different. Hidalgo is one of the best in the game. She has the quickest hands of anybody I know and she just wants the ball. I feel like she gambles a little bit but she's so quick and crafty that she gets away with her gambles. So you just needed to really be strong with the ball.
I thought we got hit two times early, or the ball knocked out of our hands, I should say, two times early, and it was like, whoa, okay, we have to hold onto that ball because this is how the game is going to be played.
So it took us a second to adjust to that, which with our young kids moving forward, they will be better at it.
Q. Can you talk about what Notre Dame did at the start to make things difficult for you?
KIM BARNES ARICO: Yeah. We were a disorganized mess on defense, and I don't know what that was about.
It was funny, one of my assistant coaches got me before I went in the locker room, and it was just like, something's weird. The vibes are off. Something is weird. You might need to like -- but once again, we get back to people being in an environment and a moment they had never been in before.
They are so competitive and they want -- I mean, we have one player on our team, one, Jordan Hobbs that really got any playing time in an NCAA Tournament.
Now you're going against arguably the No. 1 team in the country, a team that has a chance to win the National Championship led by two All-American guards, and two experienced four and five players. You know, Sonia Citron is the fifth of that matchup.
So maybe it was the environment. Maybe it was everything. You just hope as we're getting our feet wet that they don't extend that lead, and we weren't able to stop it.
We were a mess defensively. I'm not sure why. I think because they could score like guards at every position, and then they sped us up, and you just hope that, okay, until we adjust offensively, can we hold them defensively. But we weren't really able to do that. You know we wanted to hold them under 16 points per quarter and we did in every quarter but the first.
So you just can't start that way against a great team on their home court and expect to come back.
Q. What was the message to your team after that first quarter?
KIM BARNES ARICO: Yeah, we got to settle in. We got to chip away. We got to chip away. And we did. We made a couple runs. But we couldn't sustain. They were too good. We'd cut it again. They would go on another run. We'd cut it again. They had go on another one.
One time-out I called because I felt like we were starting to feel sorry for ourselves and we were starting give up,, and those are things inside our program that's not acceptable. We just needed to regroup, and whatever the scoreboard said, we are going to go out here fighting. Pick your head back up and get your butt out there and play Michigan Basketball, and let's continue to fight.
I thought we finished really strong but there was a moment in there where we were really deflated and that's a credit to Notre Dame. I mean, they were really good.
Q. Obviously you guys take time to reflect on the season, but how soon do you start looking towards next season to help this current group improve and look towards the transfer portal?
KIM BARNES ARICO: I don't know. Yeah, that's a lot of questions right there, right after this game. I'm just going to get on a bus and take one last trip this season and ride home with our team and love up on them a little bit, and just remind them how proud I am of them. Then we'll figure all the rest out tomorrow.
Q. From the first game of the season against South Carolina, your freshmen are scoring 20 points a game, and now in a tough environment, scoring 20, 17, how proud are you of those two, especially, of the freshmen class to be able to have these performances on a big stage?
KIM BARNES ARICO: Yeah, that's pretty insane and that's why I was trying to encourage them. And they have to -- now they know. They have a taste. They have a taste. I would pin this (raising stat sheet from the game) up on your pillow and right next to your bed, and look at it every day and have it be motivation for us next year. Because they just got their feet wet on a really big stage, and they really performed at a high level.
Q. Did you have any message to Jordan and Greta after the game? I know you have a close relationship with both of them.
KIM BARNES ARICO: Yeah, it's a tough one. It's a tough one. Jordan is so competitive. Like I couldn't even give her a hug when I took her out because she's so enraged when we lost the game that she just runs to the end, and I don't think it even hit her until she got in the locker room.
I mean, you've heard the story all year long. Like in the changing landscape in college athletics being what it is and the age of the transfer portal, when we were hit hard last year, she was the first call. And her parents were the first call. They said, We want hard. Let's go where we believe in this program, we believe in Michigan. We believe in you, and we're not going anywhere.
When you have leadership like that and like Greta who came to see me and said, Coach, I don't care what you need me to do, I will do anything I can to help this team be successful.
"Okay, Greta you're going to have to guard Audi Crooks. You're going to have Sienna Betts."
"Okay, Coach."
She's done that every single game this year and helped us -- I don't know what our record is, I have no idea but we won 20-plus games, I guess.
So when you have two selfless people like they are as seniors inside your program, anything is achievable, and we saw that this year on a year where we didn't know what things were going to look like.
So they are forever Michigan women, and they both hold a really special place in my heart.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports