Everything Notre Dame coach Niele Ivey said about ‘disappointing’ loss to Florida State

It took nearly an hour and a half for Notre Dame head coach Niele Ivey to confront the media following the Fighting Irish’s 86-81 home loss to Florida State on Thursday. This is everything Ivey said after her team’s second consecutive loss.

Opening statement

“My apologies to the fans. I thought the fans were as they’ve always been, extremely supportive. I’m grateful for them being out here. A senior night, it’s hard having a game like this. I always feel like senior nights are supposed to be an opportunity to honor our seniors. I talked about that right when I walked in the locker room.

“Really frustrated with our performance defensively. Tonight, I didn’t think that we were locked in for four quarters. I thought Florida State did a really great job of their guards getting downhill. I thought Timpson was really good from the inside presence. We didn’t show our grit defensively. That’s an area, as their coach, I have to fix that. I have to get better. I have to fix that for this team.

“Just grateful for the fans to come out. Was a very disappointing performance. We got to get back to work. We’re fortunate we have another opportunity Sunday to have Louisville at home. But defensively is where we have to get better, and that’s something we have to work on.

“With the seniors, on a positive note, with the seniors I’m really grateful for this group. This is a really special group. I’ve never had a group this big and with what they’ve down for this program. Unfortunate, the energy tonight with the seniors. But definitely super grateful for our seniors and the legacy that they’re leaving here.

“This is a defensive game that we have to get better at, doing a better job with our defense. We’re going to get back to work and get after it on Sunday.”

On the 79 minutes between the end of the game and the start of the postgame press conference

“Just regroup with the coaches. We always get together, huddle up and try to get the points of what we need to fix, how we can help this team get better. So collective with the coaches and then just had a team meeting afterwards.”

On Notre Dame blowing a 15-point lead

“They went on an 8-0 run so I had to call timeout to try to cut the momentum that they had. Florida State is a team that can score in bunches, a team that is averaging in the 90s. After they made that run, it kind of put us on our heels. I felt like we were kind of chasing after that run. Didn’t get the consecutive stops in a row from there on out. I felt like we were chasing, trying to find out offensive flow but also defensively didn’t feel like we were getting the stops that we were getting before that allow us to get out in transition and run.”

On helping Notre Dame guard Hannah Hidalgo through her shooting slump

“Just trying to get her to the next play. Watching film after games. In games, trying to get her to the next play. She’s a high-level scorer, so sometimes with those types of scorers they kind of shoot their way back in the game. But they just weren’t falling for her tonight.”

On Notre Dame winning 15 conference games in a row then losing the last two

“We got to get back to work. We have to have a will that we’re not having for 40 minutes. We have to get back to the grind of— we have to learn from it and we have to turn the page because we have one on Sunday. We’re grateful we have another opportunity to play, another game. We put ourselves in position as far as winning 15 straight. But we really have to fix our defense and we have to have that will in order for us to get over this hump. But again, you can’t be too high or you can’t be too low but you have to fix it.”

On Notre Dame getting outscored 30-17 in the second quarter

“I thought they got great shots and they made big buckets. It was a couple threes, it was a couple of attacks inside our zone in the paint. And then they kind of just fed off of that. After they saw a couple shots go in, I thought the momentum shifted in their favor just seeing the ball go in. I thought we gave them a lot of confidence in that run, and we chased after that.”

On Notre Dame staying level-headed after a loss

“Trying to learn from it and move on. Right now, we have another opportunity. This team is such a talented group. We just got to get back to our basics, our habits and rely on our habits in order for us to get better. The motivation is there because the goal is still the goal for us. We just got to get back to work and focus in on our habits and get back to our fundamental identity. We got to get back to our identity.”