'Real frustrated:' Everything Notre Dame coach Niele Ivey said after ACC Tournament loss to Duke

GREENSBORO, N.C. — Notre Dame was hoping the next time it tipped off would be right here, at the Greensboro Coliseum, in Sunday’s ACC Tournament championship game. Nope. It’ll be back in South Bend in two weeks as a No. 2 or 3 seed in the NCAA Tournament.

Duke beat Notre Dame, 61-56, in the conference tournament semifinals on Saturday. This is everything Notre Dame head coach Niele Ivey said after the loss, her team’s third in the last five games.

Opening statement

“Just real frustrated with the performance today. Didn’t feel like we played our game defensively. Took us a while to get ourselves going. Something that I have to fix when we get back, get the opportunity to get back to practice.

“But just defensive-wise it’s something that we talked about as a team, as a unit, to be able to rely on our defense when offensively if our offense is not flowing, we always have to be able to rely on our defense, and we didn’t have that today. We didn’t do a great job on the boards, didn’t match their physicality, so very frustrated with our defensive effort today.

“Again, this type of game, my expectations are a lot higher. I feel like we played below our standard. So that’s frustrating. We’ve got to get better, and that’s on me, I need to make this team get better, and that’s something when we get back on this court, we will be better for this loss.”

On postgame meetings with Notre Dame players following losses

“Yeah, that’s always the goal. I think having a lot of transparency postgame, even when things are going well, just the communication is a big piece of who we are.

“So yeah, I’m always trying to see ways to connect with this group and just having transparent conversations, but I think that’s a big piece of this is finding ways to come together so we can be better as a unit.”

On what has gone wrong for Notre Dame

“I would start with our defense. I think there’s a lot of times with our defensive intensity is not where it needs to be. Our offense gets stagnant. We have to rely on our defense and focus more on our defense in order for us to get going with our pace, the things that we do well at.

“I think the games that we’ve lost — defensively we’ve been lacking, so if that’s containing the ball, if that’s — we got out-rebounded today. Just having that intensity defensively today is part of the reason for the last three losses, and that’s frustrating because that’s something we work on every day; it’s something we’ve been working towards the entire season.

“I think offensively some of the games that we’re losing, either it’s too many turnovers and trying to find the mismatches, things like that, we were out of sync a little bit.

“But I’m always going to go back to our defense because that’s what we can control, and defensively in those three losses is where I feel like we’ve struggled.

On Notre Dame coming out hot offensively but cooling down from there

“We just played them a month ago, so we were expecting the pressure, we were expecting the hedge. I think it was more on us, things that we ran, not attacking ball screens, not coming hot. Like small things and habits that we do within our offense, I feel like we kind of got away from that.

“Trying to get downhill, trying to force miss matches and finding them, and then we had a couple really good looks, just not making those looks, but also kind of being one-and-done. We didn’t do a great job of getting on the glass when we missed shots.

“I think those are all fixable things that are in our control within our offense, knowing that this is something that we knew what we were about to face today.”

On what the next two weeks look like for Notre Dame

“Turning the page I think is a mental aspect of this, just managing your frustration, getting to the next play, small things for us.

“We’ve got to come together and fix offensively, defensively, a little bit of mindset coming in and playing the right way, things that are in our control.”

On making defensive adjustments

“I think we were getting stops. We gave offensive rebounds, so that was in the zone or man. Tried to mix it up a little bit. Stuck with the zone a little bit. Thought it was good. Unfortunately one of the stops that happened we gave up really crucial offensive rebounds at really crucial moments, and I think that’s what’s really hurt.”

On Maddy Westbeld’s two bloody noses this week and Olivia Miles’ tweaked ankle

“I think with Maddy, unfortunately she keeps getting hit in her face. Just trying to find ways to get her to the block so she can find mismatches. She had a couple wide-open threes. Always trying to find ways to get her going. It’s been something that we’ve been trying to do.

“Then Liv, yeah, I think she tweaked her ankle, but I wasn’t aware if it was anything that was serious. She said she was fine when I pulled her out of the game, and towards the end of the game just having her manage the offense. We were trying to go on a run at the end.”