Texas A&M women prepared for Sweet Sixteen matchup with Notre Dame
Spokane, WA — Teams with some tournament history are scheduled to square off when the Aggie women’s basketball team takes on Notre Dame in the Sweet 16. on Saturday afternoon.
A&M heads into the contest with some momentum — after being down 15 at the half at Reed Arena, the Aggies were able to march back to take down DePaul 80-79 behind the offensive attack of Chennedy Carter. Carter finished the game with 37 points and hit the game-winning three.
Additionally, Anriel Howard put up a strong performance of 18 points and 19 rebounds to help keep A&M in the ball game. Despite having such a strong comeback win against DePaul, Carter knows as a team they have momentum but cannot dig themselves into a hole against the Fighting Irish.
“We got a lot of confidence. We were down 17 points and we had to comeback for the lead that they had,” Carter said. “We are confident enough in what we do. We have a lot of heart and determination to fight. We are just going to out there and compete to show everybody what we can do.”
The Fighting Irish head into Saturday’s matchup off of a convincing 98-72 victory over Villanova in the Round of 32. In the game against Villanova, the Irish had three players score in the double figures with forward Jannah Tucker leading the way with 19 points. Arike Ogunbowale leads Notre Dame’s offense averging 20.6 points per contest, followed by the strong inside presence of Jessica Shepard at 15.6 points per game.
Defensively, Shepard will square off against Khaalia Hillsman for control of the paint. Hillsman said she’s going to need to be at her best when defending against Shepard. And head coach Gary Blair agreed, saying a key for his team on Saturday will be keeping Hillsman out of foul trouble.
“I mean, I’ve been watching film on her. She’s very fundamentally sound,” Hillsman said. “She has great hands and great feet. I’m going to have to have great feet to be able to defend her. I know she’s very strong, so I can’t let her muscle me down there on the block.”
Blair’s counterpart, Fighting Irish head coach Muffet McGraw, sees Howard as the key to the game.
“She’s relentless on the boards. She just is somebody that will not be denied,” McGraw said. “She can will them to victory. She’s going to make big play after big play.”
When both of these teams square off, it’s easy to think back to Texas A&M’s National Championship run in 2011 when the Aggies stormed back behind the offense of Danielle Adams to win the title, 76-70 over Notre Dame. Both Blair and McGraw agreed that it’s crossed their mind.
“Yeah it’s hard not to [think about the National Championship]. That was a tough one for us,” McGraw said. “Nobody is the same. None of our players thought of it at all. Some of our coaches of course thought about it. But just another opportunity for us to face a really good team.”
Every time Blair looks at his hand he remembers the game as he always can be seen with his National Championship ring on, but said he’s yet to watch the full film of the game.
“I think back to 2011 every day I look at my hand,” Blair said. “But I’m not looking at Notre Dame; I’m looking at Baylor, I’m looking at Georgia, and I’m looking at Notre Dame. A team that was a Cinderella team, a team that played well. That defeated a lot of No. 1s and 2s to win the thing. But when you win it, it comes so few and far between, you better enjoy it.”
The winner of the game will face off against either Louisville or Stanford in the Elite Eight on Monday. Saturday's contest is scheduled to tipoff at 3:00 p.m. central time and the game will be broadcast on ESPN.
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