I think it has more to do with personnel. Notre Dame hasn't been a defensive juggarnaut since the Peters/Mallory/Novosel class graduated. The players McGraw has been landing in the last 4-5 years have been primarily offensive standouts ala Kayla McBride, Jewell Loyd, Erin Boley, Jackie Young, Arike Ogunbowale, etc. Even players who took on a smaller role at the beginning of their career eventually shined offensively like Madison Cable, Natalie Achonwa and Kathryn Westbeld. All are outstanding players, but none of them are particularly strong defensively.
To some degree, most programs play up or down to the level of their competitor. UCONN is the one exception here, but across all levels in sports you see this. And in most sports, each conference has a reputation for their style of play. You see it in football, basketball, volleyball, etc. Not sure why it is this way, but it seems to be an apparent patter across the US, and the world for that matter.
I took a look at this during lunch, had to go to a meeting and am now back.
Personnel has a lot to do with it, as does scheme, and the talents of the players that are in the scheme at the particular time.
Looking at that 2011-2012 team, the Irish leaders in minutes played were (in descending order): Diggins, Mallory, McBride, Novosel, Peters, Achonwa and Kaila Turner. Kaila Turner was another good ballhawk and I'll debate you a bit on McBride, who I think played pretty good D. Not at the level of Sky, Brittany or Nasty, but not bad. In addition to the shooting percentages that Orangutan noted, here are some other team aspects that I noticed there:
- Steals: +4.4
- Turnovers: Opposition had 4.4 more per game than the Irish
- Rebounding margin: +8.5
- Blocks: +1.1
- Opposition scoring: 52.9
- ND Scoring: 78.9; Margin: 26.0
Lots of steals, very solid rebounding. More opportunities for the offense..most of whom were pretty talented in that right, as well.
In 2012-13, the Irish's last year in the Big East, Mallory/Novosel/Peters were gone, but Jewell Loyd, Ariel Braker, Maddie Cable and Markisha Wright joined in.
- Steals: +2.1
- Turnovers: Opposition had 5.4 more per game than the Irish
- Rebounding Margin: +10.9
- Blocks: -0.6
- Opposition Scoring: 59.2
- ND Scoring: 81.2; Margin: +21.9
Coming up to last year in the ACC, you had the following players putting the most time on the floor: Cable, Allen, Turner, Mabrey1, Westbeld, Mabrey2, Huffman.
- Steals: +2
- Turnovers: Opposition had 2.4 more per game than Irish
- Rebounding Margin: +5.8
- Blocks: +2.1 (probably all attributable to Turner)
- Opposition scoring: 61.3
- ND scoring: 80.0; Margin - +18.8
No one was ever going to accuse Mike Mabrey of being a defensive stopper and Mabrey2 and Ogunbowale were freshman. But the biggest personnel challenge there was not having a second big to help clog the middle once Taya Reimer bowed out. Westbeld playing half of the time, Nelson's minutes were up and down and Huffman was a 5'9" guard playing high post. Luckily Turner swatted well and Cable rebounded above her size.
When all is looked at, still looks a lot like the Irish but there are variations. Hoping Erin Boley can add some inside presence to help out Turner and Westbeld.
As for Stanford, that was just one of those games. Erica McCall went off the map, shooting 12-18 and Karlie Samuelson went 6-8, 5-6 from 3-pt. land including the buzzer-beater, bank shot heave that killed our momentum. Tip of the hat to both.
I can't imagine finding a threesome of ballhawks like Diggins, Novosel and Mallory again but who would've expected Hannah Huffman to become as valuable to us defensively as she was? I'm sure we'll find another....
