Muffet McGraw on Notre Dame women's basketball injuries: 'We’ve proven you can win with 6'

SOUTH BEND — What Notre Dame women's basketball has endured this season in the way of numerous injuries is eerily akin to what the Irish navigated during the 2017-18 season — when they went on to win a national title. Except the current team’s setbacks have been even more ill-timed, per the Hall of Fame coach who led the 2017-18 group.

Otherwise, “it really is quite similar,” Muffet McGraw said Wednesday afternoon of the challenges faced by the two teams as she shared how to maneuver a shrunken roster.

Even McGraw, though, is marveling at what the current club and head coach Niele Ivey are doing. No. 2 seed ND (28-6), on a 10-game winning streak, faces third-seeded Oregon State (26-7) in a 2:30 p.m. NCAA Tournament regional semifinal Friday in Albany, N.Y.

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“The way Niele’s handled everything, she’s been absolutely spectacular at putting things in the rear-view mirror, as have the players,” said McGraw, now a basketball analyst for ESPN and ACC Network.

“The ACC Tournament, I didn’t think they’d be able to win that,” McGraw confessed, “because I remember we were exhausted by the end of the semifinal (in 2018).”

Playing a third straight day, that personnel-strapped 2018 club was nipped 74-72 by No. 4-ranked Louisville in the league final. The irony there is an eventual national champ is also the only Irish club from 2014 to 2019 not to win an ACC Tourney crown.

“But this team, I think Kylee (Watson) gave them the inspiration to get through,” McGraw said, referring to this season’s Irish winning the league final one day after their starting center’s season-ending knee injury in the semi against Virginia Tech. “You’re always playing for yourself and your team, but playing for somebody else can be powerful.”

The Watson subtraction from the lineup comes much deeper into the season than anything season-ending that the 2017-18 club encountered to a starter, although there was the scare that year with Kat Westbeld suffering an ankle injury in the first round of the NCAA Tourney.

Westbeld, though, made a Hollywood-esque return during the second half of ND’s second-round game against Villanova as the Irish went from a halftime deadlock to a 26-point win, after sophomore walk-on Kaitlin Cole had some gallant moments of her own in the first half.

Bottom line, that team, like this team, was punched early and seemingly constantly by injuries.

In Brianna Turner, after initial hope to the contrary in ’17-18, the Irish never did regain the services of somebody who’d already been an All-American and suffered a knee injury late the previous season.

In Olivia Miles this winter, after initial hope to the contrary, the Irish again never regained the services of somebody who’d already been an All-American and suffered a knee injury late the previous season.

“Except with Bri, she told us around the first of November, ‘I’m not coming back,’ because she didn’t feel ready, so we knew where we were, whereas with Liv, that uncertainty went on a little bit longer,” McGraw said of Miles, who was not officially ruled out until January.

In ’17-18, the Irish quickly lost two more pieces by November with season-ending injuries to Mychal Johnson and Mikayla Vaughn.

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Two early departures due to injury happened yet again this season with Emma Risch and Cass Prosper both out for good by November.

The ’17-18 group was knocked sideways once more on Dec. 31 when Lili Thompson, the Stanford transfer who had become the ND’s top backup, sustained a season-ending knee injury.

So, if you’re keeping count, and roughly likening Thompson’s absence to Watson’s, that kind of leaves the two Irish clubs even.

During the 2018 NCAA Tourney, ND deployed just one player off the bench, Koko Nelson, during each of its final three wins.

Presently, the Irish are again utilizing just six players for the most part, bringing KK Bransford off the bench.

“That’s absolutely it,” McGraw said of foul trouble being the runaway leading stress factor in trying to win with six. “I remember telling our players, ‘Don’t try to block shots, don’t go for steals. We’re gonna sit in our zone, and if we get beat, we get beat,’ which is pretty much the exact opposite of my normal philosophy.”

Added McGraw, if somebody has no more than one foul in the first half, it becomes permissible to become more aggressive in the second half.

“People shorten their bench this time of year anyway,” McGraw said. “Seven (players) is ideal. We’ve proven you can win with six. … Hey, as long as you have five, you have a chance, but six is better.”

According to the 936-game winner, the upside is that players play looser and perhaps more responsibly.

“They absolutely know they’re in there to do their job,” McGraw said. “There’s great accountability to each other.”

There’s also not much fear of coming out.

“Honestly, if you ask Marina Mabrey,” McGraw said with a laugh about one of the stars from the 2017-18 club, “she loved it. She knew she could turn the ball over and I’d look down the bench and have nobody to put in. She had seven turnovers (actually nine) in the (61-58 title-game win over Mississippi State) and knew she wasn’t coming out.”

This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: Notre Dame women's basketball NCAA March Madness tournament depth