2102 Final Four: Postgame Q&A with Notre Dame’s Natalie Novosel

Sue Favor caught up with Natalie Novosel last night after the Irish beat UConn to advance to the championship game in the Final Four.

On the game

It’s always a physical game with them, but you got to play through it.

We didn’t do a great job executing down the stretch and it was almost deja vu again with them at the end of regulation.

Were you hungry for this win?

We knew we were better than them and we had to go out there and prove it. And in a way I think it was a revenge game. We wanted them because of the Big East Championship because they took something from us, but I’ll take this one over that one any day, and I think we were really hungry for it – especially us five starters. At the beginning we were like, ‘we wanna play together one more game,’ and we were able to do that tonight.

How were you able to keep yourselves calm at the end of the game?

With the key turnovers in regulation….we weren’t going to make that mistake in overtime. Brittany Mallory’s effect on the team – she’s just a calming effect, her poise – that veteran leadership has really helped us.

We have some really emotional people on this team, and Brittany’s just the mom – she’s able to bring us all together when we’re off.