Irish got tougher after losing to UT

The person most responsible for Angie Bjorklund’s 3-point shooting show for Tennessee back in January wasn’t missing defensive assignments or not hustling or failing to fight through screens.

She was standing on the sideline.

As the sounds of a postgame celebration echoed behind her in the tunnels of Mackey Arena, Notre Dame coach Muffet McGraw felt secure enough to admit guilt while reflecting on the 87-63 home loss to Tennessee. The two teams meet again Sunday in the Oklahoma City Regional of the NCAA women’s basketball tournament.

“A lot of that was my fault,” said McGraw, whose team allowed Bjorklund to make seven 3-pointers and Tennessee to shoot 55 percent from the outside in a nationally televised game. “We put in a little different look defensively and we just didn’t master it. It kind of got in our heads like, ‘It’s not working.’ I thought I had a lot to do with it.”

McGraw described how much her team changed after that loss, but no explanation was necessary for anyone who saw Notre Dame defeat Oklahoma last Tuesday.

McGraw called her team “intimidated” after the Tennessee game. But the Irish beat favored Oklahoma and its own intimidating presence — reigning player of the year Courtney Paris — in their NCAA second-round game. The Irish didn’t even flinch when Oklahoma went ahead by five points in overtime.

A schedule that included Connecticut, Rutgers and two games against Pitt after the Tennessee loss helped erase their fears.

“Now we’re finally going, ‘You know what? Let’s just play hard and see what happens.’ Before, we were thinking, ‘Oh, they’re better than we are,’” McGraw said. “I think our mindset is different now.”

Which includes, of course, defending the 3-point shot better after Bjorklund drilled seven of nine from behind the arc. The Irish allowed only three teams to make more than seven 3-pointers in a game since then.

“We’ve improved tremendously on the defensive end,” Notre Dame’s Ashley Barlow said. “The last game against Tennessee we gave up seven 3s to one person. So, I mean, we had to improve on that.”

Notre Dame probably didn’t recognize the Bjorklund misfiring on 3-pointers at Mackey Arena earlier this week. She went 0-of-3 from the 3-point line against Purdue, making her 5-of-24 in her last six games after shooting 42 percent the rest of the season.

“I don’t think I’m tired,” said Bjorklund, a freshman. “Shooters all go through little slumps.”

The Irish are trying to end a huge one — they’re 0-19 all-time against Tennessee — in Sunday night’s second semifinal. They are no longer star-struck by the elite teams. They improved their defense.

Now they’re attempting to change history.

“It doesn’t bother me at all,” Barlow said of the 0-19 mark. “We had never won a game in this building (Mackey Arena) before this year, so that shows you something as well. We’re going into each game believing we can win.”