BIRMINGHAM, Ala. -- Notre Dame lost to TCU when the teams played earlier this season and stumbled down the stretch while TCU won 12 consecutive games. The Fighting Irish are the lower seed in the Birmingham 3 region of the NCAA women's basketball tournament. But they sounded like the top dogs and TCU like the underdogs Friday morning, a day before their high-stakes showdown in the Sweet 16.
Point guard Olivia Miles said film from the first game, a 76-68 loss in November in the Cayman Islands, made her cringe.
"I was, like, 'I can't even watch this,'" Miles said. "Coach [Niele] Ivey showed it to us for a specific reason. She showed it to us to ignite something in us, to make us mad, to see how we were playing and how we've been playing recently. So it showed a lot of growth, but it was definitely hard to watch for sure, yeah."
"Well, just having that experience, having the film of knowing what we need to fix, I think it's, a great opportunity," Ivey said. "We're really excited to be here."
Like Miles, teammate Hannah Hidalgo squirmed as she watched. Notre Dame shot just 34.7% from the field, so there were a lot of misses.
"It was tough to watch, but it's definitely a learning experience," Hidalgo said. "You know, film is to learn and to see where you can improve and get better. So it definitely helps to see those tough moments because we're able to get back in the lab and kind of work on where we went wrong and make sure we correct those mistakes."
Notre Dame is appearing in the program's fourth consecutive Sweet 16 under Ivey. They have failed to advance each of the previous three seasons. Despite being the 3-seed, Notre Dame is a 7.5 point favorite according to ESPN BET.
This is TCU's first Sweet 16 appearance. The Horned Frogs are led by Big 12 player and newcomer of the year Hailey Van Lith. The grad student played for Louisville and LSU prior to arriving in Fort Worth. This is her fifth Sweet 16.
"We're fine with it being a dogfight every game," Van Lith said. "We don't hope that we win by 20. We don't hope they miss every shot. We're OK with it being a close game. "
"We don't care who's on the opposite bench," TCU guard Madison Conner said. "We're going to go out there and fight as hard as we can. We're guaranteed 40 minutes, but we're gonna go out there and battle for another 40."