Muffet McGraw’s emotional response after Notre Dame’s 34 point loss to N.C. State

Muffet McGraw and the Notre Dame Fighting Irish women’s basketball team have had a really tough season so far. The Irish are 6-11 for the year and 1-4 in the ACC — which just feels insane. This program had grown accustomed to winning ACC Championships and making strong runs for national championships with the last title coming just two years ago. Now... now there is just all types of questions.

After the big loss to the Wolfpack inside Purcell Pavilion, the South Bend Tribune’s Tom Noie asked Muffet how difficult this has been for her. She responded with a response that was more like pure frustration than sadness — but it drove her to tears and an emotional response filled with self-reflection:

Notre Dame being down after losing the best starting five in school history is one thing, but the steepness of the drop is incredibly surprising from a program that has been one of the best over the past 20 years. You have to also wonder if the loss of Niele Ivey to the Memphis Grizzlies was bigger than anyone gave much thought to when it happened. Muffet is one of the all-time greats, but all-time greats still need good players and good coaches.

So much was lost after last year with the starters, transfers, and Ivey that I think just about any program in the country would suffer as much if that happened to them. Clearly Muffet is taking this personally, and it’s hard to imagine that it gets much better for the remainder of the season.