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Former Notre Dame women’s basketball star returns as Marquette coach

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1 week ago

March 24, 2024

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Former Notre Dame women's basketball star returns as Marquette coach

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SOUTH BEND — Megan Duffy couldn’t assist herself.

There was a observe later within the day that the Marquette ladies’s basketball coach wanted to be prepared for; there have been media obligations; and there was extra movie research beckoning, as a result of sufficient by no means seems like sufficient when the stakes are the NCAA Event.

Nonetheless, Duffy put all that apart for some time Friday to take her Golden Eagle gamers on a tour of the Notre Dame campus, the identical place she known as dwelling throughout her personal enjoying days, the identical place she received married — a unusual story coming there — and a spot she nonetheless calls dwelling in her coronary heart.

Mar 10, 2024; Uncasville, CT, USA; Marquette Golden Eagles head coach Megan Duffy watches from the sideline as they take on the UConn Huskies at Mohegan Sun Arena. Mandatory Credit: David Butler II-USA TODAY Sports

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“I made them take the tour,” Duffy admitted with a sheepish smile after a few her gamers occurred to say factors of curiosity alongside the brief tour.

Duffy and Tenth-seeded Marquette (23-8) face seventh seed Mississippi (23-8) in a 4:45 p.m. first-round sport Saturday at Purcell Pavilion.

The competition marks the primary time a former Irish ladies’s basketball participant aside from ND’s Niele Ivey is serving as head coach in an NCAA Tourney sport at Notre Dame.

Duffy, a three-time All-Large East choose who wrapped up her Irish enjoying profession in 2006, didn’t even instantly understand on Choice Sunday that the Eagles had been ND-bound.

“It’s attention-grabbing. Whenever you see your title, you’re so excited,” Duffy stated of the at-large bid Marquette acquired. “We had been extraordinarily ecstatic to see that, after which, OK, we’re enjoying Ole Miss, and also you form of neglect (to examine) the place you’re going, and you then form of should ask, OK, the place are we being despatched to?

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“It was fairly good to listen to, not less than for me personally, that it’s a spot I’m acquainted with, and a spot that our followers can come over to for the sport (three hours from Milwaukee).”

Duffy is making her third NCAA Tourney look in 5 years as head coach at Marquette, and it could be her fourth in 5 if the 2020 occasion hadn’t been canceled as a consequence of COVID.

She’s joined by Ivey (three straight occasions now in 4 years at ND), Coquese Washington (4 occasions general at Penn State), Sandy Botham (twice with Wisconsin-Milwaukee) and Beth Cunningham (as soon as at Virginia Commonwealth) amongst ex-Irish gamers below Corridor of Famer Muffet McGraw who’ve guided groups of their very own into the Large Dance.

“I don’t know if I’d be right here if it wasn’t for my expertise enjoying for Coach McGraw and being at this establishment,” Duffy stated. “It’s such a optimistic expertise. It actually propelled me to a degree to teach, to need to train and mentor.”

Duffy is 110-45 at Marquette, making her the winningest coach by proportion in program historical past, and 154-65 general together with two years at Miami of Ohio.

She says she’s tried to glean from McGraw.

“She simply had that good steadiness of robust love, that good steadiness of pushing you to your max and pushing you to a stage you by no means thought you had,” Duffy stated, “however on the identical time, she’d have her arm round you. She simply confirmed the love and help you want as a younger woman and younger lady to make it at this stage.”

Now Duffy’s gamers are singing her praises, too.

“Taking part in for Coach Duffy, you’re enjoying for a passionate head coach who actually loves the sport,” All-Large East second-team senior guard Jordan King stated Friday. “She actually trickles all the way down to us and has an important IQ for the sport. She’s taught us nice issues concerning the sport and about our particular person video games as nicely.”

Typically in a hands-on method.

“You realize, there’s not many head coaches that may get on the court docket and really present us how one can do drills or like present us how one can do a move generally,” All-Large East first-team senior ahead Liza Karlen added, “so it’s actually, actually cool to have a head coach that does that with us on daily basis.”

Simply as Duffy was reflective Friday about her enjoying days at Notre Dame, she additionally shared particulars from her “COVID wedding ceremony” on campus in the summertime of 2020, when she married Kevin Hoyng, a former College of Dayton soccer assistant.

“We received into somewhat little bit of a pickle when issues had been shutting down,” Duffy stated. “We had been alleged to get married again within the Dayton, Ohio space,” the place they’re each from.

Their supposed venue and lots of others grew to become unavailable.

“We needed to discover a place — we’re somewhat bit older and we gotta get this completed someway,” Duffy recalled with a smile.

Finally, she contacted ND’s Basilica of the Sacred Coronary heart, the place different weddings had been being canceled.

“(Folks) wait years to get married within the Basilica,” Duffy stated, “(however) a pair cancellations occurred, and I form of checked out my husband like, ‘You wanna do it?’ We walked down the aisle and we had perhaps 25 complete folks. Take into consideration the Basilica (with an estimated capability of 1,000), and so they’re unfold out.

“We had been on the altar and we had been looking on the crowd, and everyone’s masked up, and we’re simply form of taking a look at one another like, ‘Let’s create the most effective second we will.’ It was an outstanding afternoon. … Simply tried to make it as particular because it may very well be with the circumstances. So it’s one thing we’ll always remember and only one extra added reminiscence concerning the place right here.”