This women’s college basketball season has already seen some memorable developments. Defending national champion South Carolina saw its 43-game winning streak snapped. The top-ranked team in the land, UCLA, wasn’t even picked to win its conference. So, there’s a chance March Madness could be a wild month. To gain a better understanding, we recently caught up with Muffet McGraw.
McGraw, who coached Notre Dame to a pair of national championships, now works for ESPN as a studio analyst for the ACC Network. We spoke to her about the state of the game and other topics.
Note: This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.
Awful Announcing: Who is the face of women’s college basketball?
Muffet McGraw: “Well, I think that’s the beauty of it. You’ve got Hannah Hidalgo, JuJu Watkins, and Paige Bueckers. Lauren Betts is probably the fourth in that group for Player of the Year. That’s what I think is so fun about it right now. If you’re following the SEC and South Carolina, you’re looking at so many great players in the SEC. There are other good players out there, but I think those guys are the top four.”
What has surprised you so far?
“In the ACC, Georgia Tech has been a much better team than we expected. I don’t know that anybody would have predicted UCLA would be sitting here undefeated at this point. They’re not a surprise team because I think they’re a top-five team, but it’s tough to go undefeated. South Carolina at the beginning of the year, I wasn’t sure that they were a Final Four team after watching them in a couple of games early on. And now, you’ve seen the growth in their team. It’s been fun to watch the exciting players. There are so many. It’s not just Juju and Hannah or Paige. It’s so many good freshmen, too. The game is in such a great place. You’re seeing great crowds and a lot of excitement. There’s a lot more parity, which I think, makes it more fun.”
How has conference realignment affected the sport?
“The Big Ten is suddenly a very tough conference with UCLA and USC. You just injected two top-five teams into your conference. Texas and Oklahoma are maybe two top-ten teams. Those four have made their conferences stronger. I know the focus was football, but what they’ve done for women’s basketball has been tremendous. The ACC has gotten Cal, who’s a ranked team. There’s maybe a big surprise team this year. But I’m interested in looking at the schedules and travel and seeing what happens when teams have to go west. What happens with teams coming east? It hasn’t affected UCLA. Maybe did it affect USC at Iowa? It’s hard to say, but that’s a lot of travel. And we’re just now getting into February.”
Who is the best team?
“You would have to say UCLA because they beat South Carolina head to head. I think those two are the No.1 seeds along with Notre Dame. If you had to look at the NCAA Tournament, they would be three easy picks. The fourth pick? There are a lot of teams that could get that fourth spot. USC was playing pretty well. They have a pretty good résumé, but they did not look good against Iowa. LSU has been playing well but didn’t look good against South Carolina. It’s hard to gauge Connecticut because the Big East just doesn’t challenge them. They’re winning big, but they haven’t played the same rigorous schedule (as) the Big Ten, the SEC, and the ACC. There’s certainly another team, but there may even be a surprise at the end.”
What do you think of the job done by your successor Niele Ivey?
“Awesome. Oh my God. She’s doing a great job. She’s a terrific recruiter. She is an excellent tactician. She is so good at making adjustments on the fly. She sees what’s happening in the game. As a point guard, I knew she would be a good coach. She has probably grown into that role a lot sooner than people thought she would. I knew she was a good fit and the right person for the job.”
Do you miss coaching and has any school tried to lure you back?
“Not at all. I coached for 40 years and I loved it and now I am happy to move on. I had some calls, but nobody really pursued it after I told them I was finished. We had a ton of success from 2011 to 2019. I think we went to seven Final Fours and it was an awesome experience. But to look back, people say, ‘Oh, that must have been so much fun.’ And I always thought, ‘Not really while you’re in it.’ It’s not fun until you can look back. I don’t even think I appreciated the success that we had because I was always on to the next (thing). There was some stress involved. I wanted to do other things.”
What’s the best feeling you’ve ever had from basketball?
“It is seeing the joy on my players’ faces after winning and seeing how they came in as freshmen who were a little unsure. Then they reach their potential and gain that confidence of knowing, ‘I did it. I came in hoping I could, thinking I could, but it wasn’t sure.’ And then to see them achieve that, I think that’s the greatest feeling a coach can have.”
What are the challenges as a broadcaster?
“You do a lot of homework. You do a lot of background. Then halftime comes and you have about two and a half minutes, and you’re discussing what happened. So all of the work that you did, the preparation, you don’t really use it as much.
“I would say my biggest problem is—and it’s why they hired me—I think like a coach. It’s not always positive because as a coach, you’re looking at what went wrong. ‘What do we have to do to fix that?’ So, my focus is always, ‘Yeah, that was good, but this is what we need to do.’ I probably appear more critical just because that’s how I always watch the game.”
Could you tell us about your work with Habitat for Humanity?
“We have an organization here in town. I would take my team as a fun, bonding kind of thing. We’d work on houses. I enjoyed it and learned a lot. It’s great for the community. It’s something where you meet a lot of different people. And it’s so important for our community, especially Women Build because it’s a house, mostly built by women. We have mostly women volunteers. They do have a couple of guys, but it’s mostly a women’s thing.”
Do you have a good Kim Mulkey story?
“The other night, she wore a sweater that said Nothing But Net, and that’s the name of our show on ACC Network. I didn’t get a chance to, but I wanted to send her a note to say thanks for the publicity. I know she had no idea she was supporting our thing, but we sent it all around the ACC Network. ‘Look, Kim Mulkey loves our show!’”
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