TCU Women's Basketball: Campbell Says Team Is Ready to Compete Against Notre Dame

The Sweet 16 is here, and for the first time in school history, the TCU Horned Frogs (33-3) are in it. The No. 2 seed Horned Frogs take on the No. 3 seed Notre Dame Fighting Irish (28-5) on Saturday, March 29 at 12 noon CT. The Birmingham Regional 3 semifinal game will be played at Legacy Arena. It can be seen on ABC.

Early Friday morning, TCU head coach Mark Campbell then three players - Madison Conner, Sedona Prince, and Hailey Van Lith - met with the media to discuss the upcoming game with Notre Dame.

"Kids are really, really excited, but we've been grinding ten months to hopefully have a chance to be in this position, and we're really excited about tomorrow and to get out there and compete against Notre Dame," said Campbell.

TCU On SI was able to ask Cambpell two questions:

Q: What did you learn from the two Baylor championship games that's helped you prepare this week to be able to beat a team again that you beat earlier in the season?

Campbell: "Those Baylor games were high stakes. You know, both of them had a championship on the line. One was for a league title. One was for a conference tournament championship. That was two different situations, winner-take-all. "

"This group has delivered in those moments all throughout the season," Campbell continued. "So tomorrow is another one of those big opportunities. But this group to get to this point, to be 33-3, they have delivered on the big stage and in the big moments.

Q: You said to win tomorrow you're going to need everybody. On Sunday both Agnes and Donovyn just had incredible games. Donovyn didn't miss a shot. How do you keep that momentum up and make sure they're having their best game?

Campbell: "Donovyn and Agnes last game to get to this point against Louisville were phenomenal. I think each of them had the best game of the season."

"But for the people that have followed us, it's not a surprise," he continued. "When you see how tight and cohesive this group is, the belief they have in each other, the trust -- for Hailey to have ten assists and to be willing to drive and kick and make the right plays so that Agnes and Dono can stick those shots; she is only able to do that because she completely believes in them. That is this group."

"There's so much trust on our team right now, and that's been built from the journey of this season," Campbell concluded. "So our offensive weapons, it's really hard. Every team has tried a different defensive scheme to try to slow this group down. This group trusts each other and has been able to pick it apart, regardless of what that is. I know Notre Dame is going to have a great game plan. It's up to us, our staff, and our kids to figure that out and be able to make the right play for each other, but I have full confidence that we'll do that tomorrow as well."

After Campbell spoke, Conner, Prince, and Van Lith talked about the game with the media. TCU On SI asked all of them a question about playing Notre Dame a second time this season.

Q: Olivia Miles (Notre Dame guard) said earlier this morning when she watched that game film, she cringed watching it again and that their team has totally changed and it felt like ten years ago. How has your team changed since November, and how have you seen the improvement?

Prince: "Yeah, massively. We've been through a lot of just very tough, physical games, but games that have really challenged us as a team and how this growth in the area of beating traps, right? A lot of teams try to junk it up on us and make us force turnovers, and at that point in the season, we were very, very poor at that. Now, we are much more skilled. We've had a lot of practice."

"We're a much more mature team," Prince continues. "We've had girls like Donovyn Hunter. We were watching the shots in the first half, and a lot of shots didn't fall in that game, and now Donovyn Hunter is a sniper from three. Taylor Bigby has made a massive jump in her role and what she's able to do with us. So we play much better as a team together. We have a lot of effort from every single person that comes on the floor. Yeah, we are also a completely different team and have grown so much."

Conner: " I think we're really a whole complete different team at this point. We also watched the film. Not until the second half did it start clicking for us. The third quarter we had a really big run, but like Sedona said, we missed a whole bunch of shots that we usually make. We were turning the ball over at a high clip, and they were able to get out in transition."

"I think tomorrow is going to be a really good battle between two teams that played at the beginning of the season," Conner said. "It's a whole different game now."

Van Lith: "It was one of our first games in a neutral location too, like outside of -- our first big game together was at home. I think it was one of those environments where we were learning to play, where we weren't at home, a big-time matchup. We've grown a lot in that area since then."

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