Natalie Achonwa, the No. 9 pick in the 2014 WNBA Draft by the Indiana Fever, helped Notre Dame reach four consecutive Final Fours from 2011 to 2014. After sitting out last season with a torn ACL she suffered in the tourney, Achonwa returned to her alma mater, assuming the role of Director of Operations for the women’s basketball program. This year, Notre Dame has reached the Sweet Sixteen and has an upcoming matchup with Stanford. Stay tuned to WNBA.com for more player blogs throughout the NCAA Tournament.

By: Natalie Achonwa

First off, it’s great for our program to get back to this point. With the success we’ve had the past several years, it’s actually become an expecation that we have of ourselves. Additionally, to be able to win those last two games at home was great for the fans and the seniors. For those seniors to leave on a high note — and I say this from experience — that’s something you strive for. It’s one more chance to show your home fans how hard you’ve worked all year.

Now that we’re in the Sweet Sixteen, we are focused solely on Stanford and taking this one game at a time. One thing that Coach McGraw and the entire program says is that after the Selection Show, we don’t look at rankings, we don’t look at seeds and we don’t look at who may be waiting for us if we advance. All we do is look at the next game, the next opponent. If you aren’t focused on that 40 minutes, then you won’t get the opportunity to play another game. It’s about living in the moment and not taking any team to lightly. I remember from my freshman year, we were the team that teams took too lighlty, so we know that anyone can win any game.

With that in mind, I think our team is really focused right now, but as I’m sure many have heard (it seems like it’s the story of the tournament!), we did had an adventurous trip getting to Oklahoma City on Wednesday. So, before we left, they said there were tornado warnings and we might not be able to land and that we might get transferred to Dallas. That was supposed to be an in-air decision. But then, in air, they decided we’d go to Lawton, Oklahoma. So, we ended up landing in Lawton which was a very, very small airport. We were debating if we should stay on the plane since our bus was routed to Lawton and was on its way. We also had to cancel our dinner reservations because we were supposed to eat at Kevin Durant’s restaurant. Anyway, we’re waiting on the plane and they started saying that the clouds that were forming not that far from us were not looking good. So, we decided to all get off the plane and into the terminal…pretty quickly. From there, we spent a few hours in the airport, ordered some pizza and had to hang out there. No tornados came near us, but we got the after-effect with a lot of thunderstorms and wind. Eventually we made it — it was a long day — but we got here. I also can’t say enough about the workers and people in Lawton. They definitely have that Oklahoma hospitality.

Despite all that chaos, we remained focus on Stanford. They are an incredible program — fellow nerds — and we know it’ll be a great matchup. Go Irish!