SOUTH BEND, IND. — Hannah Hidalgo counted the factors on her fingers. Notre Dame’s pint-sized sophomore supernova had simply drilled a nook three off a feed from Olivia Miles to present the Irish a 10-point lead on the UConn Huskies mid-way via the second quarter of a nationally televised conflict of energy applications. Hidalgo stared at her flaming scorching proper hand and lifted three fingers, slowly and dramatically, earlier than working again to defend, as if to savor the chance to step into the highlight created for her by the Irish legends sitting on the different finish of the court docket.
It’s onerous to discover a rivalry that has meant extra to its sport over the past 15 years than Notre Dame vs. UConn in girls’s basketball. So most of the trendy sport’s defining skills have been cast in its warmth, with 4 Last 4 matchups and two nationwide championship showdowns since 2012 serving as its basis. Notre Dame’s well-known WNBA alums lined the ground seats, with Arike Ogunbowale, Skylar Diggins-Smith, Jewell Loyd, and Marina Mabrey bearing witness not simply to the lengthy shadow of their legacy, however maybe additionally the induction of this system’s subsequent star.
Legends are born in March on this sport, not mid-Dec., a reality Notre Dame’s glamorous grads know greater than anymore. It was Ogunbowale’s extra time dagger within the 2018 nationwide championship between these two groups that energized the game across the similar time Caitlin Clark was making an attempt her first emblem threes in West Des Moines. Hidalgo should anticipate the NCAA match to really form her personal legacy, however the define is already simple to see.
Notre Dame beat UConn, 79-68, in a possible 2025 nationwide championship preview. It was the Huskies’ first lack of the 12 months, and a sobering reminder that Paige Bueckers can’t actually maintain the world on her shoulders, it solely feels that method. For Notre Dame, this was greater than a palette cleanser after it ended Nov. with back-to-back losses on the Cayman Islands Basic (to TCU and to Utah) — this was proof that, at its greatest, the Irish simply may need probably the most stacked roster in America.
Hidalgo was electrical, enjoying all the sport till rubbish time within the closing minute. She possesses a stage of showmanship that may solely belong to the greats, and she or he put it on full show below the intense lights of ESPN in opposition to the last word measuring stick opponent.
“She at all times wears her coronary heart on her sleeve,” Notre Dame head coach Niele Ivey stated after the sport.
“I do know I’m that power piece for my group,” Hidalgo stated. “So, I attempt to carry it.”
UConn’s obvious game-plan was to pack the paint to chop off Hidalgo’s forays to the rim. She responded by ripping the nets from deep, hitting 6-of-11 photographs from behind the arc. Every considered one of Hidalgo’s 29 factors felt like a spike via UConn’s soul, and there wasn’t an adjustment Geno Auriemma might make to cease her.
With Notre Dame up two close to the top of the third quarter, Hidalgo punished the cardinal sin of a defender going below a display on her to increase the result in 5. The interval closed with Hidalgo probing the protection, retreating her method behind the arc, and dropping a dagger to halt UConn’s momentum for a possible late comeback.
“She does what she does, and I don’t know that there’s quite a lot of methods that you should use,” Auriemma stated.
Bueckers was phenomenal on this sport in her personal proper, however her 25 factors didn’t come simple with Notre Dame’s Swiss military knife Sonia Cintron hounding her all night time. It’s tempting to anoint Hidalgo as the most effective participant in America after she’s out-dueled each Bueckers and Juju Watkins in current weeks, but when something Notre Dame’s win was proof of simply how balanced and well-tailored this Notre Dame roster is. Everybody performs their function, and Hidalgo’s simply so occurs to be hitting back-breaking jumpers.
Miles and Cintron will probably be first-round WNBA draft picks after this 12 months. Miles is the school sport’s resident Level God, a heady flooring common who has overcome a torn ACL with out dropping the mastery of her flooring sport. Cintron is the kind of participant each group covets: a wing who can affect the sport with out holding the ball, a flooring spacer who knock down spot-ups with vary on one finish and lock up a expertise like Bueckers on the different.
“Our unsung hero,” Ivey stated of Cintron after the sport. “She was working so onerous on protection.”
Ivey complemented this core properly within the switch portal, with former Pitt wing Liatu King (16 factors, 12 rebounds) and Marquette ahead Liza Karlen rounding out a brief rotation.
Who wouldn’t need to play for Ivey? In solely her fifth 12 months on the job, Notre Dame’s head coach already has a palpable presence. She exudes a coolness and attraction that attracted a top-five recruit like Hidalgo to South Bend, and she or he figures to land many extra McDonald’s All-Individuals within the guaranteeing years.
The items on Notre Dame simply match so properly. Hidalgo is a pace demon who can shoot from anyplace whereas additionally utilizing her scoring gravity to arrange her teammates. Miles isn’t rushed with ball in her palms, and has the kind of passing imaginative and prescient that may’t be taught. Cintron is a basketball sicko’s fever dream, a refined star whose talent set amplifies everybody else round her. Notre Dame is a bit of weak inside with true freshman Kate Koval studying on the job within the center, however the perimeter is so sturdy that she will be able to afford to take her time getting in control.
Bueckers appeared dejected talking to a small group of reporters after the sport. As a recruit, she was imagined to be the subsequent large factor within the sport earlier than Clark claimed that title. She left her Midwest roots to increase UConn’s championship lineage, however as she navigates her fifth 12 months, the Huskies nonetheless haven’t gained all of it since Breanna Stewart was on campus. Maybe UConn can win a rematch in opposition to Notre Dame in March if Azzi Fudd is within the lineup. Perhaps Sarah Sturdy — an absurdly proficient true freshman ahead who feels destined to be a future No. 1 general WNBA draft decide — will develop up shortly within the highlight the way in which so many Huskies have.
On this night time, the Irish have been simply an excessive amount of. Get used to it, as a result of this Notre Dame group isn’t going anyplace, not with Hidalgo as its chief and Ivey as its figurehead. The Irish now have three wins over top-five groups earlier than Christmas, however the matchups we keep in mind at all times come within the match. Notre Dame instilled perception that they are going to be again, with Hidalgo and Co. counting down the weeks till this Irish group can show it belongs among the many program’s easiest.
