The Fighting Irish have returned to their defensive dominance after dropping from the top team in the nation to a No. 3 seed in the women’s NCAA tournament.
Niele Ivey did not expect the Notre Dame Fighting Irish to skid through late February and early March. She certainly did not enjoy the experience. But she is grateful that it happened when it did.
“It kind of put a mirror to the things we needed to fix,” the Notre Dame coach said earlier this weekend. “I think sometimes winning covers things up.”
A team that needed to improve its spacing and learn how to play through its defense once more was exposed by that mirror. The Fighting Irish have done just that thus far in the NCAA tournament. With the most comprehensive victory the school has seen in weeks, Notre Dame, ranked third, defeated the No. 6 Michigan Wolverines on Sunday to advance back to the Sweet 16. It also provided a model for the type of performance it would need to continue putting on in order to go farther in the competition.
Following the 76–55 victory, Irish senior guard Sonia Citron remarked, “We’re a bunch of fighters.” “When we are challenged, we react. We answered Coach Ivey’s challenge. We improved.
As recently as late February, the Fighting Irish were rated as the nation’s top team. However, they struggled to an early departure in the ACC tournament after losing two of their final three games in the regular season. A certain No. 1 seed for March Madness turned into a wobbly No. 2 and, quite surprisingly, a No. 3. Following the conference tournament defeat, Ivey let the players to take a few days off and spend time with their families. Before the NCAA tournament, they returned after more than a week of practice to move their identity.
Star guard Hannah Hidalgo summed up what they discovered as follows:
If that last bit sounds like a bit much, well, Notre Dame had ended the regular season as a team in need of a bit much. And it was hard to argue with Hidalgo after watching her team Sunday. There was no better descriptor for what Notre Dame did to Michigan. That heart was ripped out in the first quarter and given virtually no chance to beat for the rest of the afternoon: Notre Dame was up 32–12 after just the first 10 minutes. The Wolverines’ roster is built on guards, a relatively undersized but potent, high-scoring lineup. They average 78 points a game and like to shoot with abandon from beyond the arc. Yet they saw all of that closed off by Notre Dame.
“We did it defensively, so it’s a huge confidence boost for us,” Ivey remarked. “You have noticed a change for this team on the defensive end.”
Against the Fighting Irish, the Wolverines lost all of their best options. This season, they made 21 three-pointers on average per game. On Sunday, they were only able to put up 10. Furthermore, with Liatu King defending the paint, Notre Dame made it as impossible to get anything going inside even while they walled off the perimeter. (King’s 15 rebounds equaled her season high.) As a result, Michigan had their lowest-scoring game of the season.
