Notre Dame fans noticed a lot of things about Hannah Hidalgo during her freshman season. Most of it had to do with her exceptional play on the court. Those who watched really closely noticed Hidalgo wore a tiny nose ring during games. It was little more than an interesting sight for those watching the First Team All-American.
That all changed after the first quarter of the Irish’s 70-65 loss to Oregon State in the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament. When the Irish took the court for the second, Hidalgo inexplicably wasn’t out there. It turned out that wasn’t by choice. ESPN’s Holly Rowe gave the following sideline report indicating the reason Hidalgo was on the bench:
Yes, you heard that correctly, folks. With one quarter already having been played, they decided that was the time to crack down on Hidalgo wearing her nose ring during a game and ordered it removed. It’s hard to know why this issue wasn’t raised before. Even if no-jewelry rules are more heavily enforced during March Madness, shouldn’t this have been brought up before the first tournament game or at least before this opener to Albany Regional 1 got underway? Either the powers-that-be are being very selective in enforcing the rules, or they somehow didn’t notice how one of women’s basketball’s best players likes to accessorize during games until now.
Hidalgo missed the first four minutes of the second quarter. Perhaps not so coincidentally, she turned in one of her worst shooting performances of the season at 4 of 17 and tied her season low with 10 points. We’ll never know how much exactly this jewelry removal affected her performance. What we do know is that in this game, she looked very little like the player we became used to watching this season.
Social media was quick to react to this turn of events. Here are some of the thoughts that were shared, including those from current and former players, journalists and even the coach of the team the Irish eliminated in the previous round: