Tag: acc women’s basketball

Notre Dame player honored by USBWA for fifth time in six weeks

Yes, the Irish are that good.

(This story has been updated to include additional information.)

At this rate, it will be shocking if the USBWA isn’t honoring a Notre Dame player almost every week for the rest of the season. The Irish have been that good.

[autotag]Hannah Hidalgo[/autotag] was one of five players to earn weekly national honors by the organization for the week ending Dec. 15. She previously earned them for the week ending Nov. 24.

Through six weeks of the season, Notre Dame has had one of its players honored by the USBWA every week except for one. [autotag]Olivia Miles[/autotag] and [autotag]Sonia Citron[/autotag] have earned national honors once, and [autotag]Kate Koval[/autotag] was honored as the nation’s top freshman once. The only thing the Irish haven’t won is the weekly team honor, but it would not be surprising if they did so before season’s end.

This hardly is a surprise given that Hidalgo already was named the ACC Women’s Basketball Player of the Week for this past week. She also was the AP national player of the week. What probably stood out the most among voters was finishing two assists shy of a triple-double against UConn:

You know more awards will be coming for her very soon.

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Notre Dame women’s basketball star is ACC Player of the Week again

She is so good.

Winning ACC Women’s Basketball Player of the Week is becoming the norm for Notre Dame star [autotag]Hannah Hidalgo[/autotag]. After wins during the past week over UConn and Eastern Michigan in which she excelled, she won the honor for the second this season and an Irish record sixth time overall.

After nearly achieving a triple-double of 29 points, which included six 3-pointers, 10 rebounds and eight assists against the Huskies, she was equally productive against the Eagles with 27 points and tying her season high with six steals. The latter game highlighted her specialties on both ends of the floor.

All of this and more added up to averages of 28.0 points, 7.0 rebounds, 6.0 assists and 4.5 steals for the two games. She’s a big reason the Irish climbed five spots to third in the latest AP Top 25 Poll, and it would not be surprising to seem them climb higher before this season is over.

For the latest Hidalgo highlights, here they are against the Eagles:

That’s a typical game for her, folks. Get familiar with her if you haven’t already.

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Fourth different Notre Dame player this season earns weekly honor

Congrats, Sonia!

If you want to you know exactly how talented Notre Dame is this season, simply look at the roster. A Notre Dame player has been received a weekly honor from the USBWA for the fourth time this season. A different player has won it each time.

This time, it was [autotag]Sonia Citron[/autotag] earning the honor. She began the week with 18 points, seven rebounds and a career-high seven steals in the Irish’s overtime win over Texas in the ACC/SEC Challenge. She followed that with her first double-double of the season (25 points, 11 rebounds) to help the Irish beat Syracuse in their ACC opener.

Citron joins [autotag]Olivia Miles[/autotag] and [autotag]Hannah Hidalgo[/autotag] as the third Irish player this season to be named one of five national players of the week by the USBWA. [autotag]Kate Koval[/autotag] also has a freshman of the week honor.

The Irish have another big test coming up Thursday against UConn, and the Huskies might be in trouble if Citron has another game like this one:

Best of luck to the Irish against a quality opponent they have beaten in each of the past two seasons.

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Duke women’s basketball stays within top 10 of the AP Poll after South Carolina loss

Duke women’s basketball lost their second game of the season last week, but the Blue Devils kept themselves within the top 10 of the AP Poll.

The Associated Press released its updated AP Top 25 Women’s College Basketball Poll on Monday, and the Duke Blue Devils stuck within the top 10 despite their midweek loss.

Head coach [autotag]Kara Lawson[/autotag] and her team dropped one spot to No. 9 after Thursday’s loss to the South Carolina Gamecocks, the defending national champions. Duke did bounce back with a Sunday win over Virginia Tech to open conference play, however, and the Blue Devils are still 9-2 with multiple ranked victories in 2024-25.

The Gamecocks held firm at No. 3, behind only the UCLA Bruins and Connecticut Huskies. The Notre Dame Fighting Irish lept over Duke to No. 8 to retake their preseason crown as the top ACC team.

The Oklahoma Sooners (No. 10) and Kansas State Wildcats (No. 13), the two teams Duke defeated in the Ball Dawgs Classic, followed close behind. The North Carolina Tar Heels, with nine wins in their first 10 games, moved up two spots to No. 14.

Duke gets a full week off with nothing on the schedule until a December 18 battle against Wofford up next, so they’ll likely stay around the same place in next week’s rankings.

Notre Dame breaks two-game losing streak with overtime win over Texas

Back on track in a big way.

Notre Dame and Texas was billed as a game to watch in this year’s ACC/SEC Challenge, and it definitely lived up to the hype. The problem with that was the Irish needed to sweat it out to try and overcome its disastrous two games in the Cayman Islands Classic.

The Irish took all they could handle from the Longhorns, but it was enough to get them back on track. They’ll head into their ACC opener against Syracuse coming off an 80-70 overtime victory.

The Irish (6-2) were in control for much of the game after the first quarter, but the Longhorns (7-1) came alive to begin the fourth, and the teams engaged in a back-and-forth throughout that frame.

[autotag]Olivia Miles[/autotag] broke a tie with what appeared to be the game-winning layup in the final seconds, but [autotag]Liatu King[/autotag] fouled Rori Harmon with one second left and the Irish in the penalty. Harmon hit both free throws to tie it back up. The Irish called a timeout to set up a game-winning shot, but [autotag]Hannah Hidalgo[/autotag]’s corner 3 missed everything, necessitating free basketball.

Kyla Oldacre scored the first basket of overtime 15 seconds in, but that proved to account for the Longhorns’ final points of the game as they missed their final 10 shots. Four of those misses came from Madison Booker, who wasted a 20-point effort.

The Irish were happy to take advantage as their overtime showing was highlighted by 3s from Hidalgo and [autotag]Sonia Citron[/autotag]. The Longhorns couldn’t answer as they simply had run out of gas:

Hidalgo scored a season-high 30 points. Miles and Citron both scored 18 with Citron collecting a career-high seven steals. King achieved a double-double of 10 points and 12 rebounds.

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Duke women’s basketball star Reigan Richardson named ACC Co-Player of the Week

Duke star Reigan Richardson earned ACC Co-Player of the Week honors on Monday after her 35-point game against Oklahoma.

Duke women’s basketball star [autotag]Reigan Richardson[/autotag] put forth one of the best performances in the program’s recent history last Wednesday, dropping 35 points against the then-No. 8 Oklahoma Sooners team in the Ball Dawgs Classic title game, and she picked up an ACC accolade for the effort.

The conference named her ACC Co-Player of the Week on Monday, splitting the honor between Richardson and Florida State Seminoles guard Ta’Niya Latson.

Richardson, the team’s leading scorer last season, scored 16 points against then-No. 9 Kansas State in the first round of that same tournament before tacking on 19 more against Columbia on Sunday. She averaged 23.3 points, 4.0 rebounds, and 3.8 assists between the three games while making 53.8% of her attempts and 50% of her 3-point looks.

The former Georgia Bulldog is no stranger to great performances on big stages for the Blue Devils. She scored 26.5 points per game between Duke’s first two NCAA Tournament bouts last season, including a 28-point effort in the team’s second-round upset of the Ohio State Buckeyes.

Through nine games to start her senior season, the North Carolina native has put up 15.0 points, 3.1 rebounds, and 2.0 assists per game while helping the Blue Devils to an 8-1 record. She’s connected on 42.9% of her triples, a marked improvement on her 30.2% clip from distance a season ago.

Notre Dame women’s basketball swept during Cayman Islands Classic

Well, this certainly isn’t a pleasant way to get your first two losses.

The Notre Dame women’s basketball team got a rude awakening during the Cayman Islands Classic over Thanksgiving weekend. It’s hard to know if the tropical setting affected the Irish, but what is known is that the Irish won’t just cruise to a national championship.

One day after the Irish suffered their first loss of the season, a 76-68 decision to a ranked and undefeated TCU team, they lost, 78-67, to a Utah team that wasn’t even receiving votes in the latest poll. That drops the Irish to 5-2 on the season, and they most definitely will drop from their No. 3 ranking in the latest poll.

It was a real disappointment for the Irish after defeating USC in its own building, and the schedule won’t get any easier. They next face Texas in the ACC/SEC Challenge, which will come ahead of their ACC opener against Syracuse and then a game against fellow blue blood UConn.

This is a true test for the Irish, and how they tackle it will say a lot about them.

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Notre Dame’s Hannah Hidalgo wins two Player of the Week awards

Way to go, Hannah!

Notre Dame’s [autotag]Hannah Hidalgo[/autotag] played only one game last week, but it made enough of an impact for every women’s basketball fan to notice her. While she was known already, she reminded everyone of her existence anyway.

One day after Hidalgo was named the ACC Player of the Week, the Associated Press named her its player of the week. This came after a win over USC in which she had a line of 24 points, eight rebounds, six assists and five steals.

The game marked the 10th time in her collegiate career in which she achieved a line of at least 20 points and at least five each of rebounds, assists and steals. No other women’s basketball player has done it that many times in the past 25 years.

On at least one day, Hidalgo was the better player on the floor than Trojans standout JuJu Watkins. Here are some of her highlights from the game:

Many more honors will come to her this season. There’s no reason to think they won’t.

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Notre Dame women’s basketball receives No. 1 votes in AP Top 25 poll

The Irish are getting close to the top.

The Notre Dame women’s basketball team is looking stronger than ever, and people are starting to notice. After a huge victory in a much-anticipated game at USC over the weekend, the Irish received three No. 1 votes in the latest AP Top 25 Poll. They also moved up the rankings from six to third.

The top of the latest poll had some serious movement. After UCLA knocked off top-ranked South Carolina over the weekend, it became the new No. 1 team in the country. The Gamecocks slipped to fourth, one spot below the Irish, and the Trojans fell to sixth, one spot behind Texas. UConn remained at No. 2 from the previous week.

After the Irish play two games at the Cayman Islands Classic this weekend, they’ll return home to play the Longhorns in the ACC/SEC Challenge, open ACC play against Syracuse and then host the Huskies. After that slate, we’ll know a lot more about what we can expect from the Irish this season.

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Notre Dame women’s basketball gets third easy win vs. James Madison

The Irish continue to prove how deep they are.

The early part of Notre Dame’s schedule was set up in such a way that it seemingly wouldn’t be challenged early on. So far, that has proved to be the case. After cruising to easy wins over Mercyhurst and Purdue, the Irish continued that trend with a 92-46 victory over James Madison.

For the third time in as many games this season, the Irish (3-0) proved to have far more talent than their opponent, even with injuries tightening their rotation at the moment. That rotation might be tightened further after a hard knock to the floor caused [autotag]Liatu King[/autotag] to leave the game early in the fourth quarter with a head injury. Hopefully, she won’t be lost for very long if at all.

The Dukes (3-1) took their lone lead on a 3-pointer early in the first quarter. Most of the time though, the Irish had double the points of the Dukes or close to it. While the Irish were their usual strong selves on both ends, the Dukes did themselves no favors by making only 15 field goals and shooting a putrid 21.7% from the floor:

[autotag]Hannah Hidalgo[/autotag] had a typical game of 24 points, six rebounds and four steals. [autotag]Olivia Miles[/autotag] also played typically with 16 points, six rebounds and eight assists.

[autotag]Kate Koval[/autotag] quickly is becoming an early contender for ACC Rookie of the Year. A night in which she had a line of 14 points, 16 rebounds and six blocks will do that.

King scored 11 points before she went out, and [autotag]Cassandre Prosper[/autotag] also had 11 points to go with seven boards off the bench.

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