Tag: South Bend

Niele Ivey confirms Olivia Miles’ Notre Dame return for 2024-25 season

Any rumors about transferring can be squashed.

With [autotag]Hannah Hidalgo[/autotag] having taken this season by storm the way few others have, it’s safe to call her the face of Notre Dame. For the previous two years, it was [autotag]Olivia Miles[/autotag], who has missed this entire season with a knee injury. With Hidalgo and Miles playing the same position, questions arose about whether Miles would stick with the Irish.

Miles’ future in South Bend no longer is in doubt. Speaking ahead of the Irish’s trip to the ACC Tournament, [autotag]Niele Ivey[/autotag] announced that Miles had given her permission to publicly relay that she will return to the Irish for the 2024-25 season. That means Irish fans will see their dream backcourt of Miles and Hidalgo come to pass.

In her first two full seasons, Miles made the All-ACC First Team and led the conference in assists both times. She also was a Second Team All-American in 2023 and had three triple-doubles. One of those was the first for a freshman, men or women, in the NCAA Tournament. That came in the Irish’s 2022 first-round victory over UMass (12 points, 11 rebounds, 11 assists).

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Notre Dame to wear green for big home game vs. Virginia Tech

Will these work?

With Notre Dame three games back of Virginia Tech in the ACC, the hopes for repeating as ACC regular-season champions have been dashed. But an Irish victory over the red-hot Hokies would do wonders for their NCAA Tournament seeding, and they seem to recognize that. One day before their biggest game of the season, they announced they’ll be wearing green jerseys for the occasion at Purcell Pavilion:

The Hokies have won 10 straight and would clinch the outright ACC title by beating the Irish. So a lot will be on the line for both teams Thursday in South Bend.

We know the football team has brought out green jerseys on several occasions when a game has had high stakes, but it typically hasn’t ended well in those cases. The women’s basketball team wore green when it lost to top-ranked South Carolina during its season opener in Paris. Here’s hoping that’s not a sign that what’s true in football carries over to women’s basketball.

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Notre Dame still No. 5 seed in most latest bracketology updates

Nothing has changed.

Notre Dame didn’t do anything to move the needle one way or the other in the latest bracketology updates. They beat Florida State in a double-overtime thriller but lost badly at home to NC State, giving them two defeats in their past three games. While they didn’t hurt their standing with the bracketologists, they didn’t help it either.

The Irish remain a No. 5 seed for the latest projections from ESPN, Her Hoop Stats and College Sports Madness. However, they also haven’t moved off the No. 6 seed projected by CBS Sports. The possibility of hosting the first two round of the NCAA Tournament is shrinking with only five games left before the ACC Tournament.

The Irish visit Duke and host Clemson over the next week. It’s a tough situation to be in. Winning both games likely won’t do enough to move up them up the seedings. Lose either one, and you can forget about tournament basketball in South Bend this year.

All the Irish can do is play who’s in front of them and not screw up. They need to control what they can control.

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Notre Dame wins double-overtime thriller over Florida State

Perfect tuneup for watching the Super Bowl later.

In the event the Super Bowl later in the day turned out to be boring, Notre Dame and Florida State would have had you covered. Two teams stacked with talent and close to each other in the ACC standings battled it out and gave everything they had.

It was a shame one team had to lose. Fortunately for the Irish, they won this epic double-overtime contest, 98-94.

The Irish (18-5, 8-4) had chances to win the game in both regulation and the first overtime, but [autotag]Hannah Hidalgo[/autotag] missed a couple of potential game-winners. In between, [autotag]Kylee Watson[/autotag] made a defensive stop to keep the Seminoles (17-8, 8-5) from winning in regulation, even with little time left.

Ultimately, this game came down to the basics. With the scored tied at 94, Seminoles star Ta’Niya Latson, who scored a season-high 34 points, missed a shot out of a timeout with little time left on the shot clock. Hidalgo got the rebound, and the Irish got a timeout with 5.9 seconds left in double overtime.

Latson tried to intercept the subsequent inbound pass but fouled Sonia Citron instead. Citron, the ACC leader in free-throw percentage in conference games, calmly knocked down two shots from the charity stripe, giving the Irish a lead with 4.5 seconds remaining.

The Seminoles called their last timeout, but they never got another shot off. Watson stole the subsequent inbound pass, and Hidalgo recovered it before being fouled and icing the game with two of her own free throws. It was a win the Irish absolutely needed with NC State coming to South Bend on Thursday.

Hidalgo had a nice all-around game with 27 points, nine assists, seven rebounds and five steals. [autotag]Anna DeWolfe[/autotag] wasn’t far behind in the scoring column with a season-high 24 points, including six 3-pointers.

[autotag]Maddy Westbeld[/autotag] showed off her two-way skills with 19 points, 14 rebounds and four steals. Citron flirted with a double-double thanks to 18 points and eight boards.

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Where in the World is Marcus Freeman: Indiana Pacers edition

The coach gets the VIP treatment in Indy.

[autotag]Marcus Freeman[/autotag] grew up in Dayton, Ohio. That means the NBA geographically closest to him was the Indiana Pacers. Now as an adult, he is the coach of Notre Dame inside the Pacers’ home state. Even though it still is a good drive between South Bend and Indianapolis, Freeman probably feels a stronger connection to his favorite team than ever.

To that end, Freeman was a special guest of the Pacers before their 131-109 loss to the Golden State Warriors. You name it, he did it. He talked to the Pacers before the game, hung with their mascot, took part in a pregame ritual and even took a photo with Stephen Curry, who surely was inspired to enough by Freeman to drop 42 points, including 11 3-pointers.

You probably are bored by everything that’s being written about this and want to actually see some of it. Fortunately, social media has all of that covered:

Notre Dame never leads in loss to Louisville

The top three teams in the ACC entered Thursday with identical 12-0 home records.

The top three teams in the ACC entered Thursday with identical 12-0 home records. That included Louisville, which Notre Dame visited. For much of the contest, the Irish showed they could at least compete with the Cardinals. But they never possessed the lead in a 73-66 loss.

The Irish (17-5, 7-4) always seemed to be right on the edge of tying the game or even taking the lead. But every time they got an opportunity, the basketball wouldn’t fall through, not even when they had good looks. It seemed only a matter of time before the Cardinals (20-4, 9-2) pounced, and pounce they did.

The Irish trailed by three midway though the third quarter when the Cardinals decided enough was enough. They scored seven unanswered points to go up 10, and the Irish couldn’t get closer than five the rest of the way despite their best efforts. The deficit eventually grew to 13 in the fourth quarter, and while the Irish held the Cardinals without a point for the final four-and-a-half minutes, the deficit was too much to overcome.

Nyla Harris scored 19 points on 9-of-11 shooting from the field and completed the double-double with 10 rebounds. Sydney Taylor scored 13, and Kiki Jefferson, the ACC’s leading free-throw shooter, earned half of her 12 points by making all six shots from the charity stripe.

[autotag]Hannah Hidalgo[/autotag] was the only Irish player to reach double figures, but she scored 30 points, 22 of which came in the second half. She now has 551 points for the season, and in this game, she broke [autotag]Shari Matvey[/autotag]’s program freshman scoring record of 530, set during the 1979-80 season.

Hidalgo’s accomplishments in this game didn’t stop with scoring though. She was credited with seven steals, and the 113 she now has for the season represent the ACC freshman record. Appropriately, one steal led to the fast-break layup that gave Hidalgo the scoring record.

The good news for the Irish is that this was the loss that probably will cause the least amount of damage for their NCAA Tournament seeding. Plus, they’ll see the Cardinals again in South Bend to close the regular season. Still, this would have been a nice win to put on their resume, which is mostly thin right now. Hopefully, that changes soon.

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How NET Rankings could determine if Notre Dame gets top-four seed

What do the Irish need to do to host NCAA Tournament games?

It’s been another good season for Notre Dame, and the NCAA Tournament is a certainty barring a complete collapse down the stretch. The latest Bracketology rankings have them as a fifth seed. But only the top four seeds in each quadrant get to be host schools for the first two rounds. That means if the forecasters were charged with creating the bracket today, there would be no postseason action in South Bend.

This raises the question of what it will take to get the Irish that coveted fourth seed. Figuring this out requires more analysis than I’m equipped to do, so I turned to my friend and World Series history podcast co-host Lucas Mitzel for help.

Lucas likes to crunch college sports numbers, particularly as they pertain to the programs for North Central College, our alma mater as well as that of Nick Shepkowski, our site’s editor. I asked Lucas to do this in relation to the Irish’s chances of getting to host tournament games. He had a very quick turnaround from the moment I asked him, which is perfect timing given the gauntlet the Irish are about to face.

While these aren’t comprehensive figures for what the Irish need to get a fourth seed, this analysis does place a heavy emphasis on NET, the tournament selection criteria system that replaced RPI for the women a few years ago. So with that in mind, here is Lucas’ interpretation of where the Irish are at:

Notre Dame is No. 5 seed in every latest Bracketology projection

The Irish have some work to do if they want to be an NCAA Tournament host.

Nobody knows just how dominant Notre Dame would be if it was fully healthy. All we can judge the Irish on is how good they currently are. And in the eyes of various college hoops experts, they’re not good enough to host the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament.

In the latest Bracketology updates for ESPN, CBS Sports, College Sports Madness and Her Hoop Stats, the Irish are in a fifth seed for each and every one. Only the top four seeds in each quadrant are selected as first- and second-round hosts. So in this particular case, the Irish currently are on the outside looking in.

Don’t despair yet though. ESPN chooses to highlight the Irish in its latest update as a team that can move up the seedings. As it currently stands, they don’t have a lot of big wins on their resume except for UConn. Whether that resume can improve depends on how the Irish fare against the ACC gauntlet over the next two weeks, beginning Thursday at Louisville.

[autotag]Niele Ivey[/autotag] admitted after the Irish’s win over Pittsburgh that February is going to be a tough month for her team, and she wasn’t lying. While the Irish are a lock for the tournament barring a complete collapse over the next month, they’ll need to dig even deeper if they want March Madness to come to South Bend. We soon will find out if them doing so leads to optimal results.

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Notre Dame not much of a threat to Virginia in loss

Another dull loss for the Irish.

It would have been nice to see Notre Dame sweep the season series with Virginia. But unlike the first meeting a month ago, Wednesday’s game was in Charlottesville, which alone made it a tall order. Also, the Cavaliers were prepared for the Irish this time and won, 65-53.

The Irish (7-14, 2-8) never led in this game, but they never trailed the Cavaliers (16-5, 7-3) by more than 16, indicating that they could make a run anytime. But they never scored more than four unanswered points and were routinely bullied by a strong defense from the Cavaliers, who scored 20 points off 18 Irish turnovers.

The Cavaliers also made a season-high 13 3-pointers, a far cry from when they tied their season low with two in South Bend. So while the Irish hung around, few if any felt they were going to complete the season sweep. They proved their inexperience yet again in this game by looking completely outmatched. Plus, the moment was just too big for them.

Reece Beekman led the Cavaliers with 21 points. He also had six assists and four steals, showing why he’s the ACC leader in those two categories. Isaac McKneely scored nine of his 11 points on three 3-pointers to prove that he leads the conference in 3-point shooting. Off the bench, Jacob Groves got all 18 of his points on a career-high six 3s.

[autotag]Markus Burton[/autotag] paced the Irish with 17 points. [autotag]Braeden Shrewsberry[/autotag] came off the bench and scored 16 points, including four 3s.

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Notre Dame drops another close contest to Boston College

The Irish still can’t win a close game with the Eagles.

When Notre Dame lost a close road contest to Boston College over a week-and-a-half ago, much of it had to do with Quinten Post getting hot. When the teams met again Saturday in South Bend, Post scored 10 points before fouling out with 4:03 left.

Despite losing Post for the stretch run, the Eagles had their biggest lead at seven, and it proved to be just enough to deal the Irish a 61-58 loss. Devin McGlockton led the Eagles with 15 points.

Neither team shot the ball well in the first half, but when points started coming more frequently in the second half, the Irish (7-13, 2-7) simply didn’t score enough. Although they only trailed, 57-55, in the final minute, Jaeden Zackery made a close shot with 30 seconds left to put the Eagles (12-8, 3-6) up four. [autotag]Braeden Shrewsberry[/autotag] missed a 3, and Zackery got the rebound before being fouled by [autotag]J.R. Konieczny[/autotag] and making two free throws.

Surprisingly, that didn’t end the game. A Shrewsberry 3 cut the Eagles’ six-point lead in half with barely any time remaining. The Eagles then couldn’t inbound the ball cleanly, and a replay review gave the Irish a chance to send the game to overtime with 0.8 seconds left. [autotag]Kebba Njie[/autotag] got an open look from 3-point range at the very top of the key, but he missed at the buzzer.

Konieczny flirted with a double-double by virtue of 15 points (13 in the first half) and eight rebounds. Shrewsberry scored all of his 14 points in the second half with 12 of them coming on four 3-pointers. [autotag]Markus Burton[/autotag] had 10 points (eight in the second half) and a game-high seven assists, but he also committed a game-high five turnovers.

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