It wasn’t so much that Niele Ivey stretched the customary postgame cooling-off period Saturday from 10 minutes to roughly an hour before facing the same questions publicly the Notre Dame women’s basketball coach should have been asking herself behind closed doors.
It’s that the extra time apparently didn’t produce any epiphanies about her second-seeded Irish team’s truncated run in the 2025 ACC Tournament, the 61-56 come-from-ahead semifinal loss to 3 seed Duke in Greensboro, N.C., that punctuated it or what needs to happen next before sixth-ranked ND plays again in a one-and-done setting.
More Content
► Notre Dame football details injury updates for 2025 spring roster
► WBB: Notre Dame WBB rallies, survives and advances with ACC Tourney win over Cal
► How WR Beaux Collins grew in lone season with Notre Dame football
► Chat Transcript: Is Notre Dame getting a recruiting bump from deep CFP run?
► How Mike Martin's vision for Notre Dame football aligns with Marcus Freeman
In fact, Ivey’s Saturday epitaph at First Horizon Coliseum sounded a lot like the one she concocted after ND’s 86-81 Senior Day upset loss to Florida State in South Bend nine days earlier, when the fifth-year Irish head coach incubated for 78 minutes before meeting with the media. …
Not enough defense. Not playing to a standard. Not enough of a sense of urgency.
And next to nothing about a much-needed offensive reinvention for a team that spent most of this season in the top five in scoring, field-goal percentage and 3-point-shooting percentage and in the top 10 in rebound margin. And yet got trumped in all four of those areas Saturday by a team the Irish subdued 64-49 in South Bend less than three weeks ago.
At last senior guard Sonia Citron put ND’s third loss in five games following a 19-game win streak into perspective.
“The good thing about this is we have one more chance to play,” Citron said, looking ahead to the NCAA Tournament, with the Irish in line to host first- and second-round games in two weeks.
“We have a lot of time to work on our game, get better. But knowing that that's it. This next time is it. If we don't give everything we have, give 100 percent of ourselves, then I don't know what we're doing here.
“It's going to be our last chance. I mean, turn the page, get better, and we know we've got one more shot at it, so that's going to be what's motivating us.”
Selection Sunday for the NCAA Tournament is March 16, with the 68-team bracket reveal set for 8 p.m. EDT on ESPN.
Duke (25-7), meanwhile, advances to Sunday’s ACC Tournament final (1 p.m. EDT on ESPN) against top seed NC State (26-5), which ousted No. 5 North Carolina, 66-55, in Saturday’s first semifinal.
The Blue Devils lost their next game, to Louisville 70-62, after the Irish setback on Feb. 17, then ripped through Syracuse and then three ranked teams — North Carolina, Florida State and Louisville in the revenge matchup — all by double digits before taking down the Irish.
Oluchi Okananwa led Duke with 14 points. Ashlon Jackson was the only other Blue Devil in double figures, with 12, but that was on 3-of-17 shooting from the field. But Duke, which got TKO’d in South Bend by a 17-1 third-quarter run, had defensive answers on Saturday pretty much for everyone on the Irish roster this time except Hannah Hidalgo.
The sophomore and recently crowned ACC Player of the Year and ACC Defensive Player of the Year scored 23 points, with three assists and six steals.
All-ACC guard Olivia Miles was the only other Irish player in double figures, with 10 points, but was just 3-of-9 from the field and spent a large chunk of the second half on the bench after turning an ankle midway through the third quarter.
Ivey didn’t bring her back until 91 seconds remained in the game, and the coach said the extended bench time was not due to the ankle.
“I wasn't aware if it was anything that was serious,” Ivey said. “She said she was fine when I pulled her out of the game. And towards the end of the game [she was put in] just having her manage the offense. We were trying to go on a run at the end.”
Instead it was more frustration.
Meanwhile, grad senior forward Maddy Westbeld continues to scuffle — and get hit in the nose. For the second straight day in the tournament, Westbeld spent extended time on the bench trying to get the bleeding to stop after getting hit in the face,
This time, though, when she was on the court, she did not look like herself. Nor did her stat line. In 27 minutes of court time, the 6-3 forward went 0-for-6 from the field, including 0-for-2 from 3, grabbed one rebound, committed three turnovers and struggled intermittently on defense. Her zero point total was just the second of her career.
The other was a 13-minute cameo in January in her first game of this season coming back from foot surgery rehab and one in which she did not attempt a shot. A Westbeld resembling the one who averaged 14.4 points and 8.7 rebounds last season could be part of an offensive reinvention.
But how does Ivey get her there?
“Just trying to find ways to get her to the block so she can find mismatches,” Ivey said. “She had a couple wide-open 3s. Always trying to find ways to get her going. It's been something that we've been trying to do.”
The ugliest numbers Saturday were collective ones — 32% shooting in the second half and .375 for the game (second-worst mark of the season), 20% shooting from 3 9third-worst) for the game, and a 12-board deficit, 38-26, after the Irish won that battle by 13 three weeks ago in South Bend.
“They're a great team,” Duke’s Jackson offered. “Like we just knew that going into the game we were going to have to up that competition level.”
And did they ever. With the exception of Hidalgo, Duke consistently looked like the team that wanted it more. On every ball that careened off the iron, on every loose bal,l on every Notre Dame offensive possession.
“This type of game, my expectations are a lot higher,” Ivey said. “I feel like we played below our standard, so that's frustrating.
“We've got to get better, and that's on me, I need to make this team get better, and that's something when we get back on this court, we will be better for this loss.”
Ivey has to figure out the right balance of rest/recovery versus the work needed to be put in for the Irish to try to recapture the form that catapulted them to the No. 1 spot in both polls last month before they play their next game.
Notre Dame will likely do so as a No. 2 seed in the NCAA Tourney, with a slide down to the 3 line not completely out of the question.
“You want to grow from every loss,” said Marquette grad transfer Liza Karlen, who had four points and five rebounds off the bench for the Irish on Saturday. “I think that one thing we always talk about is we feel like we're the better team in every game we play. So, a lot of our mistakes are our own and very controllable by us.
“I think the third time it happens [losing] in a short period, it's frustrating, obviously, because we're really the only ones in our way, we feel. We just need to be able to turn the page on that.
“I'm still all in on this team, and I really believe that we can go all the way in March.”
ACC WOMEN'S BASKETBALL TOURNAMENT
(All Times Eastern)
At Greensboro, N.C.
FIRST ROUND
Wednesday
No. 12 Boston College 76, No. 13 Syracuse 73
No. 10 Virginia 64, No. 15 Pittsburgh 50
No. 14 Clemson 63, No. 11 Stanford 46
SECOND ROUND
Thursday
No. 5 North Carolina 78, No. 12 Boston College 71
No. 9 Georgia Tech 72, No. 8 Virginia Tech 57
No. 7 Cal 75, No. 10 Virginia 58
No. 6 Louisville 70, No. 14 Clemson 68 (OT)
QUARTERFINALS
Friday
No. 5 North Carolina 60, No. 4 Florida State 56
No. 1 NC State 73, No. 9 Georgia Tech 72
No. 2 Notre Dame 73, No. 7 Cal 64
No. 3 Duke 61, No. 6 Louisville 48
SEMIFINALS
Saturday
No. 1 NC State 66, No. 5 North Carolina 55
No. 3 Duke 61, No. 2 Notre Dame 56
CHAMPIONSHIP
Sunday
No. 1 NC State (26-5) vs. No. 3 Duke (25-7), 1 p.m. (ESPN)
---------------------------------------------------------------
• Talk with Notre Dame fans on The Insider Lounge.
• Subscribe to the Inside ND Sports podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, SoundCloud, Podbean or Pocket Casts.
• Subscribe to the Inside ND Sports channel on YouTube.
• Follow us on Twitter: @insideNDsports, @EHansenND and @TJamesND.
• Like us on Facebook: Inside ND Sports
• Follow us on Instagram: @insideNDsports
