SOUTH BEND, Ind. — An hour and 18 minutes passed from game’s end Thursday night until an apologetic Niele Ivey finally made her way to the interview room to try to explain why a team that looked every bit the nation’s best a week ago is clearly a team in crisis now.
An identity crisis, Ivey, the Notre Dame women’s basketball team fifth-year coach essentially said during a seven-minute postgame Q-and-A following a perplexing 86-81 Senior Night loss by her third-ranked Irish at Purcell Pavilion to a 24th-ranked Florida State team that had a convincing counterpunch Thursday night for every ND surge.
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Senior guard Sonia Citron, who accompanied Ivey to the press conference and still in uniform, laid out the potential road to redemption a little more bluntly.
“It's just a will that we’ve got to have,” said Citron, who led the Irish with 21 points and was the most consistent defensive force on a team that collectively and suddenly is leaking oil when it comes to that aspect of the game.
“I mean, we can talk all we want,” Citron continued, “but if we don't change, if we don't do it, then our season can end real fast. So, I really just think it's a will that every single player has to have.
“And again, we talk about it all the time, but it's about time that we do it. You can only talk so much.”
With their second straight loss, Notre Dame (24-4, 15-2 ACC) no longer can talk about having the inside track to the No. 1 seed in next week’s ACC Tournament in Greensboro, N.C. Ninth-ranked NC State (23-5, 15-2) does if the teams finish tied at the top of the league standings, based on the Wolfpack’s 104-95 double-overtime win over the Irish last Sunday.
Both teams finish their regular seasons this Sunday, Notre Dame at home against No. 25 Louisville (20-8, 13-4) in a noon ET start on ESPN, the Wolfpack playing on the road at ACC bottom feeder SMU (10-19, 2-15).
And a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament, which seemed like a lock since mid-December suddenly is a goal the Irish likely will have to claw back to secure and maybe even have to get some help from other teams.
“This team is such a talented group,” Ivey said. “We’ve just got to get back to our basics, our habits, and rely on our habits in order for us to get better. But the motivation is there, because the goal is still the goal for us.”
But suddenly a team that never gave up more than 71 points during a 19-game winning streak yielded 84 in regulation to NC State and followed that up by ceding 86 to the nation’s No. 2 scoring team, FSU (23-5, 13-4), which beat the Irish for only the second time in the 15-game series.
Florida State shook off a 4-for-20 shooting first quarter and a 15-point deficit early in the second quarter with a massive 27-5 run to take a 44-40 halftime lead. Notre Dame surged early in the third quarter and took a 53-52 lead on a Citron bucket, but the Seminoles answered with a 10 run.
And when the Irish crept to within one in the fourth quarter, trailing 67-66 on a free throw by Hannah Hidalgo with 6:53 left, Florida State concocted a 9-2 surge to put the game away.
“Just really frustrated with our performance defensively tonight,” Ivey said. “I didn't think that we were locked in for four quarters. I thought Florida State did a really great job of their guards getting downhill.
“I thought [Makayla] Timpson was really great from the inside presence, and we just, we didn't show our grit defensively. And that's an area, as their coach, I have to fix that. I got to get better. I got to fix that for this team.”
Timpson had a double-double by halftime and finished with 22 points and a game-high 17 rebounds. The nation’s No. 1 scorer at 26.2 per game, Ta’Niya Latson, heated up after a 1-for-9 shooting start and finished with a game-high 23. That after missing Florida State’s past three games with an ankle injury.
She also had a game-high nine assists.
Hidalgo, the nation’s second-leading scorer, continued a shooting slump that has now reached five games. And the fact that her first assist of Thursday’s game didn’t occur until 1:52 remained may be confirmation that she’s pressing too hard to find her shot, thus affecting her shot selection and the overall rhythm and fluidity of the Irish offense.
The reigning first-team All-American was 4-of-18 from the field against the Seminoles and 0-for-2 from the 3-point line, making her over the past five games cumulatively 28-of-88 from the field (.318) and 5-for-25 from 3 (.200).
“Just trying to get her to the next play,” Ivey said when asked how she, as a coach, can help Hidalgo return to form. “You know, watching film after games and in the game, trying to get her to the next play.
“She's a high-level scorer, so sometimes with those types of scorers, they kind of shoot their way back in the game. But they just weren't falling for her tonight.”
Hidalgo does continue to get to the free-throw line with regularity, and continues to convert there. Her 8-of-10 showing at the stripe Thursday night helped her finish with 16 points. Liatu King had her 12th double-double of the season (17 points, 11 rebounds), while guard Olivia Miles finished with a quiet 10 points.
Even quieter, grad senior Maddy Westbeld was limited to 13 minutes of court time by persistent foul trouble and was shut out after scoring Notre Dame’s first five points of the game.
Westbeld, Citron, King, Miles, former walk-on Sarah Cernugel and injured center Kylee Watson were all honored with their families in a short Senior Night ceremony before tipoff. Miles does have eligibility to return next season if she opts to do so. Watson could petition the NCAA for another year.
After the game, Ivey used the protracted buffer between actual coaching and explaining her coaching to the media to huddle with her coaching staff about solutions before holding a team meeting. A typical cooling-off period is 10 minutes, roughly 68 shorter than Thursday night's.
“It’s unfortunate the energy of tonight with the seniors, but definitely super grateful for our seniors and the legacy that they're leaving here,” Ivey said. “This is a defensive game that we have to get better at, and we're going to get back to work and get after it on Sunday.”
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