SOUTH BEND, Ind. – She’s only a sophomore, and rival Connecticut has to be sick of seeing her already – mostly because she’s everywhere.
After leading Notre Dame’s women’s basketball team to a win at UConn last year, 5-foot-6 inch sophomore guard Hannah Hidalgo did it again Thursday night, coming within a couple of assists of a triple-double to spark a 79-68 victory in a sold-out, rocking Purcell Pavilion.
UConn, ranked No. 2, lost its first game after eight wins, while the Irish, ranked No. 8, jumped to 8-2, and won their third game over a Top 5 team.
UConn leads the series 39-16, but ND has won three straight and five of the last eight.
This can mean more than just a benchmark of sorts. If all plays out as expected, it’s the kind of December win that can still mean something weighty in March when No. 1 seeds are announced.
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Hidalgo had lit up the Huskies for 34 points a year ago, and Thursday she scored 29, hitting 6-of-11 from the 3-point line. She added 10 rebounds, eight assists and three steals in 38 vibrant minutes.
“She plays with her heart,” Irish coach Niele Ivey said. “And in the first half, I thought her 3s (4-for-6) were major. It got the crowd in the game. It really gave us so much momentum. But not just her 3s, it's the level of the way that she scores, because it really just ignites us.”
Her 3 late in the first quarter gave the Irish a lead it wouldn’t relinquish. And when that lead teetered, with the Irish up just a point near the end of the third quarter, she drilled another to snatch momentum back from the Huskies.
“When you’re clawing your way back all the time, it takes something out of you,” acknowledged UConn coach Geno Auriemma.
Of Hidalgo, he said, “The biggest thing, other than her talent, which is obvious … more importantly is the way she attacks everything she does, and the way she leads her team in so many ways. … She’s a difficult matchup for anybody. I don’t think there’s a lot of strategies that you can use (effectively) against her.”
The Irish had a scare when senior point guard Olivia Miles rolled her left ankle with 6:16 remaining in the first quarter. She left to have it taped and was in and out of the lineup throughout the night, but played 13 minutes in each half and went 6-for-9 from the field for 16 points with four rebounds and three assists.
When Hidalgo and Miles weren’t scoring, grad transfer Liatu King was. Usually doing most of her damage this season in the paint, the 6-0 forward flashed a strong mid-range jumper throughout the night, going 8-for-14 from the field for 16 points and grabbing 12 of Notre Dame’s 38 rebounds (14 on the offensive end) to UConn’s 30.
“I knew she was going to be the X factor today,” Ivey said. “She was amazing. She had a double-double, her steals (three), her poise, her ability, her physicality, her athleticism — I thought she kind of just really led us in the first half, and it was just fantastic to see her on this stage.’’
King called her first experience with the intensity of the rivalry, “surreal.”
“Honestly, it's very special. I guess I wasn't really aware of how big the rivalry was until I'm seeing, you know, videos of it. I'm hearing Coach Ivey talk about it, and I'm like, ‘Yo, this is real.’
Among the special moments was the mid-game introduction of several former greats, including Arike Ogunbowale and Skylar Diggins-Smith.
King came in averaging 12.1 points and shooting at a 55% clip, but hadn’t been as big a scoring factor in recent games.
“I felt like I was a little hesitant in other games,” she said, “so just attacking to open up the floor. We talk about playing inside-out, and knowing that when I set screens, they're going to switch (defensive players). And just being able to attack (from there) and put pressure on their defense. That was the mindset that I had coming in.”
The game turned for good at the start of the fourth quarter.
King led the charge with a steal in UConn’s first possession of the period, and Sonia Citron did the same on UConn’s second trip down.
Then a steal by King with 7:45 to go led to her fastbreak layup on a slick pass from Hidalgo to push the lead to 62-52 with 7:38 to go.
The Huskies chiseled into it over the next four minutes, and a driving layup by All-American Paige Bueckers — who led the Huskies with 25 points — knocked it to six at 71-65 with 3:12 to go.
But the Irish answered with a layup by freshman center Kate Koval, who was limited to four points on 2-for-7 shooting, a jumper by Hidalgo and two free throws by Miles to push the lead to 12 with 90 seconds to go.
The final piece to locking it away came from King. She missed two free throws at 1:09, but raced down the lane after the second miss to grab the rebound, and the Irish were able to burn more clock.
Auriemma wasn’t happy with the foul shooting totals — ND was 11-for-14 and UConn 3-for-5 — but the personal fouls called were nearly the same. ND had 12 and the Huskies finished with 15 after intentionally fouling late — five over the final 1:37 — to get the Irish to the free-throw line.
The Huskies were without grad student Azzi Fudd, a 10-point scorer who was sidelined by a mild knee sprain, and Notre Dame is still without veteran Maddy Westbeld (left foot issue). But the Irish did see the return of 6-2 forward Liza Karlen.
The grad transfer from Marquette, who averaged just under 18 points and eight rebounds her senior year, made her first appearance for the Irish following a foot injury suffered in the Oct. 30 exhibition game against Davenport.
She played nine and a half minutes and was 2-for-5 from the field for four points, to go with a couple rebounds and a steal.
Each club finished with 13 turnovers — that’s three under ND’s average — and UConn had a 36-20 edge in points in the paint.
Each team shot 48% from the field, but ND’s sterling — and unlikely — 10-for-18 (55.6%) shooting performance from the arc was as significant as UConn’s poor 3-for-16 (19%) outing.
Considering the discrepancy in free throws and 3s, Auriemma called it “miraculous’’ that his team was in it until the end.
UConn had the country’s top 2024 recruit, Sarah Strong, with 14 points, Kaitlyn Chen with 11 and KK Arnold with 10.
Citron came in averaging 14.9 points a game, but had just seven, going 2-for-5 from the field. Most of her night was spent chasing Bueckers, who did go 11-for-20 from thje field for her points, but was 0-for-4 on 3s.
“We weren’t able to get enough of them [3-point attempts],” Auriemma said.
ND is now 6-12 all time at home against UConn.
“I'm in such gratitude for this moment,” Ivey said. “This game was sold out. We knew it was going to be sold out for a while, but just to see our student body show up tonight. We had the most student body [tickets sold] that we've ever had in the history of the program. I think over 700 tickets, 1,000 requests out.
“So that just shows the amount of love and support that we have in this community and for this university. So, I'm so grateful for the support and all the fans that always show up for us, but especially tonight, against such a great team like Connecticut.”
The Irish host Eastern Michigan Sunday at 2 p.m. (ACCNX), then will be idle until a Dec. 22 noon matchup against Loyola Maryland.
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