In its first game without starting guard Dara Mabrey, Notre Dame throttled Florida State last Thursday.
Things didn’t go as well in its first game without 6-foot-4 center Lauren Ebo.
Unable to overcome the loss of her presence in the lane on both ends of the floor, the No. 7-ranked Irish dropped a 69-65 decision to No. 20 North Carolina State Sunday in sold-out (5,500) Reynolds Coliseum in Raleigh, N.C.
Notre Dame head coach Niele Ivey provided few details on Ebo’s “lower body” injury.
Ebo was coming off her first start of the season, replacing Mabrey, and delivered a double-double in the 70-47 win over No. 24 Florida State. She is averaging 9.9 points and seven rebounds over 23 minutes a game.
Ivey said the injury occurred, or came to light, Saturday but did not happen at practice and was termed by Ivey as “a lingering issue.”
“There's no timetable right now (for her return),” Ivey said, offering no other information.
The loss ended a five-game winning streak for Notre Dame (17-3, 8-2 Atlantic Coast Conference), as well as a chance to take over sole possession of first place in the league following co-leader Duke’s loss to Florida State Sunday. NC State is 16-5 and 6-4.
Over 50 minutes of playing time has been lost between Mabrey and Ebo in a short timespan, creating a challenge for Ivey to readjust her playing-time combinations on the fly.
“I'm learning as I go with what I have,” she said. “My top six, especially with my core starters, they know my expectations of them. I know what to do with them. It's just adding different pieces … what I'm trying to do is simplify things with such different adjustments with injuries.”
In what Ivey called a tournament-game atmosphere, Notre Dame had delivered a stunning rally just to have a chance down the stretch against the Wolfpack. The Irish trailed by 16 — their biggest deficit of the year — with three minutes to go in the third quarter.
The Irish got back in it with full-court pressure that rattled NC State enough to commit five of its 13 turnovers over a nine-minute stretch.
Notre Dame’s early enrollee, Cass Prosper (11 points), took a big chunk out of the deficit with back-to-back 3-pointers at the 4:53 and 4:36 marks, the latter getting the Irish to within 62-59.
With 2:30 to go, Sonia Citron’s drive to the basket for a layup made it a two-point game (65-63).
The rally stopped there because of NC State’s well-schooled defense and Diamond Johnson, the 5-foot-5 junior who delivered the clutch shot of the day for the Wolfpack. It was a 15-footer at the 2:22 mark for a four-point lead, and then two free throws a minute later for a 69-63 lead.
The Irish got a couple back on a drive and basket by guard Olivia Miles, but the offense lost its way after that.
“NC State’s defense was really tough,” Ivey said. “We were just trying to find different gaps with the things that we were running. We had a couple specific plays that we were looking at, but I feel like they defended them well.”
After Johnson missed a 3-pointer with 30 seconds left, the Irish looked out of sorts and didn’t get a shot off until Prosper’s 3-point attempt was tipped out of bounds with 2.3 seconds to go, giving the Irish a last possession. The inbounds pass went to Sonia Citron whose 3-pointer was well-defended and bounced off.
Notre Dame, 266th in the country in 3-pointers made coming in at 4.8 a game, struggled from the perimeter as the Wolfpack basically dared the Irish to shoot.
They hit just two of their first 10 and wound up 6-for-23 (26%), with Olivia Miles and KK Bransford each 0-for-2 and Citron 1-for-6.
NC State made its big move in the third quarter, breaking from a 34-29 halftime edge by hitting the Irish with an 8-0 run over a 3-minute stretch early in the quarter. Three of ND’s 14 turnovers came in a four-possession span. The Wolfpack was 6-for-10 on 3s in the quarter.
Averaging 13 points a game coming in, Johnson finished with 20, getting more than half on 4-for-9 shooting from the arc. Mimi Collins, a 6-3 grad student averaging just 7.6 points coming in, had 13 on 6-for-8 shooting.
“From the beginning to the end, I felt like Diamond Johnson just really took over,” Ivey said. “She was fantastic.”
It was a subpar defensive performance overall. The Irish defend at a 34.5% rate, but the Wolfpack finished at 45%, including 7-for-17 on 3. They also had a 14-9 edge in fastbreak points.
“I felt we didn't execute,” Ivey said. “We either took quick shots, which led to transition buckets for them and which got the crowd into it, or we turned the ball over and really ignited their break. And I felt like that's what kind of separated them from us.”
NC State’s defense of Irish leading scorer Miles (15.1 points a game) was a factor as was the interior restraints on 6-3 junior Maddy Westbeld, who took on a lot of the offensive burden with Ebo sidelined.
She finished with a team-high 19 points, but it wasn’t easy. She was 8-for-21 from the field, including 3-for-9 on 3s. She also led the club with 13 rebounds as Notre Dame had a 44-33 edge. Starter Kylee Watson, a 6-4 forward, managed just two shots and two points in 32 minutes, and Bransford was kept away from the lane and managed just four points, half her average.
The Irish are off until visiting Boston College on Thursday (7 p.m., EST).
NC STATE 69, NOTRE DAME 65: Box Score
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