At some point, you have to start wondering how much more Notre Dame can take.
How many more injuries can the No. 18 Irish absorb and still hang with some of the country’s top teams?
When it looked like the breaking point might have arrived on Wednesday evening, staring down a 16-point deficit three minutes into the second half, the Irish found their collective game and the required mojo.
With a stunning turnaround, fueled greatly by grit rather than skill, the Irish (6-1) rallied big to topple No. 20 Tennessee, 74-69, in an inaugural ACC/SEC Challenge game in front of 8,200 in Knoxville’s Thompson-Boling Arena.
They did it without another starter, Cass Prosper, who is sidelined for a few weeks with a lower-leg injury – while still also missing stars Olivia Miles and Sonia Citron.
They did it with star freshman Hannah Hidalgo struggling the entire way, managing 13 points on 5-for-17 shooting — well below her 25 points and 56.6% shooting, coming in.
They did it without a made 3-point shot among nine attempts in 40 minutes.
And they did it with mostly six players.
Five of those players finished in double figures, but no one came up bigger overall than 6-foot-5 senior Nat Marshall, a 7.8-ppg scorer coming in, who finished with 15 and a career-high nine rebounds, a crucial seven on the offensive end, to earn game MVP honors.
Marshall’s maturity, experience and “love” for physicality came into play in a loud environment.
“I think for us, it was a really big thing staying confident and not rushing our shots to get the shot that we wanted,” she said. “And I think we did that in the second half.”
It was the first ranked team Notre Dame has faced since the 29-point loss to now-No. 1 South Carolina in the first game of the season, and it survived with a defense that helped create 17 turnovers and by taking over the lane on offense, dominating 32-8 in the paint in the second half.
Head coach Niele Ivey saw a “glazed look” from her players at the start of the game, and it stuck around for awhile.
“I just talked about us playing our game,” Ivey said of a halftime chat she led. “We weren't playing the right way. We weren't playing fighters’ basketball. So we focused on getting more ball movement, getting some spacing within our offense, and playing defense. And I felt like they responded to that.”
Tennessee, which fell to 4-3 – its other two losses to 15th-ranked Florida State by 1 and to No. 17 Indiana by 14 – was missing 22-point scorer Rickea Jackson, a 6-2, fifth-year Mississippi State transfer who was out with an illness. But there was plenty of firepower left with four other players averaging in double figures.
The Volunteers built their lead with 57-percent shooting in the second quarter, then smacked ND with two of their eight 3-pointers in the first three-minutes of the second half, to forge a 45-29 edge.
But a fine spin move in the lane to get to the bucket netted Notre Dame’s Kylee Watson a field goal with 6:53 left in the third that ignited a stretch of excellent Irish play.
Methodically, they plugged along, getting extra possessions with turnovers and offensive rebounds, finding some space around the bucket and generally looking like a different team.
After going 10-for-36 from the field in the first half, the Irish went 21-for-36 in the second. After zero fastbreak points in the first half, they finished with 10.
Finally, a 14-footer from the side by Fordham transfer and grad student guard Anna DeWolfe (11 points) pushed the Irish ahead, 62-61, with a little over four minutes left in the game, setting off an entertaining finish that included three ties — the last at 68-68 with 1:44 to play.
A shot-clock violation on Tennessee’s next possession opened the door again for ND. With the clock winding down on ND’s own possession, KK Bransford (12 points) used a spin move to get free in the lane, her 12-footer good for a 70-68 Irish lead with 48 seconds left.
Thanks to great team defense — and a little luck — they never lost the lead. Leading 71-69 following 1-of-2 free throws by DeWolfe, Tennessee’s Sara Puckett, a 6-2 junior averaging 15 points and a couple 3-pointers a game, got free and was all alone on the wing behind the 3-point line. But her shot was off with 16 seconds to go and the long rebound went to ND.
Senior forward Maddy Westbeld then put it away with three free throws over the final 11 seconds. She came on strong in the second half after a two-point first half — she was part of ND’s woes when it made just six of 17 layups — to finish with 15 and 11 rebounds.
“I just talked about trust,” Ivey said of the rally. “That was the one thing — trust, confidence and voice. We understood being on the road in an SEC environment, you have to have a voice, especially down the stretch.”
The Irish will be off until hosting Lafayette on Dec. 6 at 7 p.m.
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