Notebook: Breaking down Notre Dame WBB's Sweet 16 matchup with Oregon State
There was so much big-picture intrigue regarding the Notre Dame women’s basketball team’s presence in the NCAA Tournament Sweet 16, Irish coach Niele Ivey almost made it through her entire Thursday press conference without being asked about 3 seed Oregon State.
Which just happens to be the team that 2 seed ND (28-6) must get through on Friday (2:30 p.m.; ESPN) at MVP Arena in Albany. N.Y., to reach the program’s 11th Elite Eight and first since 2019.
Top-ranked South Carolina (34-0) and 4 seed Indiana (26-5) meet in the 5 p.m. regional semi, with Friday’s winners reconvening Sunday in Albany to determine the regional’s representative to next week’s Final Four in Cleveland.
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“Well, first of all, just an incredible team,” Ivey said of the Beavers (26-7), a team ND has faced five times in its history and won them all. “They have a lot of balance, a lot of depth, a lot of height. They're averaging seven, almost eight threes a game. Great size.
“I think for us it's just managing their physicality, their size, but also their ability to shoot from the 3-point line. We're going to be very strategic tomorrow, trying to attack the things that they have defensively but also finding ways to contain their posts and rebounds.”
Oregon State is one of five Pac-12 teams still dancing and the one of those five with the most uncertain long-term future. USC and UCLA are headed to the Big Ten next season, Colorado to the Big 12 and Stanford joining the Irish in the ACC as the league dissolves as a casualty of seismic football-driven realignment.
The Beavers and Washington State have found a temporary haven for the next two seasons in the Gonzaga-led West Coast Conference, but don’t have a clear next step beyond the 2026 season.
“To me it's still surreal, being a West Coaster my whole life,” Oregon State coach Scott Rueck said. “And to think that there's no longer a Pac-anything. I think when I was born it was the [Pac-]8. I lived as a student in the 10, and then as a coach I think my first year in the Pac-10 and then 12. It's just always been a thing.
“For us to finish in our sport the way that we have is perfect. National respect was what we always fought for. … I'm really proud of everyone, and of course sad, but that's life. Life changes. I'm very grateful for the opportunity to be a part of it and excited to support everyone as we go forward.”
Oregon State’s path forward to its third-ever Elite Eight starts with 6-foot-4 sophomore All-American Raegan Beers, the nation’s most accurate shooter from the field (.663) and who averages a double-double (17.5 points, 10.2 rebound) on a relatively young team with plenty of pedigreed high school All-Americans and bucks the wave of being transfer portal-reliant.
It’s the sixth Sweet 16 for the Beavers, who missed the NCAA Tournament entirely each of the past two years. The two times Oregon State has reached the Elite Eight was 2016, when the Beavers crashed the Final Four, and in 2018, the year ND won its second national title. The Irish beat Oregon State in Corvallis, Ore., that season (72-67).
The Beavers’ best suit is their defense, ranking eighth nationally in field-goal percentage defense, just ahead of a team the Irish beat on the road, in UConn (10th), and NC State (11th). They’re, notably, 21st nationally in field-goal percentage, 28th in 3-point shooting, 19th in assists per game and 24th in rebound margin — all sticky challenges for Notre Dame if the Irish can’t avoid foul trouble.
Oregon State’s weakness? Turnover margin. The Beavers are 329th out of 349 Division I teams, which heightens Irish freshman All-American and nation’s steals leader Hannah Hidalgo’s already-vital role in the matchup.
“Such a dynamic player,” Rueck said. “She impacts the game in so many ways. Her pace and her speed is special. Her skill set is special. Her ability to score is special, and her ability to disrupt defensively is special.
“She's gotten the keys to the team. She plays with that confidence and that swagger that she has, the green light. So give Niele a ton of credit for building her up like that. We've seen players like [Jaylyn] Sherrod from Colorado. I say they're somewhat similar in their overall impact and their ability to just go make plays even outside of the system maybe at the time.”
Notre Dame is 21st nationally in turnover margin, and its calling card during its 10-game win streak has been defense. They held those 10 teams, eight of which made the NCAA Tourney Field, to 57.5 points per game.
Coming of age
Iowa and star guard Caitlin Clark, who are also playing in Albany but in the second Saturday/Monday regional, have been drawing huge viewing audiences throughout their tournament run to date.
But so has everybody else, apparently.
According to ESPN research, viewing audiences are up 74 percent over last year across the bracket.
“Everybody is talking about our sport,” Rueck said. “Everybody. People say, ‘I love watching women's basketball more than men's.’ How many times have I heard that over my career? A lot. And it's usually from men who are shocked at how much they enjoy it. That has been a secret passion of mine that's not a secret any longer that I just love.”
But why this much and why the surge now?
“I think definitely social media has been great,” offered Ole Miss coach Yolett McPhee-McCuin, whose seventh-seeded Rebels fell to Notre Dame, 71-56, on Monday in an NCAA Tourney second-round matchup. “I feel like the media has done a great job in accepting the fact that women's basketball has star power. NIL is big, too.
“All of these companies that are utilizing these student-athletes for their name, image and likeness has truly upped the brand. Back in the day when you think about star power, I was a part of the original Big East.
“I was at Pitt when we were all in there — Notre Dame, St. John's, West Virginia. Remember that? Back then, it was Skylar [Diggins] and then there was UConn. Those were the stars, and then everybody else.
“But now in every region you have a star — East, West, North, South, Midwest, you have stars, and that's what makes it cool, and they're not afraid to not promote themselves and their brand.
That's women. Look, I've been married 16 years. We're a little smarter than men, right? We know how to utilize our brand. They've just done a great job of it. People have caught on.”
Worth the price of admission
Speaking of star power, Notre Dame junior guard Sonia Citron and senior forward Maddy Westbeld didn’t hesitate when asked who of all the current college basketball players they’d pay to go watch.
Teammate Hannah Hidalgo.
“Every time I go on Instagram, she broke another record,” Westbeld said, “and it's something that you don't see every day.
“She's special. She's different. If I wasn't her teammate — I'm blessed that I am — but if I wasn't, I would pay to go watch her play.”
As far as the same question but with players from the past, both Citron and Westbeld still were thinking Notre Dame.
“For me, Skylar Diggins was everything to me as a kid,” Westbeld said. “She was the best basketball player in the world to me. I was always watching her on TV growing up.”
“I have a couple people in my mind,” said Citron, back in her home state of New York, playing roughly 2 ½ hours away from her hometown of Eastchester. “But I would have loved to see Coach Ivey play, just because I haven't really seen her play. I would have loved to see what kind of point guard she was.”
NCAA TOURNAMENT WBB SWEET 16
ALBANY, N.Y. REGIONAL 1 (MVP Arena)
Friday, March 29 semifinals
(3) Oregon State (26-7) vs. (2) Notre Dame (28-6), 2:30 p.m. (ESPN)
(4) Indiana (26-5) vs. (1) South Carolina (34-0), 5 p.m. (ESPN)
Sunday, March 31 championship
Semifinal winners
PORTLAND, ORE. REGIONAL 4 (Moda Center)
Friday, March 29 semifinals
(3) NC State (29-6) vs. (2) Stanford (30-5), 7:30 p.m. (ESPN)
(4) Gonzaga (32-3) vs. (1) Texas (32-4), 10 p.m. (ESPN)
Sunday, March 31 championship
Semifinal winners
ALBANY, N.Y. REGIONAL 2 (MVP Arena)
Saturday, March 30 semifinals
(3) Louisiana State (30-5) vs. (2) UCLA (27-6), 1 p.m. (ABC)
(5) Colorado (24-9) vs. (1) Iowa (31-4), 3:30 p.m. (ABC)
Monday, April 1 championship
Semifinal winners
PORTLAND, ORE. REGIONAL 3 (Moda Center)
Saturday, March 30 semifinals
(5) Baylor (26-7) vs. (1) USC (28-5), 5:30 p.m. (ESPN)
(7) Duke (22-11) vs. (3) Connecticut (31-5), 8 p.m. (ESPN)
Monday, April 1 championship
Semifinal winners
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