SOUTH BEND, Ind. — The more pertinent reveal regarding the 30th and latest NCAA Tourney journey for the Notre Dame women’s basketball program won’t actually take place until after it’s already started.
Specifically, whether the eighth-ranked Irish (26-5) were able to refocus, recharge and recalibrate during their long layoff since a semifinal thud in the ACC Tournament on March 8 and realign with the version of themselves that topped the nation’s polls for a week in February and still are in the top five nationally in some key offensive categories.
Despite looking like a team in dire need of an offensive makeover in its third loss in five games, scoring a season-low 56 points in a 61-56 loss to eventual ACC Tourney champ Duke eight days ago.
What the Selection Sunday reveal provided Notre Dame and its followers is the path the Irish will take in trying to reach Tampa the first weekend in April for the Final Four, a level of the NCAA Tournament the Irish haven’t reached since their 2019 NCAA runner-up finish.
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Sitting in Club Namoli atop Purcell Pavilion on Sunday night, the Irish and fifth-year coach Niele Ivey took in the ESPN bracket show together and found out they’ll play the 101st NCAA Tournament game in program history on Friday at Purcell Pavilion in South Bend with a first-round matchup against 14th-seeded Stephen F. Austin (29-5).
Tip time is 2 p.m. EDT, and ESPN has the telecast.
Notre Dame was designated as a No. 3 seed for a body of work that included wins over two No. 1 seeds (USC and Texas) during the regular season and a 19-game win streak before a 2-3 pre-NCAA Tourney dip.
The Irish enter this NCAA run 73-27 all-time, 25-4 in first round-games, 26-2 at home and 2-1 all-time as a No. 3 seed.
"We’re extremely hungry, especially how we died off at the end of the season," Irish leading scorer, sophomore Hannah Hidalgo, said Sunday from Club Namoil. "So, it gives us something else to fight for. And it’s a lot of the girls’ last time putting on a Notre Dame jersey, so it’s important the we stay locked in, knowing that each game can be our last game."
Should the Irish push past the heavy underdog Lumberjacks on Friday in the first-ever meeting between the two teams, Notre Dame will be back at Purcell on Sunday for a second-round matchup with the winner of Friday’s 11:30 a.m. matchup on ESPN2 between 6 seed Michigan (22-10) and an 11-seed — the First Four winner between Iowa State (22-11) and Princeton (21-7) to be played on Wednesday night at 7.
Sunday’s survivor heads to Birmingham for Sweet 16 and Elite 8 games played in the March 29 and 31, respectively. The Final Four, at Amalie Arena in Tampa, is April 4 and 6. Notre Dame’s run has reached and stalled in the Sweet 16 each of the past three tourneys.
The Irish enter this rendition of the NCAA Tournament ranked in the top 10 nationally in four notable statistical categories — No. 1 in 3-point-shooting (.395), No. 5 in scoring (84.7) and field-goal percentage (.487) and No. 10 in 3-point shooting defense (.266).
And the emphasis in the on-ramp to the NCAA Tourney opener, 13 days after ND's ACC Tourney defeat, has been defense, defense and more defense. And that's pragmatic, given that three of the other four teams in the South Bend pod are ranked between 22nd and 27th nationally in scoring offense, with SFA 24th at 77.9 points per game.
Should the Irish get to the Sweet 16, likely awaiting them in the semis would another high-scoring team, 2 seed TCU, which handed the Irish one of their five losses and is 25th in scoring (77.5).
But Ivey hinted that would be the approach anyway, no matter what the actual and potential opponents' numbers suggest.
"We have to be a better defensive-minded team," Ivey said. "We showed it all season long. We have come up short these past couple of weeks. So, that’s what we’ve been focusing on. That’s what I’ve personally been focused on, and the team knows. And they responded this past week."
That after a break to let the players go home following the ACC Tournament, something that Ivey's predecessor and mentor, Muffet McGraw, did routinely ahead of her teams' NCAA Tourney debuts.
"I gave them 3-4 days," Ivey said. "They needed to reset mentally, physically, get some rest. And then it was right back to work. Knowing the lessons we had to learn from the past couple weeks — dropping three out of five games — very defensive oriented.
"Just back to basics. I think sometimes the game can be more mentally challenging, so the goal was to give them rest, so we can mentally recharge, physically recharge and then get back to work. And that’s rebounding, defense and really locking on our principles.
And what of the offensive struggles all around in the Duke game and a downward trend in the last couple of weeks of the season in both shooting and 3-point accuracy?
"If you play defense, you get stops and you can run transition," Ivey said. "This team is a transition team. I like to push pace. I think everybody knows we have the best backcourt in the country.
"So, when you’re not getting the stops, you’re not getting out to run and having freedom within our pace and our space. I think that’s what forced so much pressure in the halfcourt. And unfortunately, we didn’t execute as we normally do."
Hidalgo, for one, has seen a different Irish team in practice since the Irish came back from their short spring break.
"I think we learned a lot about ourselves individually," she said of the collective late-season slump. "And as a team we’re still learning. We learned a lot about trusting each other and especially in practices.
"Practices are tough, and we’re just learning how to put our trust in each other and not worry about the outside noise and the crowd or whatever else is going on for around us."
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