Seven minutes into Sunday afternoon’s basketball game in Chapel Hill, N.C., Notre Dame grad student Maddy Westbeld took the floor for the first time this season.
And the rest of the Atlantic Coast Conference groaned.
Nothing like adding a 6-foot-3 career double-figure scorer and 7-plus rebounder to the No. 3-ranked team in the country.
Westbeld’s stat line was uncharacteristically unremarkable in her season debut — zero shots, one rebound, a block, a steal and a couple turnovers in 13 minutes, her limit for the day — but her return from surgery to address a left foot injury was as significant a highlight for the Irish in a 76-66 victory over 17th-ranked North Carolina as any shot that fell.
What team with Final Four aspirations doesn’t celebrate adding starter-quality depth in January?
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“It was great to see her healthy on the floor,” head coach Niele Ivey said. “She was supposed to stay between 10 and 13 minutes, so I was just trying to get her comfortable.
“She's done a phenomenal job of getting herself ready, so kudos to coach [Carlos] Knox and our performance team on getting her ready and strong. Every game, she's going to get more comfortable and she'll be able to have more minutes. … I thought she was fantastic today.”
So did Olivia Miles, the senior guard who had a career-high five 3-pointers Sunday in just eight attempts to lead an Irish assault from the perimeter that delivered 13 3s in 21 attempts.
“Maddy brings a leadership that is unexplainable,” Miles said. “Just her presence on the floor really calmed us down, knowing I could go to her, rely on her, even though she's working to get back (into form).
“It was tough for her to get comfortable, but she's always there to lead us. And you know that pays dividends when we want to go to the national championship. So, she's just very important for our team, and I’m very excited to have her back.”
The victory in front of nearly 5,000 in Carmichael Arena ended ND’s two-game series losing streak to the Tar Heels and pushed the current Irish (12-2, 3-0 ACC) win streak to seven. It also marked the fourth double-digit win over a ranked team this season.
North Carolina dropped to 13-3 and 1-2 in the ACC, with their other losses to No. 7 Connecticut, by nine, and to unbeaten and 13th-ranked Georgia Tech, by six.
The Tar Heels bring a physicality to their defense that will produce a lot of league wins and prodded the Irish into 21 turnovers, seven over their average — that led to 25 Carolina points.
“I think they were very physical with every catch,” Ivey said. “We felt it. They were very disruptive. And they did a great job of getting back in transition (ND had just four fastbreak points to UNC’s 11).
“So that was something that we worked on all week. But sometimes you can't work on those things. You’ve got to be in it to understand the physicality.’’
To date, North Carolina has relied big on its defense, allowing 52.7 points a game, just 23.8% shooting while defending the 3-point line (ninth in the nation), and 34.4% field-goal defense overall (12th).
And the Irish eviscerated those numbers.
Sophomore Hannah Hidalgo — second in the nation in scoring, at 25 points a game — finished with 24,15 coming on 5-for-9 3-point shooting. The team’s 61.9% shooting from the arc for the day will only help the Irish maintain their stature as the nation’s most efficient 3-point shooting team, which was at 42.9% to start the day. The Irish shot 48.3% from the field overall.
Much of it has to do with Miles, who had 19 points, seven rebounds and five assists Sunday and started the day third in the country at 7.2 assists per game.
Miles entered the season with a 3-point career percentage of 24.6 and is now shooting 47.8 from the arc this season.
Most assumed it came from tossing up shots while her surgically repaired knee healed all last season.
That was just a small part of it.
“I didn't work on anything really, and truthfully, it’s just my confidence,” she said Sunday. “I felt like before I got hurt, I was just thinking too much when I shot the ball. I was just in my head.
“It's hard to explain, but being injured, you look at things so differently. Not everything matters. If you miss a 3, it doesn't matter. You know, I used to hang on to those misses so much, and it would make me miss more. So, now I have the mindset to just let it fly…”
Twice Sunday in the second half, as Carolina chiseled into a 14-point halftime deficit, Miles’ 3s returned the Irish to a double-digit lead.
Liza Karlen came up clutch too.
Carolina went on a 7-0 run to start the second half, and Karlen sank a 15-footer and a 3-pointer on consecutive Irish trips to slow the Heels’ roll as they pulled to within five, 44-39, at the 6:31 mark of the third quarter.
Karlen’s 3-pointer 25 seconds later restored order for ND, and the lead never dipped below eight.
Averaging six points a game, she finished with nine, as did Cass Prosper who came off the bench to hit all of her shots, 3-3 from the field, including 1-for-1 on 3s, and 2-for-2 on free throws. She had seven points in the third quarter.
Forward Liatu King (eight points), tied for 13th in the country with seven double-doubles, had a mixed bag with 15 rebounds, but also five turnovers.
She came in averaging 11 rebounds a game, and has had double-figure rebounding production in all but one game —– Nov. 13 against James Madison because of an early exit due to a concussion.
Game time for Thursday’s home game against Wake Forest, originally scheduled for 7 p.m. EST, has been moved to 5 p.m. because of Notre Dame’s Orange Bowl football game against Penn State, which kicks off at 7:30 p.m.
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