While Niele Ivey and her staff are in overdrive trying to remodel the team’s offense under a tight deadline, her defense is buying her some time.
Top-seeded and 10th-ranked Notre Dame (25-4) needed it Friday afternoon to overcome 19 turnovers in a 66-60 victory over No. 8 seed North Carolina State (20-11) in ND’s first game of the Atlantic Coast Conference Tournament in Greensboro, N.C.
The Irish had earned a double-bye into the quarterfinals.
One of the country’s top point guards, Olivia Miles, remains on the sidelines with a knee injury and won’t be suited up for Saturday’s noon (ET) semifinal game against fourth-seeded Louisville (22-10) or Sunday’s championship game if the Irish get there.
Much of the burden falls on two-guard Sonia Citron, the team’s leading scorer at 14.5 points a game coming into Friday but not the distributor that Miles is with 192 assists in 28 games.
There are a lot of moving parts in the rebuild.
“I've tried to really adjust the offense with Sony to run the point, because she's also a scorer,” Ivey, the newly anointed ACC coach of the Year said. “So, just trying to find ways with her being at the point to also get her shots”
Fortunately, Ivey has a lot to work with, because the 6-foot-1 sophomore has a lot of game.
She scored in a variety of ways against the Wolfpack, the three-time defending ACC Tournament champs coming off a rout of Syracuse in Thursday’s second-round game. They couldn’t stop Citron, who finished with a season-high 28 points, 11 of those coming on 15 free throw attempts. She added nine rebounds, five assists and a couple steals in 38 minutes.
“She’s a great player,” North Carolina State coach Wes Moore said, “a great scorer. It’s hard to beat her to her spots … and she’s got the length to get her shot off over people.”
She carried the Irish in the first half with 11 points and it wasn’t until late in the second quarter that the Irish did enough offensively to forge a 25-22 lead. That was thanks to the mix of an intense man-to-man and zone defenses that limited NC State to four points in the quarter.
Yep, 10 minutes, four points.
“We've had a lot of challenges, a lot of adversity, but one thing I know about my team is that we are tough,” Ivey said. “I think that was on full display today.”
It didn’t hurt that the Wolfpack were missing one of its stars, too.
Diamond Johnson, a second team All-ACC guard averaging a team-high 12.3 points along with 4.2 rebounds, took this week off, hoping a bad ankle heals enough for her to play in the NCAA Tournament.
Johnson hit the Irish with 20 points, including some late clutch shots, in the Wolfpack’s 69-65 win over the Irish on Jan. 29 in Raleigh, N.C.
In Friday’s meeting, the halftime adjustments Ivey made created some separation.
Lauren Ebo, ND’s 6-4 grad student center who was out with an injury in the Jan. 29 loss to the Wolfpack, went scoreless in the first half, but finished with eight. She had a bucket on a layup 18 seconds into the second half. She had another 46 seconds later as the Irish made their intentions clear.
A minute later it was 6-4 junior Kylee Watson, also scoreless in the first half, hitting a short jumper on an assist by Maddy Westbeld to give the Irish a 33-24 lead less than three minutes into the second half. The Irish bench shrunk a little more when 6-5 junior Nat Marshall, averaging 10 minutes a game, took an inadvertent elbow to the eye from teammate Cass Prosper and didn’t return. Ivey didn’t think it was serious, but wasn’t sure of her status heading into Saturday’s game.
“I’m asking people to be in a lot of different places than they were earlier this season,” Ivey said of reworking the offense. “So I'm really proud of the way that they're adjusting, because we’re all adjusting on the fly. And that's just credit to them being locked in.”
Thanks to that shutdown defense, the Irish stayed in control when the offense hit some clunky spurts. The rash of turnovers in the second half did subside somewhat after the Irish committed a dozen in the first half.
For the game, the Wolfpack shot 36.7% from the field, including just 2-for-15 (13.3%) from the 3-point line, and had 13 turnovers, their average. The Irish were at 44% from both the field and 3-point line.
It was 55-41 with 6:54 to play, but NC State wasn’t done and chipped away at the deficit.
By the four-minute mark they had cut it to six, but the Irish made enough free throws — 15-for-20 in the quarter and 18-for-24 for the game — to at least stay on top if not completely in control. Citron had 12 points over the final 10 minutes.
After a slow start, Westbeld finished with 15 points, four above her average, but that was it for the Irish in double digits.
Citron, coming off a 27-point performance against Louisville, remains the offensive story.
“I know Sony is capable of doing whatever I ask,” Ivey said. “That's what I do know. Now, I didn't think it was gonna have to be her (playing) the point. …
“She's the most unselfish player I think I've ever been around. She’s just so coachable. She loves this team. And she's playing for this team. So she's like, ‘Whatever you need from me coach, I'm gonna do it.’ So when you have somebody unselfish like that, things like this happen, but it’s just a credit to her as a person and player.”
Louisville and the Irish will be meeting for the third time since Feb. 16.
The Irish won that game by a bucket in overtime in South Bend, and by three last Sunday in Louisville.
Friday, Louisville crushed Wake Forest, which was playing its third game of the tournament, 74-48, to reach Saturday’s semifinal.
ACC WOMEN'S BASKETBALL TOURNAMENT
SCORES/SCHEDULE
AT GREENSBORO, N.C.
(All Times EST)
FIRST ROUND
Wednesday
(12) Wake Forest 68, (13) Virginia 57
(10) Clemson 71, (15) Pitt 53
(11) Boston College 62, (14) Georgia Tech 57
SECOND ROUND
Thursday
(12) Wake Forest 65, (5) Florida State 54
(8) NC State 83, (9) Syracuse 58
(7) North Carolina 78, (10) Clemson 68
(6) Miami 84, (11) Boston College 69
QUARTERFINALS
Friday
(4) Louisville 74, (12) Wake Forest 48
(1) Notre Dame 66, (8) NC State 60
(2) Duke (24-5) 44, (7) North Carolina 40
(3) Virginia Tech 68, (6) Miami 42
SEMIFINALS
Saturday
(4) Louisville (22-10) vs. (1) Notre Dame (25-4), Noon, ACC Network
(2) Duke (25-5) vs. (3) Virginia Tech (25-4), 2:30 p.m., ACC Network
CHAMPIONSHIP
Sunday
Semifinal winners, 1 p.m., ESPN
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