The uncanny stat that will live in mothballs for another year is how almost invincible Notre Dame women’s basketball teams have been over their history when they reach the Eight Eight of the NCAA Tournament.
Nine times advancing to the Final Four in 10 appearances.
But for the fourth year in a row, the Irish stalled in the Sweet 16. And the whys surrounding that and their 71-62 loss to 2 seed TCU, Saturday at Legacy Arena in Birmingham, Ala., are more painful and perplexing than the last three.
“I think we just had so much talent,” departing senior Sonia Citron offered. “Sometimes too much talent, you know, we didn't even know what to do with.”
TCU (34-3) knew.
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Get the ball in the hands of transfer portal stars Hailey Van Lith and Sedona Prince on offense, and stifle the third-seeded Irish (28-6) defensively to offset huge disadvantages in points off turnovers (21-4), second-chance points (11-2) and even bench points (4-0).
Van Lith led all scorers with 26 points as the former Louisville/LSU star bumped her personal record against the Irish to 7-2 in coaxing first-time Sweet 16 participant TCU into Monday night’s Elite Eight matchup against No. 1 seed Texas (34-3), a 67-59 survivor of 5 seed Tennessee in Saturday's second game at Legacy Arena.
The grad senior guard, the first women’s basketball player in NCAA history to lead three different teams this deep into the NCAA Tourney, also had nine rebounds and four assists and was a defensive force.
“One of the narratives with Hailey coming into the year at the highest level is can she defend?” a giddy third-year TCU coach Mark Campbell said. “I mean, gosh dang, she is an elite defender.
“I don't know where that came from, but with us she laces them up and she wants to guard the other team's best player and she does it. It's not like you're trying to hide Hailey.”
Meanwhile, the 6-foot-7 former Oregon/Texas center Prince — who had 20 points, 20 rebounds and eight blocks in a 76-68 upending of the Irish on Nov. 29 — encored with 21 points, six rebounds, four assists and six blocked shots.
Collectively the team that came into the game with the best defensive effort this season (.347) against the nation’s No. 3 field-goal percentage team and No. 1 from the 3-point arc, upped their defensive game on the big stage from their standout performance in the Cayman Islands the day after Thanksgiving.
The Irish shot 31.9% from the field, with leader scorer Hannah Hidalgo laboring to the tune of 3-of-19 from the field and 0-of-3 from the 3-point line. As a team, ND’s 20% showing from the arc (3-of-150 was its second-worst of the season.
“No offense to them,” said Irish senior guard Olivia Miles, playing on a sore left ankle she injured back in the first round, “but it was really nothing they did to alter us. Obviously, Sedona is in there, she was blocking shots. That's one factor. But we literally were just missing shots that we normally make, and that's going to happen at times.
“In those moments we have to rely on our defense, and we tried to do that. I thought my team played extremely hard and fought to the end, so I'm very proud of them for that. But it's just shots that we should make that are on us at the end of the day.”
And yet perhaps Notre Dame evolved into a team over reliant on its transition game for to generate offense and not proficient enough to adapt to a half-court game when the occasion called for it.
Like Saturday, and notably in its 61-56 upset loss to Duke in the semifinals of the ACC Tournament back on March 8.
TCU used a similar blueprint after the Irish climbed out of a seven-point, first-quarter deficit to lead by nine points midway through the third quarter. That's when TCU made its move.
“We know the make-up of our team and the DNA and the natural tendencies of how we play,” said Van Lith, one of 12 transfers on the Horned Frogs roster. “I just knew that if we continued to make them take tough shots over us, it was going to be in our favor. And sometimes you have to be assertive and loud to really get your teammates to bring their intensity up.”
And loud and proud she was to the final buzzer, with TCU shooting 60% from the field in the fourth quarter and canning all six of its free throws.
It wasn’t as though the Irish lost their fight, but they lacked poise and proficiency with few exceptions. Grad senior forward Liatu King was on of those, completing a brilliant one year run with the Irish after playing four years for ACC bottom-feeder Pitt.
She was 8-of-9 from the field for a team-high 17 points and added a team-high 10 rebounds. Hidalgo got to the free-throw line enough to hit for 15 points, while Miles added 10.
“She was a little sore today,” Ivey said of Miles. “Every day it feels differently for her. Last game against Michigan (a second-round Irish win last Sunday) she went off a lot of adrenaline, and today she was a bit little sore, so just kind of watching.
"It's more of a feel. We were in great communication, kind of knew before the game that she was a little bit sore. And she fought through — she is resilient.”
But will she be back in 2025-26?
Miles, who gets her master's degree in May, said publicly she hasn’t made up her mind about using her final season of college eligibility. But so much of what she says when not directly asked about her plans during the tourney run sounds like she’ll join Citron, Maddy Westbeld, Liza Karlen, King and former walk-on Sarah Cernugel with having played her last game in an Irish uniform.
“When I think about legacy, I think more about the impact that I leave on people,” said the second-team All-American, who missed ND’s last two NCAA Tourney runs coming back from a late-February 2023 ACL tear against Louisville and, ironically, Van Lith.
“Winning is great. Obviously, everyone wants to do it. But as coach Ivey said, as long as you leave the place better than you found it, you left a really good impact. And these two sitting by my side [Citron and Westbeld] and coach Ivey not only had a big impact on my life, and I hoped that I had a big impact on their life.
“At the end of the day my goal coming to Notre Dame was to leave Notre Dame better than I found it and I think I did a pretty good job of that. I hope so. Like Maddy said, I love all my teammates in that locker room. We've stayed together.”
And now Hidalgo, a two-time, first-team All American, will forge ahead with a new cast that figures to include center Kate Koval, guard Cass Prosper redshirts KK Bransford and Kylee Watson — and a whole lot of transfer portal talent if all goes according to plan.
The lone high school signee in the class, 6-3 forward and McDonald’s All-American Leah Macy, suffered a knee injury late in her high school senior season, and her availability for next season has yet to be determined.
“They will always have a special place in my heart,” Ivey said of the departees, “because they believed in me when I took over this program and being a first-time head coach. We'll always that special bond because of that. It just speaks to their loyalty, the vision that they were looking for.”
A vision that needs some refraction moving forward if Notre Dame is going to make its next run into the final 16 of the NCAA truly sweet and a stepping stone to something bigger, and not a destination.
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