Time for soul-searching after No. 6 NC State smothers No. 16 Notre Dame WBB
SOUTH BEND. Ind. — Amidst a shockingly seismic step back Thursday night in a defining stretch of the season, the Purcell Pavilion crowd was implored to use their complimentary glow sticks to help No. 16 Notre Dame concoct an escape hatch from its ongoing humiliation.
It turned out to be every bit as ineffective as anything else Irish coach Niele Ivey tried herself as visiting and sixth-ranked NC State smothered the nation’s No. 8 team in scoring offense, 59-43, in what should have been an ACC women’s basketball showdown.
But turned out to be a big-picture head-scratcher.
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For the third game in a row, the Irish (18-6, 8-5) fell into a double-digit deficit in the first quarter. This time they missed nine of their first 10 shots from the field and had piled up seven turnovers before closing the gap late in the opening period to 16-4 with their second basket.
Then they started the second half by shooting 1-for-12, and finished the game with season lows in points (43), assists (5) and field goal percentage (.269) against admittedly an elite defensive team. The Wolfpack (22-3, 10-3) came in seventh nationally in field goal-percentage defense (.349).
The Irish, though, were coming off a 98-point game on the road, admittedly in double overtime.
“It’s what I’m trying to figure out.” Ivey said of the rerun script of a flat first quarter. “Ponder, continue watching film, to figure it out.
“I think our coaches, we’re always scout-driven. We always know exactly what we need to do as far as opponents. I feel like we prepare our team. It’s just having to come out and have that energy defensively. I didn’t think we had that.”
Defense, Ivey reasoned, needs to be the constant, the identity that has to carry a team when its offense takes a vacation. But the Irish were so out of sorts on Thursday night, trying to sneak former All-American Jackie Young — in attendance for the game and technically with one year of college eligibility she never used — into the game might not have remedied completely the abyss they fell into.
And now they’re soul-searching. Or at least they should be with another of the nation’s top teams at producing ugly shooting percentages for its opponents, Duke (16-8, 8-5) up next Monday night in Durham, N.C.
What comes out of that shouldn’t be only about trying to find another level for this year’s team without its missing pieces, but making notes about how the roster and rotations need to be constructed next year when those pieces — including convalescing All-American Olivia Miles — are back and elite 6-foot-5 high school center Kate Koval is added.
Just two players — senior Maddy Westbled and Sonia Citron scored at all for the Irish in the first half. Combined to shoot 8-of-18. The rest of the team was a combined 0-for-12. A third Irish player didn’t score until almost three minutes were gone in the second half.
The nation’s leader in steals, freshman Hannah Hidalgo, picked NC State 6-5 center River Baldwin’s pocket and raced ahead for an uncontested layup.
“I mean, it might have been the first game I've ever seen where there were only two people that scored at half,” Ivey said. “I think we're at our best when we have a lot of balance. And for some reason we did not have that tonight. So, we’ve got to get back to that. So, I'm going to try to help us get back to that.”
Balance. Flow. Rhythm. All Absent.
The Irish did outrebound one of the better rebounding teams in the nation, 47-40. It marked the 15th time this season Notre Dame had an edge on its opponent in that category and the first time they ended up losing a game.
Another first, Hidalgo actually looking like a freshman. Or at least a mortal one.
The nation’s third-leading scorer (25.1) missed her first nine shots from the field and finished 4-of-19 for a career-low 10 points, ending her school-record streak of 20 points or more at 10 games.
She did snag nine rebounds and her only two turnovers in 29 minutes on the court were offensive fouls. She fouled out for the first time in her college career, picking up No. 5 playing on defense out of frustration with 3:23 left in the game.
“Having a freshman night tonight, it's a lot of talking,” Ivey said of the remedy. “It's a lot of transparency. It's a lot of film. It's a lot of real conversations.
“You’ve got to be able to get to the next play. There's always a ‘next play’ mentality for everybody on our team, and definitely with her. And she'll learn from this. It's just hard going through It.”
And hard that a team that is so obviously mentally tough continues to have intermittent mental lapses in some of its biggest games. And not be able to fix chronic problems.
NC State may have rubbed Notre Dame’s nose in it Thursday night, but the story of their season shows how much a team can grow from one season to the next without a major personnel overhaul.
The Wolfpack were a .500 team in league play last season and fell to Notre Dame, 66-60, in the ACC Tournament quarterfinals before becoming a team that will challenge for a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament this season if it can build on Thursday night’s win.
Already NC State has beaten No. 15 UConn and No. 8 Colorado by double digits. And if it can avoid Virginia Tech — which swept the Wolfpack — on the road ahead, who knows the damage they can do in March?
And maybe the Irish can regather themselves and do the same by making this loss a rallying point. And maybe not.
The opportunity for them to find out, for this season and beyond, is now.
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