Irish Alert #4714 - I See Skies of Blue and Clouds of White (Reviewing the UConn Game)
After an embarrassing 15-point home loss to Syracuse, the Irish responded and then some in a big win over a bitter rival
Happy Tuesday! This has not been the typical day for this publication but from now through the end of the season it will be. A few reasons for this: it’s much more natural to think of the week as starting on Tuesday because the AP Poll comes out on Monday; come Tournament time it will be more natural to send emails between weekends rather than in the midst of one; the ACC cadence is Thursday-Sunday and Friday felt like it interrupted that; the UConn game was a good schedule reset and there’s plenty to talk about! So, Tuesdays. Let’s do it.
1) The Irish offense had a lot to overcome on Saturday. A nationally televised chapter of a storied rivalry, in front of a sellout, white-out crowd that included four national championship rosters chock-full of legends of the sport is sure to add at least some pressure, no? Add a 33% shooting night just two days prior and a 12-point deficit early in the second quarter and it looked like the Irish might again find themselves with the short end of the stick in Storrs. Enter Hannah Hidalgo, who’s no stranger to pressure. She likened the atmosphere to Team USA playing against Spain in Spain. In that game, she came off the bench (inconceivable) to score 9 points and add 7 assists and 3 steals, including a key one to put the game away for good. The USA won the gold by just three.
On Saturday, Hidalgo thrived even more in the hostile environment. Her two-player game with Maddy Westbeld was firing on all cylinders for the whole second half. Hidalgo read the UConn defense perfectly and never let them get comfortable with playing Westbeld’s screen a certain way. When UConn hedged, Hidalgo found Westbeld and she delivered. When they played it straight up, she drove, finding the rim on play after play and making KK Arnold (rated one spot behind Hidalgo in the freshman recruiting rankings) look silly in the process. Whether it was out of a horns set screen, a four-out pick-and-pop, or in transition, Hidalgo blew by Arnold time and time again to either kick to an open teammate or attack the helper and lay the ball in. She and Westbeld were getting whatever they wanted in the second half in particular, weathering UConn’s runs and responding with a vengeance. The two shot a blistering 58% and 60% from the field. For Westbeld in particular, this was a much-needed departure from her recent performance.
Of course, when the defense was a little more stout, Sonia Citron was there to clean things up. Her performance on Saturday hearkened back to the many times over the past two seasons when she had to bail out the Irish in late shot-clock situations. Her nine first-half points were extremely quiet, but her six fourth-quarter points were anything but. In an offensive system that for a few seasons now has sometimes broken down and relied on hero ball, Citron’s ability to create her own shot and move without the ball is something that the rest of the team could stand to learn from. Saturday’s masterclass of clutch and calm is simply the latest example.
Lastly on offense, if you were thinking of selling your Natalija Marshall stock, think again. Last year the Irish prevailed over UConn in large part because of Lauren Ebo showing out, but the frontcourt has been a looming concern for the team all season. Kylee Watson didn’t attempt a single field goal on Saturday. Luckily, Marshall has listed UConn as her favorite place to play and I can’t blame her; she thrives in games where the refs let the players play and this will always be one of them. Only four players scored any points for Notre Dame (shocking in and of itself) but they all scored in double figures. Marshall’s 10 points off the bench was enough to outpace UConn’s bench production (just four points) and her 8 second-quarter points were part of the beautiful 26-5 run ND used to flip the game on its head when things looked the most dire. With her most minutes since December 31, she scored her most points since December 17th. If she can learn to limit her fouls against lesser competition she could truly thrive.
2) While the inspired offense rightfully attracted a lot of attention, the real gem of the game was the job the Irish did defensively. Especially in contrast to Thursday’s game plan of staying on Dyaisha Fair like glue come hell or high water, coach Ivey’s diagnosis of Saturday’s matchups made up for it and then some. In particular, KK Bransford’s impact on the game cannot be overstated. Last year against UConn, she was tasked with guarding star Azzi Fudd who was held to zero points before an injury kept her out of the second half. This year, her defense was again most necessary as it quickly became apparent that Ashlynn Shade was too much for Anna DeWolfe. Bransford was +25 on the night, and her defensive rating was the third-highest on the team. Her 27 minutes were fourth-most on the team, communicating that coach Ivey has a ton of trust in her to rise up in the biggest moments. Like Marshall, Bransford has really stepped up in the best wins of the season so far, sinking the game-winning shot against Tennessee.
Speaking of Marshall, her quickness allowed coach Ivey to be versatile in the man-to-man defense even if UConn tried to go small. Taking her out of the paint was a great idea, and having Westbeld on Edwards and Marshall on Arnold for a spell in the second half was a gutsy decision and a fruitful one; On the rare occasions when the Irish went zone, Marshall remained very poised in the middle of the 2-3. On the topic of post defense, Kylee Watson’s tendency to disappear on offense didn’t affect her ability to play lock-down defense in the fourth quarter when it mattered most. Nearly half of Watson’s minutes came in the fourth quarter when both she and UConn’s Ice Brady played 8, and Watson got the best of that matchup. After Bueckers and Edwards were scoring at will with a foul line pick-and-roll, Watson made the necessary adjustments to stop the bleeding.
And yet this is all secondary to the job Sonia Citron did on Paige Bueckers. Like Syracuse’s Dyaisha Fair, Bueckers was always going to get hers. Unlike Fair, Citron could contain her. Bueckers played more minutes than she had in any other game this season and was held under her averages for points, rebounds, and assists per game. The ninth-most efficient player in the country was limited to her worst shooting night of the season in a game where her usage rate was among the highest it’s been this year. That she had 17 points was secondary to the real story of Citron’s defense; half of those points came in the fourth quarter where she had no choice but to try and bail out her team as ND outscored UConn, 22-10.
3) The implications of this win are enormous, both in the context of this season and the state of the program at large. Niele Ivey is now 2-1 against UConn as a head coach, and this is the first time the Irish have beaten the Huskies twice consecutively since the 2012-2013 season. It’s also the first Irish win in Gampel Pavilion since that same season. Although the broadcast was a UConn-fest* and the announcers barely batted an eye at Notre Dame’s 22-7 and 26-5 runs, the game being on national television could do wonders for a high-school recruiting operation that in the Ivey era has been excellent yet still a bit scarce. The program garnered a ton of recognition for the win with Hidalgo winning the Naismith Player of the Week, the ESPN Player of the Week, and the ACC Rookie of the Week after her performance. Finally, if Notre Dame can take care of business in the ACC (knock on wood), this win could be the difference between hosting two rounds of the NCAA tournament and having to go somewhere like Los Angeles or Baton Rouge.
Speaking of the ACC, there are five weekends left of the regular season and three of them are absolute doozies. This upcoming weekend should not be a doozy, but we can’t overlook Georgia Tech on the road before coming back home to play Pitt on Sunday. ND is currently in sole possession of sixth place in the conference, but behind a cluster of teams who will all need to play each other (actually, ND is a part of that cluster), so the title is still very much up for grabs. February will be hard, there’s no getting around it. Another positive externality of the UConn win is that the team should step on the court the rest of the way with the belief (knowledge?) that they can beat anybody.
*Gus Johnson referred to Hannah Hidalgo as a “young man” at one point and it was clear he was way more prepared to talk about UConn. The Irish injury situation wasn’t discussed until KK Bransford seemed to injure herself late in the game while the UConn injury situation was a focal point of the narrative. ND’s comeback in the first half happened amid an extended interview with Diana Taurasi which seemed to supersede the game in terms of broadcast priority. Note that we don’t begrudge Taurasi here, she’s near impossible to hate.
4) I am not going to do a full former Irish / madness roundup / games to watch because it’s only been four days, but shoutout to Sam Brunelle and UVA for upsetting UNC. That goes a long way in those ACC standings we were just talking about, and Brunelle came out of a massive slump to score 14 points on 5-for-9 shooting with four threes in the win. Elsewhere, USC lost two games this weekend and LSU lost to an unranked team again last night in Starkville. The #2 AP curse is alive and well this season, as UCLA became its latest victim on Sunday in a loss to Washington State. This upcoming weekend, in addition to ND, you may want to keep an eye on Stanford as the LA schools are in town. Sunday’s got four ranked matchups that all have a ton of national and conference implications as we enter the final full month of the regular season.
If you haven’t been paying attention this season, you’re missing out. There was a time about a decade ago when it was UConn, Baylor, Notre Dame, and everyone else. Now, the tiers have blurred to the point of chaos and the associated storylines are practically writing themselves. Should the Irish succeed this season in any meaningful way, you’d best bet it will be hard-earned and well-deserved. The outstanding win against UConn, including coming back from down 18 and pulling away when it was even at 60 all in the fourth, underscores the potential we saw in this team over the offseason. Playing to that potential game in and game out is the next step. See you next week after hopefully two more wins which maintain the momentum. Go Irish, beat Yellow Jackets.