Perhaps the most deceptively benevolent wrinkle for the Notre Dame women’s basketball program Sunday, a day when its longest win streak in nine seasons flamed out in Raleigh, N.C., was the rarity of being pushed to the game’s final buzzer.
Even more potentially valuable is if the No. 1 Irish can actually learn from the pain of a 104-95 double-overtime loss to 13th-ranked NC State at raucous Reynolds Coliseum and apply it to tough tournament tests likely to come their way in the next few weeks.
The epitaph on the newly truncated 19-game victory string, in which the average winning margin was 28.1 points per game, will center on a backward step on defense for a team that had been trending so positively in that regard.
The Wolfpack’s 84 points in regulation is the most pinned on the Irish (25-3, 15-1 ACC) since Florida State put up 86 in a 98-94 overtime loss to ND last February. And the 104 total points by NC State (22-5, 14-2) is the fifth-most scored against the Irish in a game in program history.
The previous two Irish opponents — No. 11 Duke and Miami — combined for 91 points this past week and neither broke 50.
ND did set a scoring record of its own on Sunday, though a dubious one. The 95 points it scored is the new high for most accrued in a loss — and yet only three of those came in the second overtime period.
Wolfpack sophomore guard Zoe Brooks, Irish All-America guard Hannah’s Hidalgo’s former high school rival and AAU teammate, led the way for the Wolfpack with a career-high 33 points to go along with 10 rebounds.
“Yeah, I mean, she got to the free throw line 14 times individually,” Notre Dame coach Niele Ivey said. “We didn’t even have that many as a team [the Irish had 10 attempts as a team].
“She did a great job of getting downhill, playing with a ton of confidence. And it was one of the nights for her, having a career high. Hats off to her. She played well. … That’s where my focus is, is being better defensively.”
Which is more a necessity than thinking out loud, with Florida State (21-5, 11-4) next up on the schedule. The Seminoles are the nation’s No. 1 scoring team and guard Ta’Niya Latson, who had 34 against the Irish in last season’s matchup, is the nation’s No. 1 individual scorer, just ahead of Hidalgo.
Hidalgo was able to amass 26 points herself, just slightly over her 24.6 per-game average coming in, but she was 8-of-26 from the field. Similarly, point guard Olivia Miles put up big scoring numbers — 22 points — and pulled down nine rebounds, but she too lacked consistency she normally delivers relentlessly.
Among her five turnovers Sunday was an unforced double-dribble with 1:16 left in the first overtime and the Irish up two. That gave the Wolflpack enough of an opening to extend the game into a second extra session.
“I thought our shot selection could have been a lot better,” Ivey said. “I thought we kind of settled. And I think if we could have kind of mixed it up more, kind of getting to the rim, getting downhill, getting some more paint touches,
“I think we missed a couple opportunities. We turned the ball over at really crucial times. But again, I mean, we had a couple chances, just didn’t go in our favor.”
One that did was Sonia Citron’s 3-pointer with 0.6 seconds left in regulation that sent the game into its first overtime. Citron has 21 of her 23 points after halftime.
“It actually didn’t work out exactly as planned,” Citron said of the final sequence that started with the Irish taking the ball out, after a timeout, with 4.5 seconds left in the fourth quarter. “But I knew I had the ball in my hand, and I had to shoot it. So, I mean, I shot it, and lucky for me, it went in.”
Where the Irish lacked some luck had to do with foul shooting. The officials ruled Maddy Westbeld was fouled on the last play of the first overtime, which would have sent the Irish grad senior forward to the free-throw line with the chance to break the 92-92 tie. But a replay review ruled the foul occurred after time had run out.
Then there was NC State’s free-throw shooting. The Wolfpack came into the game ranked 312th among 353 Division I teams when it comes to accuracy (65.8%). But NC State converted 24 of 26 on Sunday (92.3%) and didn’t miss its first until 55 seconds remained in the second overtime.
There were 21 ties and 21 lead changes in the game, but Notre Dame led for just 7 minutes and 46 seconds of the 50 minutes played. And neither team used its bench much or got much scoring from it. Both teams’ reserves played a total of 25 minutes, with the Irish subs accounting for two points and NC State’s five.
Irish starter Liatu King was one of four ND players who logged 44 minutes or more. She added 16 points, 14 rebounds, four steals and two blocked shots for the Irish, who could have locked up the ACC regular-season title and the No. 1 seed in the ACC Tourney with a win in Raleigh.
Now they’ll likely have to sweep the Seminoles Thursday night and Louisville (19-8, 12-4) on Sunday — both at home — to accomplish those feats. The Wolfpack’s remaining regular-season games are against the two bottom-feeders in the ACC, SMU (10-18, 2-14) and Wake Forest (9-18, 2-14).
“We never really talked about it,” Ivey said when asked about the stakes of Sunday’s matchup in which the Wolfpack extended its homecourt winning streak to 20. “We were just focused on playing for 40 minutes. But they [the ND players] know, I mean, with everything out news-wise. And so they were aware. We’re very aware.”
And they’re aware they’ll get more chances on the big stage in the coming weeks but in those instances on one-and-done formats, with the ACC Tournament set for March 5-9 in Greensboro, N.C., and Selection Sunday for the NCAA Tourney set for March 16 (8 p.m. EDT on ESPN).
The main thing, though, remains the main thing, as it did throughout the 19-game romp to the No. 1 spot in the polls.
“We’ve got to get better,” Ivey said. “We’ve got to learn from it and move forward.”
