SOUTH BEND − She did it again, but then again, she always finds a way to play well when the stakes are high and the lights are bright.
The bigger the moment, the better the performance. There are big-game players over there and Notre Dame women’s basketball sophomore point guard Hannah Hidalgo over here. Alone. Elite. Without peer and someone who plays beyond her years.
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College sophomore? More an like WNBA veteran who understands and embraces the moment. Wise beyond her years.
Get Hidalgo into a game like Thursday, a nationally televised contest between two ranked teams with serious Final Four aspirations, and she’s at her playmaking, ball-stealing, shot-making, game-controlling, emotion-unleashing best. Such was the case against No. 3 Texas when regulation in a juiced gym settled nothing.
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They could play two, three, four extra sessions and somehow, the 5-foot-6 Hidalgo would still be zipping across all 94 feet of that floor. Often, falling to it, but always getting back up, getting on to the next play and getting the No. 10 Irish (6-2) across the finish line with another big Dub.
Women’s basketball games at Purcel Pavilion carry three certainties – there will be green Glow sticks in the stands, post-game traffic will be a problem and Hidalgo will unleash the spectacular.
What did she do Thursday? How about an over the shoulder assist to backcourt buddy Olivia Miles for a layup that Hidalgo delivered in the first half. Did we mention she did it while basically flat on her back after falling to the floor for a loose ball? Maybe three players in the country have the chops to make that play at that time.
Just a routine play for Hidalgo.
At the end of 45 minutes – a full 40 wasn’t nearly enough for a game that wasn’t always easy on the eyes (32 combined fouls, 40 combined turnovers) but ended just fine for a Notre Dame team in need of a win – it was the same old story, the same old scene for anyone Irish.
There was Hidalgo, alone on the court if only for the last closing seconds, alone with her thoughts, filing away yet another big-time moment in a big-time game, one in which she finished with 30 points, eight rebounds, four assists and three steals in all 45 heavy/needed minutes. She’ll rest sometime next spring. There’s too much to do. Too many plays to be made. Too many moments to savor. Too many games to go and get.
Afterward, Hidalgo stalked into the post-game interview room, up the short set of stairs to the dais and sat down to study the stats sheet with the intensity of a college professor grading a final exam. She scanned the piece of paper up and down. Passing marks everywhere. There was much to like, especially the final score, No. 10 Notre Dame 80, No. 5 Texas 70.
Needing to play well back at home for the first time in seemingly forever, needing a win to snap a two-game losing streak for a program that last lost two straight back in … 2021 … Hidalgo made sure everything went according to script. Big game, big crowd, big-time opponent, big effort from everyone Irish.
No big deal.
It was time for Notre Dame to roll up its sleeves and work
It was more than just Hidalgo, be it 18 points each from Sonia Citron (including a crusher 3 early in overtime) and Olivia Miles, whose layup with 2.7 seconds remaining in regulation should’ve been the night’s last basket, or another double double (10 points, 12 rebounds) from Liatu King. All delivered to the win, but nobody did it in the way Hidalgo did it.
“She lives for these moments,” said Irish coach Niele Ivey said, “She’s a big-time player.”
One with flair. With focus. With passion. With purpose. All of it left you with one question.
How?
How does that kid constantly deliver big games in the biggest moments? You didn’t know how this one would go but you knew this − Hidalgo would stuff the stat sheet. Hidalgo would be the best player on the floor. Hidalgo would play with a contagious energy.
It doesn’t matter if Notre Dame is clear across the country on the home floor of USC, then also a Top Five team that went down in defeat (Hidalgo went for 24 points, six rebounds, eight assists and five steals), or back in snowy Northern Indiana. Hidalgo makes you glad you made the drive through the cold and the snow and wind of an arctic night to watch her work.
“I’m just blessed,” Hidalgo said. “God has given me a talent. I try to have fun every time I step on the court, try not to make everything so serious. It’s just a game.”
Hidalgo can be a rocket boost of energy, of flash and dash and crazy passes and flip shots and emotion all over the court, but for Notre Dame to win this one, it had to do what it didn’t do (couldn’t or wouldn’t) in two forgettable games in the Cayman Islands over Thanksgiving.
It had to get dirty; it had to grind out possessions. It had to defend out of the zone and battle for loose balls and get a hand up on defense and keep the Longhorns to one and done. It couldn’t be all fun and run. It had to be rough. They had to be tough.
“We just fought,” Citron said. “We played hard for 40, 45 minutes, whatever it was. I hope you could see how hard we were working. We had each other’s backs. We played together. We fought and we were tough.”
Hidalgo wasn’t even born the last time Notre Dame and Texas met prior to Thursday. Veteran observers of what Notre Dame women’s basketball has since become know the significance of that last game. It was March 17, 1997, in the second round of the NCAA Tournament. On that Monday night in the old Erwin Center, on the campus of UT, Notre Dame pulled the stunner of stunners with an 86-83 win.
Back then, Texas was somebody. Notre Dame was nobody. But not for much longer.
That game against that team in that town is Ground Zero for everything that would come for this perennial powerhouse of a program in South Bend. All the successes, the conference championships, the conference tournament championship, the deep NCAA runs, the Sweet 16s, the Elite Eights, the Final Fours and those two national championship banners that hang in Purcell Pavilion’s west end all trace back to that 1997 night in Austin.
Notre Dame eventually would make the first of its nine Final Four appearances on the heels of that win. Beating Texas all those years ago lit the fuse for Notre Dame women’s basketball to be more than just a comet streaking across the women’s college basketball sky.
Hidalgo stoked those flames Thursday. Again.
Follow South Bend Tribune and NDInsider columnist Tom Noie on X (formerly Twitter): @tnoieNDI. Contact Noie at tnoie@sbtinfo.com
This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: A Top 10 showdown in women’s college basketball in December? Yes, please
