Eight days before Hannah Hidalgo makes her sophomore season debut of sorts, the Notre Dame point guard on Tuesday made a splash as a member of the Associated Press preseason All-America women’s college basketball team.
The 5-foot-6 post guard was one of three sophomores on the five-player team, a first since the AP began naming preseason All-Americans in women’s basketball 20 seasons ago.
USC sophomore JuJu Watkins and Texas sophomore Madison Booker joined Hidalgo on the AP team, along with UConn senior Paige Bueckers and USC senior Kiki Iriafen, a transfer from Stanford.
Hidalgo and the sixth-ranked Irish will face all four of the other preseason All-Americans this coming season, and all in less than a three-week span: Third-ranked USC on Nov. 23 in Los Angeles, and home games with No. 4 Texas on Dec. 5, and No. 2 UConn on Dec. 12.
The Irish host Devenport in an Oct. 30 exhibition game, then open the 2024-25 season officially on Nov. 4 at home against Mercyhurst.
Hidalgo was a postseason first-team AP All-American as a freshman last spring as the Irish went 28-7 overall, won the ACC tournament and reached the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament.
Hidalgo averaged 22.6 points, 6.2 rebounds, 5.5 assists and 4.6 steals per game last season. Her 22.6 points per contest was a Notre Dame record, and she broke both the single-game and season Irish records for steals while also leading the country in that statistical category.
