GREENSBORO, N.C. — This was not a good look, not at this time of the year, not from that No. 6 Notre Dame women’s basketball team.
Not after what this season with this team had long been.
Not because that for the second time in four games, head coach Niele Ivey needed more than an hour in the locker room to be with her players and address issues that arose from another loss where the Irish looked so un-Irish.
That locker room door again stayed closed for a long time. A looooonnnng time. Down the hall, and down a set of stairs in a First Horizon Coliseum theater, the media waited. And waited. And waited. It was 79 minutes after the February 27 loss at home to Florida State before Ivey appeared. It was just over an hour on Saturday.
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Ivey can take all the time she wants to decompress and preach to her squad and do whatever it is she does with her staff after those 40 minutes on the basketball court. She could choose not to talk at all if that’s what she chooses. Not ideal, but understandable.
Ivey has taken hours lately to address her team of late after the last two losses, and therein lies the problem.
This is March. This isn’t November. This is winning time. This isn’t learning time.
Notre Dame women’s basketball was riding high not long ago, winners of 19 consecutive games, dispatchers right and left of fellow ranked teams, ranked No. 1 at one point in the regular season. It reached a point where it wasn’t a question of whether the Irish would get to their 10th Final Four in school history, but whether they’d do so with a win streak that reached ridiculously into the 20s.
This team was rolling. It had swagger. It had confidence. It had that look.
The only look we saw Saturday was that of a blank stare. In huddles. As the final seconds wound down. In the postgame press conference. In the locker room. Less than 24 hours earlier, everything in that space was a post-game party.
Nothing about Saturday was much fun for the Irish because suddenly, we don’t know. We don’t know what comes next for Notre Dame following Saturday’s 61-56 loss to No. 11 Duke in the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament semifinals.
Well, we know two NCAA Tournament home games that Notre Dame should win comes next. Then what? A Sweet 16/Elite Eight/Final Four run for the ages or a quiet bow-out somewhere in the tournament’s second weekend?
“We have a lot of talent,” said sophomore guard Hannah Hidalgo. “It’s not a matter of talent; it’s a matter of working hard.”
“We played below our standard,” Ivey said. “That’s frustrating. That’s on me. When we get back on (the) court, we will be better for this loss.”
Great, but that’s what we heard after Florida State. Notre Dame then was good against Louisville the next time out, OK against Cal and disappointing against Duke.
Notre Dame (26-5) should be long past another post-game Come-To-Jesus meeting. Teams that have designs on getting to the Final Four and of winning national championships don’t require heart-to-hearts like the Irish have had to have too often of late.
Good teams, elite teams, are supposed to be rolling at this time in the season. Not reeling.
Whatever the case, whatever the cause, Notre Dame has not been Notre Dame since North Carolina State, which would face Duke in the ACC Tournament championship, stripped it of its swagger on February 23 down I-40 in Raleigh.
Something happened to Notre Dame that day. In that loss. In that environment. Something not good.
“We just have to come together with how we were when we played USC and Texas and all those other teams,” Hidalgo said of two wins of ranked teams that seemingly happened another season ago. “We were just playing together. We had a little more fight in us, and we’ve gotten away from that.”
Ivey and the Irish talked Saturday about not doing it on defense, which kick-starts everything they want to do. Want to get out and run? Get stops. Want to average the 84 points a game that you average? Get rebounds. Want to win games by big margins? Don’t allow opponents to be quicker to loose balls and allow second and third chances.
Saturday was about toughness. About getting dirty. Duke had it. Duke did it. Notre Dame didn’t have it. Notre Dame didn’t do it. The Irish better do it. Fast.
We were told Saturday that the defense was the disappointment, but was it? You look at the final stats sheet and see that Notre Dame finished with 16 steals and forced a staggering 21 turnovers. That’s more than enough to win.
It’s not just the defense. It’s the offense. It’s the connectiveness. It’s everything. It’s managing frustrations. It’s staying focused. It’s a lot to handle in early March.
“We’re really the only ones in our way,” said senior Liza Karlen. “I’m still all-in on this team and really believe that we can go all the way in March. We have to turn the page.”
That page was supposedly turned 10 days earlier. Saturday was too similar a read.
There’s something that the stat sheet doesn’t say about what ails these Irish. Afterward, they talked of trusting one another, talked of being more connected (maybe off the floor as much as on it). Whatever the case, it wasn’t an issue the day before in the quarterfinal victory over Cal. That was supposed to be the tonic that got this program back in the right direction.
Ivey has spent those two long post-games in the locker room. Both after losses. Baffling losses. There won’t be a third. The next L will signal the end of an Irish season that has gone from special to suspect.
Time to stop talking and start winning. This doesn’t get straightened out, this season will end. Careers will end. The potential to do something special will remain just that — potential.
“The good thing about this is we have one more chance to play,” said senior Sonia Citron, whose next loss will be her last at Notre Dame. “If we don’t give everything we have, I don’t know what we’re doing here.”
Welcome to the club.
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: Notre Dame women’s basketball sees its stay at ACC Tournament end early
