After a rare Sunday off, the third-ranked Notre Dame women’s basketball team (17-2, 8-0 ACC) will return to action on Thursday evening in Blacksburg, Virginia. The Irish will take on the Virginia Tech Hokies (14-6, 5-4 ACC), beginning a stretch in which they’ll play seven of 10 games to end the season against teams above .500 in ACC play.
Notre Dame and Virginia Tech met twice last year, with the Irish winning 71-58 on home court in February and 82-53 at the ACC Tournament in March. Overall, the Irish are 6-0 against the Hokies since Niele Ivey took over as Notre Dame’s head coach in the 2020-21 season.
State of the Irish
Notre Dame fans certainly don’t have much to complain about at this point in the season. The Irish are healthy, dominant and 8-0 in ACC play for the first time since they went 16-0 in the 2015-16 season.
If there’s anything to keep an eye on right now, it’s that the Irish have dealt with a few turnover-plagued slow starts so far in January. That’s why Boston College led Notre Dame by an 18-17 score through one quarter in last Thursday’s 89-63 Irish win. Nevertheless, as the final score of that game would suggest, Notre Dame has had no issue overcoming the occasional stumble out of the gate.
The Irish have also been a wee bit colder from three-point range over their last four games, all wins. They’re 18 for 63 during that stretch of time for a 28.6 percentage well south of their season-long mark of 41.2%. That second figure still leads the entire country, though, so perhaps Notre Dame was just due for some regression.
In any event, the Irish have kept a death grip on the nation’s third ranking since beating then-No. 2 UConn on Dec. 12. Only undefeated UCLA and 20-1 South Carolina, last year’s national champion, sit ahead of Notre Dame. The Bruins have not won a game by less than 11 points since opening night and just toppled No. 8 Maryland by an 82-67 score on the road Sunday. The Gamecocks, meanwhile, have faced five consecutive top-20 opponents since losing All-SEC forward Ashlyn Watkins for the season with a torn ACL. They’ve beaten each one, including Texas and LSU, which were No. 5 nationally at the time of the matchup.
Right behind the Irish in the AP Top 25 are the three top-five teams they beat in the first half. USC occupies No. 4 at 18-1, Texas holds the No. 5 spot at 20-2 and UConn checks in at No. 6 with a 19-2 record. LSU, Ohio State, TCU and Duke round out the national top 10.
Within the ACC, Notre Dame owns a half-game lead for first place over Duke and NC State, two teams it hasn’t faced yet. The Blue Devils rank 10th in the country and just beat No. 18 Georgia Tech in Atlanta, while the Wolfpack rank 17th and have lost only once since December started. Louisville, Notre Dame’s Sunday afternoon opponent, sits just behind those two 8-1 squads with a 7-2 ACC record. Behind them are the league’s final four ranked programs – No. 19 Cal, No. 25 Florida State, No. 15 North Carolina and No. 20 Georgia Tech.
Notre Dame will have opportunities to pull away from every team with two ACC losses or fewer in the final month. The Irish will face Louisville on Feb. 2 and March 2, host Cal on Feb. 9 and Duke on Feb. 17, visit NC State on Feb. 23 and welcome Florida State to South Bend on Feb. 27. Before that, however, they have Virginia Tech to take care of.
Year one in Blacksburg for Megan Duffy
At this time a year ago, even the best teams would have shuddered at the thought of a trip to Cassell Coliseum. In the last five years, Virginia Tech turned into an ACC powerhouse under former head coach Kenny Brooks, reaching four straight NCAA Tournaments between 2021 and 2024 with a Final Four trip in 2023. Last season, the Hokies captured their first and only ACC regular season championship.
However, much has shifted in the New River Valley since the 2023-24 season concluded. Brooks took the head coaching job at Kentucky and brought superstar guard Georgia Amoore and forward Clara Strack, who would have been two of Tech’s top players this year, with him. Elizabeth Kitley, the all-time leading scorer in Virginia Tech history, ran out of eligibility. The winds of change brought Megan Duffy into town, Marquette’s head coach for five years, to lead the Hokies.
Losing a combined 41.6 points per game from Kitley and Amoore has obviously brought the Hokies down a few notches. With a defense and interior presence not nearly as well put together, they’ve lost to Iowa, Michigan and Virginia, three teams with a combined in-conference record of 11-16. Tech’s other three losses were to actively ranked programs Florida State, Duke and NC State — by an average of 27 points. The Wolfpack throttled the Hokies, 85-57, this past Sunday in Raleigh.
Virginia Tech does own a couple of respectable wins within ACC play, the most recent being a 70-65 takedown of Louisville at home on Jan. 19. A week and a half earlier, the Hokies killed off then-No. 13 Georgia Tech’s 15-0 start with a 105-94 road win in double overtime. The Yellow Jackets did not have terrific freshman Dani Carnegie in that game, though, so the big question remains. Can Virginia Tech hold its own against a top-flight opponent at full strength?
No individual player is likely to carry the Hokies the way that Amoore and Kitley could, so they’ll need all hands on deck from a balanced and healthy lineup against the Irish. Just one bench player has started a game this season for Virginia Tech, with the team’s top five combining to make 99 starts. Carleigh Wenzel, one of the ACC’s most improved players, leads Tech from the backcourt with 14.3 points and 3.3 assists per game. Rose Micheaux, the team’s top rebounder at 8.5 per game, contributes 12.4 points per contest at forward. Fourth-year Hokie Matilda Ekh, sophomore Carys Baker and Utah transfer Lani White each average at least 9.7 points per night to round out the starting five.
Notre Dame and Virginia Tech will tip off at 6 p.m. on Thursday inside Cassell Coliseum.
