On Sunday, Notre Dame women’s basketball came out on the wrong end of the game of the year in the ACC. The Irish dropped a 104-95 result in double overtime at No. 13 NC State, simultaneously losing their 19-game win streak, their bid for a perfect ACC record and their No. 1 national ranking.
More than a few fans out there believe that Notre Dame’s marathon loss might be just what it needed — a wake-up call — for the upcoming postseason. Whether or not that’s true, the Irish have an immediate chance to respond at home this week against two more ranked opponents. Now ranked third in the country, Notre Dame (24-3, 15-1 ACC) will host No. 24 Florida State (22-6, 12-4 ACC) on Thursday and No. 25 Louisville (19-8, 12-4 ACC) on Sunday to end the regular season.
As the Irish look to learn from Sunday’s outcome, it’s easy to start on the defensive end of the floor. Notre Dame conceded a season-high 84 regulation points to the Wolfpack, plus 20 more across the two overtimes. For context, the Irish had not allowed more than 57 points to any of their previous five opponents.
“I thought their [the Wolfpack’s] guard play was tremendous,” head coach Niele Ivey said after Sunday’s game. “Something that we were really focused on trying to contain [was] their big three, and I thought they came out on fire and fed off the energy of the crowd. [There’s] just a lot of lessons for us as far as wanting to be better defensively. That’s where my focus is — being better defensively.”
The aforementioned big three of Zoe Brooks, Aziaha James and Saniya Rivers combined for 67 points, with two of them going for double-doubles and Brooks pouring in a career-high 33 points. Notre Dame’s defense did have some splendid moments, though, forcing 13 steals and drawing 17 total turnovers from NC State.
Nevertheless, if Notre Dame’s defensive focus isn’t on point Thursday night, Florida State could cause serious trouble. Only three teams in America average more points per game on offense than the Irish and their 86.8. Florida State, at 89.4, is one of them.
However, the Seminoles may be without at least one of their top scorers in South Bend. Junior guard Ta’Niya Latson, the nation’s leader in points per game (26.2), has missed the last three games with an undisclosed injury. If she cannot go on Thursday, not only will the quality of the game’s competitiveness likely suffer, but the women’s college hoops world will be robbed of a duel between Latson and sophomore Irish guard Hannah Hidalgo, the two highest scorers in the nation. O’Mariah Gordon, a senior guard who complements Latson with 16.7 points per contest, has missed the last two games in injury protocol.
Regardless of Florida State’s personnel, Ivey identified shot decisions and paint presence as means for more offensive success based on Sunday’s Irish showing. Her team, which leads the sport in 3-point percentage, made only seven of its 27 attempts from distance in Raleigh.
“I thought our shot selection could have been a lot better,” Ivey pointed out. “I thought we kind of settled, and I think if we could have mixed it up more — kind of getting to the rim, getting downhill, getting some more paint touches — maybe that number wouldn’t have been as low as it was.”
Of individual note for Notre Dame, senior guard Sonia Citron has rediscovered herself offensively in recent weeks. The wing has produced at least 15 points or more in five consecutive games, tallying 23 at NC State. She sent the game into overtime with a heroic 3-pointer that beat the buzzer by less than a second. Beyond that, Citron totaled seven rebounds, three assists, two blocks and a steal, extending her do-it-all abilities to one of the regular season’s biggest stages.
Florida State finding a way without its stars
Aiming for its 12th consecutive NCAA Tournament berth (though its hasn’t advanced since 2019), Florida State picked up a major road win on Sunday. The Seminoles went into Atlanta and beat a top-20 team on the road for a second time this season, handing No. 20 Georgia Tech a 73-70 loss. As a result, they’re back in the top 25 and looking to do more damage against No. 3 Notre Dame and No. 16 Duke this week.
Florida State, which as a reminder won Sunday’s game without Latson and Gordon, followed the lead of another duo that combined for 69.9% of the team’s points, 60.6% of its rebounds and 69.2% of its assists. Junior guard Sydney Bowles, a Texas A&M transfer, set Seminole career highs in points (32), assists (six), field goals made (11), free throws made (eight) and minutes played (39). Senior forward Makayla Timpson, the team’s top scorer with Latson sidelined, totaled 19 points and 16 rebounds for her 14th double-double this season.
For her career, Timpson has 1,612 points and 1,041 rebounds in four seasons.
“My leadership does have to step up even more,” Timpson said after last Thursday’s win against Pittsburgh. “We have two captains out, two leaders out besides me, but I just led my team the best way I could, and they [my teammates] followed right behind me. They gave me a lot of touches, and I gave them a lot of confidence in scoring the ball, getting blocked shots and rebounding.”
While Florida State cannot catch the Irish for an ACC regular-season title, it still has both NCAA Tournament positioning and a double bye in the ACC Tournament to play for. The top four teams in the conference get the first two days off and need to win only three games for the title, and Florida State is currently tied for fourth with Louisville and Duke.
In terms of the big dance, the Seminoles are projected as the No. 7 seed in the Birmingham Region 3. That would send them to Storrs for a potential date with Paige Bueckers and UConn in the round of 32.
With this week’s ranked matchups and the ACC Tournament to follow, Florida State has a significant opportunity to fatten up its postseason stock, but its leader isn’t worried about that as February winds down.
“Just taking it one game at a time,” Timpson said simply. “We know what’s ahead of us, but we’ve just gotta be in the moment, just prepare for tomorrow. That’s all I can say … we want to keep continuing to play great as we’ve been and just being consistent and being productive.”
Overall, the Seminoles are 9-2 in their last 11 games with road wins at North Carolina and Georgia Tech offsetting home losses to NC State and Louisville. They’ll take on the Irish at 8 p.m. on Thursday inside Purcell Pavilion.
