When handed the No. 1 ranking in the nation, some teams don’t handle the situation so well. It hasn’t happened much in recent years with the dominance of South Carolina lately, but think about a team like 2023-24 LSU. Given the preseason No. 1 only to lose at home to unranked Colorado in game one.
On Monday, Notre Dame women’s basketball was placed atop the AP Poll in a week full of landmines. A matchup against No. 11 Duke at home, a Sunday clash against No. 13 NC State and, in between, a sleeper trip to pesky and recently dangerous Miami. Though the Irish could still falter in Raleigh, they’ve handled their prestigious opportunity very well, defeating Duke by 15 at home and handing the Hurricanes an 82-42 loss on Thursday night.
“I discussed it early when the possibility [of the No. 1 ranking] could happen on Saturday before it happened on Monday, so they knew,” head coach Niele Ivey recalled after Thursday’s game. “... You’ve got to keep the main thing the main thing, and they know that. They’re locked in.”
Notre Dame’s 40-point win started with its steady engine, graduate forward Liatu King, who tallied 13 points and 13 rebounds for her 10th double-double of the season. She was 6 of 12 from the field, adding four assists and two blocks for a quintessentially well-rounded King game.
“She’s so solid, she gives us so much and she does a lot of things that she doesn’t even get the credit for,” Ivey said of King. “Just the sacrifice that she does for our team and just being so super solid every game — she’s been a big key to our success, and so I just love when the stats kind of show the things that she does.”
“She’s so super tough, and it’s just been, like I said, an incredible addition to our team.”
For King, transferring to Notre Dame from ACC peer Pittsburgh in May meant putting aside individual numbers for team success. Her scoring average has dropped from 18.7 last year to 11.5 this season, but she’s already won 13 more games than she ever did in a single season at Pitt.
“I’m trying to win,” King said bluntly. “... It looks good having 20-some points, but when you’re not on an as successful team, it doesn’t really matter. I care about winning and making history, and I feel like I can do that with this team.”
Notre Dame’s electric backcourt of course thrived as well. Senior Sonia Citron led the team with 19 points, making each of her first five field goals and adding eight rebounds. Sophomore Hannah Hidalgo totaled 18 points, while graduate student Olivia Miles stuffed the stat sheet with 14 points, seven rebounds and a team-high six assists.
The Irish also got 23 quality minutes from sophomore guard Cassandre Prosper off the bench. The lengthy Canadian notched eight points, five rebounds and two steals, impressing her head coach.
“I thought she had a fantastic game today,” Ivey said of Prosper. “She’s another unselfish player. I think that her ceiling is so high. She’s healthier, she knows her role, she gives us such a spark offensively and defensively I thought she did a great job.”
“Cass is just a spark … she’s just a student of the game,” Ivey added. “Every game, she just gets better and better and I think this season you guys are seeing a blossoming version of her.”
Before Prosper entered the game, Notre Dame got off to a 10-0 start Ivey referred to as “dominant.” Miami would barely outscore that Irish run in the entire first half, going into the halftime break trailing by a 38-13 margin. The Hurricanes made only six of their 34 field goals in the first half and were 0 for 16 from 3-point range across the whole game.
“We came into the season saying that we want our identity to fall on our defense, and I think with the addition of Cass coming back from injury [and] the addition of Liatu [have] allowed us to do that,” Ivey said. “We really challenge them defensively in practice, and I feel like it’s coming. We’re growing every day in that category, which I love, especially as a coach in this part of the season.”
Notre Dame’s defense did especially commendable work against Haley Cavinder, who leads Miami with nearly 19 points per game. The graduate guard nearly willed the Hurricanes to victory against No. 23 Florida State in their previous game, racking up 27 points, eight rebounds and seven assists.
“We call it ‘K.Y.P.’ — know your personnel — so knowing [the] tendencies of everybody, we really locked in on that,” Ivey described. “And again, I just think the energy of our team, just getting better every game of knowing what to do defensively. We put a lot of pressure — sometimes we’re switching 1 through 4. We look to ice ball screens a little bit. We top-lock some of their staggered actions, so we try to do different things to try to take them out of their spots, and I thought we did a great job of that collectively as a team.”
By winning Thursday’s game, the Irish (24-2, 15-0 ACC) secured a spot in the ACC Tournament’s quarterfinal round. With a win on Sunday at No. 13 NC State (21-5, 13-2 ACC), they would secure the ACC regular-season title for the second time in three years.
As she’s done all season, Ivey’s making sure her team has one focus and one focus only: winning the next game.
“The goal is the next 40 minutes, and obviously that’s lingering, but our focus is on the next opponent, which is NC State, so we have to play a great 40 minutes,” Ivey said. “It’s a really tough place to play. We’ll let everything else fall where it falls, but our goal is the next 40 minutes, the next game.”
The Wolfpack went to Atlanta and took down No. 20 Georgia Tech by an 83-68 score on Thursday night, bouncing back from Sunday’s one-point loss at North Carolina. Aziaha James, their leading scorer, paced the Pack with 16 points, while top rebounders Saniya Rivers and Madison Hayes each double-doubled.
Notre Dame and NC State will tip off in Raleigh at noon on Sunday.
