Make it 17 consecutive wins for Notre Dame women’s basketball. The Irish won their must-see show to the Steel City on Thursday night, defeating Pittsburgh 88-57 to improve to 22-2 overall and 13-0 in ACC play.
“This team is really special, playing really great basketball right now,” head coach Niele Ivey said. “Being able to have this type of victory on the road is huge for us. This was a really tough place to play last year.”
At some point early on in Thursday’s game, the Panthers, like all Irish opponents this season, had to pick their poison. They elected bottles No. 5 and 11, aiming to stay in the game by limiting sophomore guard Hannah Hidalgo and taking their chances with the rest of the loaded Notre Dame backcourt.
Wrong move. As if there’s a correct choice to be made.
The chosen poisons combined to set ablaze the Pittsburgh basket, as graduate student Olivia Miles and senior Sonia Citron shot the lights out of the basketball. Miles tied the 27-year-old program record for 3-pointers made in a single game, connecting on 8 of her 13 attempts from distance. She also comfortably set a new season high with 28 points while collecting 7 rebounds and 5 assists.
Citron was 8 for 9 from the field, draining a quarter of 3-pointers. As usual, she made an impact all over the floor, recording a double-double on 22 points and 10 rebounds.
“We went as these two went,” Ivey said, pointing to Miles and Citron at her sides.
The early part of Thursday’s game looked at times eerily similar to Notre Dame’s visit to Pittsburgh in January of last season. The Irish built a healthy lead of 7 points but ended the first quarter up by just one, as star Panther center Khadija Faye totaled 8 points, 4 rebounds and 2 blocks in the opening 10 minutes.
However, the Irish, who conceded 21 points in the first quarter, locked in for the second and got to halftime with a 49-33 advantage.
“I thought our defensive intensity ramped up,” Ivey said. “I thought we got multiple stops in a row, and that wasn’t something that we did in the first quarter. We’d come down and make a bucket, and then they would come down and score. So I thought they did a better job of locking in defensively. Intensity-wise, it ramped up, and then we got multiple stops in a row, which allowed us to get up and down in transition.”
Citron and Miles drilling a combined 9 triples in the first half certainly helped as well. One of the nation’s most improved 3-point shooters this season, Miles fed off the energy of the pro-Notre Dame crowd.
“[Miles] was fantastic off the ball screen,” Ivey said. “Her pace was just amazing.”
Citron, on the other hand, is often — if not always — overshadowed by the highlights of Hidalgo and Miles. Notre Dame players and coaches alike were thrilled to see her efforts rewarded with a big statistical night.
“Soni is just the silent assassin, and tonight she was just on fire. She always puts in the work. She does a lot of things that don’t show up on the stat sheet,” Ivey said. “Liv does a great job of finding her, and I thought she did a great job making the defense collapse and making an extra pass to Soni, and Soni stepped up and was big for us today.”
As soon as Coach Ivey finished saying that, Miles jumped in with a statement of her own.
“Let me say something … Soni is her. She’s literally her. That’s my dog. We came to Notre Dame to do this together. Our chemistry is insane. She does everything that this team needs to do and without a word said. Sonia is incredible.”
Drop the mic. Pan the camera to the perpetually sheepish Citron.
“I’m blushing over here,” she mumbled back to Miles.
Verbose or not, Citron plays an integral role in a backcourt that looked so great Thursday with its top scorer stuck in the mud. Hidalgo finished with just 11 points on 3-for-17 shooting, but she still made her mark with 7 steals on the opposite end of the floor. Going forward, if Miles and Citron are going to play as well as they did in Pittsburgh when Hidalgo doesn’t have it, the Irish may not lose another game.
“They move so well without the ball, and they are able to read my brain and beat the defense behind the basket,” Miles said of her fellow guards. “So I can get them the ball and get them open looks … They’ve learned how to play with me, how to catch my passes, how to be in the right spots.”
Notre Dame, which finished two shy of its single-game record with 14 three-pointers made, got 11 points out of Liatu King in her return to the Steel City. The graduate transfer forward, who tormented the Irish as a Panther last season, mixed in 6 rebounds and 4 assists on Thursday night.
As usual, Faye led Pittsburgh in just about every category, accumulating 23 points, 16 rebounds, 4 steals and 2 blocks. Mikayla Johnson and Marley Washenitz combined for 28 points to support her, but the remaining five Panthers who played totaled only 6 more points.
The Irish will have an extra day to prepare for Monday night’s showdown against No. 13 Duke, which scored a 72-47 win at Wake Forest on Thursday. Notre Dame will host the Blue Devils at 6 p.m. on Presidents’ Day inside Purcell Pavilion.
