In her five seasons as the head women’s basketball coach at Notre Dame, Niele Ivey hasn’t yet gotten over the hump. You can always count on her Irish to qualify for the NCAA Tournament’s Sweet 16, but advancing from there has been no guarantee.
In 2022, the underdog Irish destroyed Oklahoma in Norman before losing a close one in Connecticut to ACC foe NC State. A year later, they limped into Greenville with injuries piling up and lost big to Maryland after sneaking past Mississippi State at home. Last season, they couldn’t get through Oregon State in Albany after winning the ACC Tournament.
Given Ivey’s experience and the combination of her team’s talent and depth, Notre Dame (28-5, 16-2 ACC) now has its best chance at reaching the Elite Eight since the Final Four years of 2018 and 2019. All that stands in the way down in Birmingham, Alabama, is an up-and-coming team that beat the Irish earlier this season in a Cayman Islands event most fans wrote off.
It’s Notre Dame and TCU in the Sweet 16.
Vintage Irish showing up in the NCAA Tournament
Just about everyone in South Bend and around the nation wondered which Notre Dame women’s basketball team would show up in this year’s NCAA Tournament. For the final two weeks of pre-tournament play, it was a team that appeared disconnected and out of rhythm, one that lost three out of five games and missed out on both an outright ACC regular-season title and a tournament championship.
That team must have missed the flight back from Greensboro after losing to Duke on March 8. The ultra-dominant Irish of December and early February have come to play instead, battering both No. 14 seed Stephen F. Austin and No. 6 seed Michigan in last weekend’s first two rounds of the big dance.
In the First Round against the Ladyjacks, the Irish hit 100 points in an NCAA Tournament game for just the second time in program history, winning 106-54. They shot 56.3% from the field and forced 28 turnovers, scoring at least 20 points in all four quarters. Senior guard Sonia Citron and sophomore guard Hannah Hidalgo each poured in 24 points, while graduate forward Liza Karlen contributed her first double-double of the year with 13 points and 10 rebounds.
Two days later, on Sunday, the Irish set their sights on the Wolverines and took them out of the game almost immediately. Notre Dame outscored Michigan 32-12 in the first quarter en route to a 76-55 win, making 12 field goals in the opening 10 minutes and again finishing with an overall field goal percentage north of 50.9. Hidalgo led the way with 21 points, Citron totaled 16 and graduate forward Liatu King played Notre Dame’s best all-around game with 18 points (on a 7-for-7 shooting clip), 15 rebounds and two steals.
TCU’s tremendous turnaround
It’s hard to overestimate the work head coach Mark Campbell has done to build TCU back up in his first two seasons. The Horned Frogs made nine of the 10 NCAA Tournaments held between 2001 and 2010 but did not return for more than a decade. After still consistently finishing above .500 throughout the 2010s, they tanked after the pandemic, going 24-60 with a 7-47 conference record between the 2020-2021 and 2022-2023 seasons. TCU then hired Campbell from Sacramento State, and he went 19-9 last year before getting the Frogs back into the dance this season.
TCU enters the Sweet 16 at 33-3 overall and 16-2 within Big 12 play. The Horned Frogs swept the Big 12 regular season and conference titles for the first time in program history. The Big 12 did only produce one other Sweet 16 team, Kansas State, but the Horned Frogs have beaten NC State and Notre Dame, so they are a threat to just about any team remaining in the tournament.
As a team, TCU is above average in essentially every category and profiles especially well on the interior, leading the Big 12 on a per-game basis in rebounding margin (7.8) and blocked shots (5.8). All-American finalists Hailey Van Lith and Sedona Prince comprise TCU’s two-headed monster, as each average between 17 and 18 points per game. Notre Dame is familiar with Van Lith going back to her three years at Louisville. The graduate guard transferred to LSU last year and joined what was supposed to be a “superteam” in Baton Rouge, but the pieces didn’t come together, and now she’s in much better shape in Fort Worth. Van Lith leads the team in assists and steals in addition to scoring.
Prince, a graduate center who began her career at Oregon, is the main reason for TCU’s success on the inside. In addition to her 17.5 points per game, she’s averaging 9.5 rebounds and 2.9 blocks per contest. Prince also scores the ball efficiently with a 58.8 field goal percentage. TCU’s third double-digit scorer is senior guard Madison Conner, a sharpshooter at 45.5% from deep. She’s averaged 14.6 points and 3.7 assists per game, complementing Van Lith nicely.
TCU heads to Birmingham on a 12-game win streak after defeating Fairleigh Dickinson (73-51) and Louisville (85-70). Conner starred in the tournament opener with 23 points, while TCU’s lesser-known starters stepped up to overcome 41 Jayda Curry points against the Cardinals. Graduate guard Agnes Emma-Nnopu and sophomore guard Donovyn Hunter, who each average around six points per game, combined for 41 points of their own, while Van Lith contributed 10 assists as part of a double-double.
When TCU defeated Notre Dame 76-68 in November, Sedona Prince and the fourth quarter were huge issues for the Irish, who blew a 14-point lead. Prince exploded for 20 points, 20 rebounds, eight blocks, four assists and three steals, leading a 31-point fourth quarter for TCU. On the other side, Hidalgo paced the Irish with 27 points, adding nine rebounds. It’s worth noting that Notre Dame did not have Karlen nor graduate forward Maddy Westbeld available at the time of that game.
Notre Dame and TCU will tip off at 1 p.m. on Saturday from Legacy Arena in Birmingham.
