Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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48 APRIL 2022 BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED WOMEN'S BASKETBALL BY TYLER HORKA I t was taken away in a flash. Literally. Notre Dame had the ball and the lead, a slim one-point advan- tage over North Carolina State in its Sweet 16 matchup March 26 in Bridgeport, Conn. Time ticked under 20 seconds. Senior guard Dara Mabrey dribbled with her left hand near mid- court then turned and spun back to her right, shielding the ball from Wolfpack defender Raina Perez as she surveyed the rest of the floor. Or so she thought. Perez picked her pocket. Clean, smooth, legal. A straight-up steal lead- ing to an easy two points the other way. Taken away. In a flash. No. 5 seed Notre Dame (24-9) lost to No. 1 seed and No. 3 nationally ranked NC State (32-3), 66-63, in a game the Fighting Irish led for nearly 32 minutes. The Wolfpack barely led for five. An NCAA Tournament run fueled with so much promise and power af- ter knocking off UMass and Oklahoma by a combined 55 points stopped in its tracks at the hands of an ACC nemesis, which exacted revenge (the Irish beat the Wolfpack 69-66 on Feb. 1). "I don't want them to feel like this loss dictates who we are, because it doesn't," Notre Dame head coach Niele Ivey said. "It's hard, but it's part of the game. There's a winner; there's a loser. But we can always learn from it, and so that's what we're going to do." It's even harder for the Irish because they were that close to being on the other end of the situation. Ivey's team didn't panic when NC State held a four-point lead after the first quarter. The Irish out- scored the Wolfpack by 12 in the second to take a somewhat commanding eight- point advantage into halftime. At that point, those in blue and gold could reasonably start thinking about an Elite Eight appearance. Fresh- man point guard Olivia Miles had 15 first-half points, the Notre Dame de- fense held NC State below 40 percent shooting from the field, and the Irish just looked flat-out confident on the big stage. They had one of the top four teams in the country on the ropes. But ACC Coach of the Year Wes Moore did not panic. "I don't think they're going to keep that up for the entire game," he told his team at halftime. "And we've got to make sure we're ready when our oppor- tunity comes to turn the tide." The Wolfpack were. With Notre Dame still leading by seven entering the final frame, the game started to shift heavily in NC State's fa- vor on a three-point play from Wolf- pack senior guard Kai Crutchfield. The and-one opportunity cut Notre Dame's lead to two, 53-51. The Irish responded with six straight points to regain breathing room, but the feeling was NC State wasn't done mak- ing runs at the lead. And clearly, they weren't. The Wolfpack just kept coming. The Irish left the door open, too. Six- teen Notre Dame turnovers led to 22 NC State points. "It was clear they needed stops and wanted to get stops, so they started pressuring us full court," said Miles, who only had six second-half points to finish with a game-high 21. "I could have done a way better job of getting my team more organized. I was kind of quiet because I was trying to figure it out for myself, figure out the spots that I can go and get the ball up the floor." It would have been the grandest of theater for Notre Dame to put all of its fourth-quarter fiascos to bed. The drubbing at UConn in December. The meltdown at Duke in January. Those losses were the result of poor performances in crunch time. The Irish even had some dicey wins in which they had to hold on in the fourth quarter just to come away on top. NC State out- scored Notre Dame 23-17 in the Irish's victory in February, after all. JUST GETTING STARTED Notre Dame Nearly Punches Elite Eight Ticket The No. 5-seeded Fighting Irish knocked off No. 12 seed UMass 89-78 in the first round of the NCAA Tournament and then rolled to an impressive 108-64 victory over No. 4 seed Oklahoma in the second round. PHOTO COURTESY NOTRE DAME ATHLETICS