Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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38 MAY 2023 BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED WOMEN'S BASKETBALL BY TYLER HORKA N otre Dame couldn't make it to the final day of the second week- end of the NCAA Tournament for the second time in as many years. The shorthanded Fighting Irish put up a battle against Maryland at Bon Sec- ours Wellness Arena March 25 in Green- ville, S.C., in the Sweet 16 but lost 76-59. The back-to-back Sweet 16 trips were not created equally. Last year, Notre Dame had two fresh- men starting guards and a contingent of players who had, for the most part, never played in an NCAA Tournament game. Abby Prohaska, who transferred to San Diego State last spring, was the lone holdover from the Irish team that lost by one point to Baylor in the 2019 national championship game. The Irish earned some NCAA Tour- nament pedigree by blowing out UMass and Oklahoma before narrowly losing to NC State in 2022. That experience was supposed to carry into March 2023. For some, it did. For others, it didn't. It couldn't. Sophomore point guard Olivia Miles and graduate student shooting guard Dara Mabrey, both sidelined with sig- nificant season-ending knee injuries, watched their team's season end from the bench. The former consoled the teary-eyed latter in the final minutes. Mabrey's college career is officially over, after it effectively ended when she tore her ACL Jan. 22. Miles's surgery- requiring ailment occurred in the reg- ular-season finale at Louisville Feb. 26. Notre Dame's 2022-23 story can't be told without Miles and Mabrey, two guards who combined for 23.6 points and 9.3 assists per game. How was No. 3 seed Notre Dame (27-6) ever going to beat No. 2 seed Maryland (28-7) without the two guards who spent majority of the sea- son together as the starting backcourt? It wasn't. But early in the game it appeared the Irish might actually do it. Notre Dame built an eight-point lead in the second quarter. The Irish were shut- ting down the Terrapins defensively and operating a high-flying offense. Sopho- more guard Sonia Citron and junior for- ward Maddy Westbeld took over the game for a stretch in that second frame. The eight-point margin dwindled to one at halftime, though, and the Irish got into foul trouble coming out of the break. Westbeld picked up her fourth foul in the first 30 seconds of the fourth quar- ter. By that time, centers Lauren Ebo and Kylee Watson already had four apiece. Put simply, Notre Dame didn't have the manpower to withstand Maryland. "It was unfortunate we were in that situation to begin with," Westbeld said. "We definitely had to change the game plan based on [foul trouble]. It was pretty tough." The Terps were led by 18 points apiece from guards Diamond Johnson and Shy- anne Sellers. Miller, who scored 31 points against Notre Dame in December, didn't make her first field goal until there was 1:18 left in the first half. It was a big bucket that pulled her team within three points. And once she got going, she was hard for the Irish to stop — especially playing ten- tatively with no room for fouling. "In the first half we did a great job of kind of limiting her touches and got more bodies against her, had her turn the ball over a little bit," Ivey said. "In the second half, she took over." Ebo fouled out with five minutes left in the fourth. Coming off a historic 18-rebound outing in the 53-48 win over Mississippi State in the second round March 19, she finished with 7 points and 5 rebounds. Citron paced the Irish with 14 points, 7 rebounds and 4 assists. An exhausted group down two im- portant players ran out of steam. Notre Dame only made 2 of 10 three-point at- tempts and went into the fourth quarter trailing by 12, but only scored 14 points in the frame. WHAT'S NEXT Maryland never really gave No. 1 overall seed South Carolina much of a scare in the Elite Eight, but that still shouldn't have stopped Ivey and her players from watching that matchup with two words continuously popping up in their minds: "What if?" What if Mabrey never got hurt? What if Miles never got hurt? What if Ebo never missed five games with an injury of her own? Removing context from the situation and not getting too into the weeds about how the NCAA Tournament would have been seeded differently if that trio stayed healthy, the surface-level answer is it could have been Notre Dame trying to upset the Gamecocks with a spot in the Final Four at stake. Graduate student center Lauren Ebo and head coach Niele Ivey celebrated a trip to the Sweet 16, after Ebo compiled 10 points, a school NCAA Tournament- record 18 rebounds and 5 blocks to lead the Irish to a 53-48 win over Mississippi State. PHOTO COURTESY NOTRE DAME ATHLETICS DOWN , BUT NOT OUT Notre Dame's season ends in the Sweet 16 again, but better days are ahead for the Fighting Irish