Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1543321
BLUEGOLDONLINE.COM MARCH 2026 87 BY TYLER HORKA A fter Notre Dame lost to Virginia on Feb. 8, its best player essentially said it was time to stop talking about it. It was time to be about it. She took her own advice in the Fight- ing Irish's very next game. Was Hannah Hidalgo at her unequiv- ocal best versus North Carolina State? Not by a long shot. She only made 31.3 percent of her field goal attempts. She didn't reach 20 points, which has be- come the baseline on the personal ba- rometer measuring the nation's third- leading scorer's level of success. But she still led Notre Dame in points (19), rebounds (8), assists (6) and steals (6). Even on a rough shooting night, she was the team's go-to superstar in every way. Less talking. More doing. Head coach Niele Ivey was particu- larly impressed by the way her point guard set an example for Notre Dame teammates on the boards. Hidalgo is 5-foot-6 but she plays fearlessly. She plays like she's 6-5. There isn't a loose ball she doesn't think she can grab. When the Irish's bigger players see the smallest of the bunch winning battles, they have no choice but to win some for themselves. Sure enough, Notre Dame had two more offensive rebounds than North Carolina State and paid them off with 13 second-chance points. The Wolfpack only scored 3 points on their second chances. One team was all over it and the other was collectively stuck in mud. "It's contagious," Ivey said. There are a couple areas Ivey points to that most determine what this under- manned (seven-player rotation, fewer All-Americans than usual, etc.) version of Notre Dame is capable of — rebound- ing and defense. Hidalgo is the premier catalyst for both. In a 20-second span against North Carolina State, she snagged an offensive rebound, regrouped the Irish in their half-court offense, dished an assist to Iyana Moore and stole the ensuing inbounds pass to wrest away another possession for her squad. It all hap- pened at the tail end of the first half. Moore missed a three-point attempt at the buzzer, but the sequence was still stellar as ever for Hidalgo. She single- handedly denied the Wolfpack a chance to cut into Notre Dame's lead. The Irish eventually won, 79-67, in a game they led by as many as 27 points. Hidalgo's fingerprints were all over the accumulation of such a large advantage. It's demoralizing when No. 3 shows up in the backcourt and makes it a chore just to advance the ball across the half- court line. Then she hounds the pri- mary ball handler to the point of forc- ing offense to be ran through somebody less willing and able. At that point, the entire possession is discombobulated — if it hasn't been already terminated entirely by way of a Hidalgo steal. She leads the nation in that category by a wide margin. Yet even with everything she's ca- pable of — more than anyone else in the country, all things considered — she still can't do it all on her own. If she could, the Irish would be invincible. Instead, they lost six games in conference play and nine times in total going into the pivotal head-to-head matchup against Help For Hidalgo Broadens Late-Season Possibilities WOMEN'S B A S K E T B A L L Midway through February, junior point guard Hannah Hidalgo was the nation's third-leading scorer with 24.6 points per game. She also led the country in steals with 5.4 per game. PHOTO BY MICHAEL MILLER