Hannah Hidalgo is inevitable.
The Notre Dame sophomore put an emphatic stamp on her entrance into the national player of the year conversation with 29 points, 10 rebounds, eight assists and three steals in an upset of undefeated No. 2 Connecticut, 79-68, at Purcell Pavilion on Thursday. It is the third top-five team No. 8 Notre Dame has defeated this season.
Hidalgo started cold against a Huskies defense set on forcing her left after she crushed them to the tune of 24 points going right last year. She missed four 3-point attempts before the first went in the final 90 seconds of the first quarter. The guard let out a demonstrative yell, returned to her roving defensive role and stole the ball from 2021 Player of the Year Paige Bueckers. A transition 3 on the other end lit Hidalgo’s fiery night and all but officially extinguished UConn. The Irish are on a three-game winning streak in the rivalry matchup marred by injuries this decade.
UConn would do little to counter Hidalgo the rest of the way. She had 17 points at halftime while shooting 4-of-6 from 3 (5-of-11 overall) and drained another 3 at the end of the third quarter to put Notre Dame back up four. It crushed the momentum of KK Arnold’s layup on the other end and set her career 3-point mark for a single game. Hidalgo was 2-of-6 inside the arc, 6-of-11 outside of it and 7-of-7 from the free throw line.
There should be absolutely no doubt now that Hidalgo is a leading candidate for Naismith and Wooden Player of the Year awards. She’s averaging 24.6 points per game and showed up as the guiding superstar in all three contests against fellow Final Four favorites. Against then-No. 3 Southern Cal, she led Notre Dame with 24 points (42.9 FG%), six rebounds, eight assists and five steals. Against then-No. 6 Texas, Hidalgo scored a season-high 30 points (55 FG%, 3-5 3FGs), eight rebounds, four assists and three steals. She’s also a strong Defensive Player of the Year contender, averaging 4.1 steals per game and causing chaos otherwise.
Here’s what else we gleaned from the game.
UConn needs Fudd’s shooting touch
It was a good-news, bad-news situation for UConn this week. The good is that shooting guard Azzi Fudd’s injury is minor following her exit from the win over Louisville. Fudd sustained a sprained knee, a best-case-scenario after her far more serious knee injuries, and she will be day-to-day. The bad is it ruled her out of the game against Notre Dame, UConn’s toughest matchup of the schedule so far and one of the non-conference slate’s highlights.
The Huskies needed her outside shooting and spacing to keep up with Notre Dame’s guards. UConn went 0-of-7 from 3-point range until forward Sarah Strong hit one from deep in the first minutes of the second half. Fudd is 33% from 3-point range in five games, but she is second on the team in overall field goal percentage (70.6%). Her absence drew more defensive attention toward Paige Bueckers.
Bueckers, who led UConn with 24 points, didn’t make a 3-pointer in the game. The team was 3-of-16, a season-low shooting percentage. They were 3-of-14 against a similarly tough Ole Miss defense, but built enough of a lead early and held the Rebels off to overcome it.
Notre Dame ate from deep, shooting 10-of-18 (55.6%) largely off of Hidalgo’s plate. Olivia Miles (two), Sonia Citron and Cassandre Prosper each hit one.
Too Strong in fouls
Strong’s first real foul trouble came at a bad time. The freshman drew three in a span of four minutes early in the second quarter of a close game. She fouled Hidalgo on a 3-pointer at 7:42 and picked up a third at the five-minute mark while aggressively going for a loose rebound. She sat until the third quarter.
UConn didn’t lose too much ground as the deficit moved from seven at Strong’s exit to 11 at the half. Geno Auriemma put in 6-foot-5 Jana El Alfy, but collectively the offense stagnated and everyone except Bueckers looked hesitant to attempt a shot. Strong’s career high was three fouls against Ole Miss. She and guard Kaitlyn Chen had four each by game’s end.
Strong scored 14 points and attempted seven of her 12 field goals from behind the arc. Chen had 11 and Arnold scored 10 for the most efficient night (5-of-8) of the Huskies group.
Notre Dame is a top-five team
Notre Dame plummeted in the AP Top 25 poll because it lost two games in a back-to-back to unranked teams at their Thanksgiving week tournament. Turnovers were an issue, the defense wasn’t solid and head coach Niele Ivey was juggling an incredibly short bench. But it seems to be nothing more than an early season holiday slip-up.
The Fighting Irish are taking down the nation’s best and deserve a ranking to show it. They’re yet to be at full strength, either. Liza Karlen, a transfer from Marquette, played her first minutes of the season after a lower leg injury in the exhibition game kept her off the court. She had four points in 10 minutes to help relieve the frontcourt starters Kate Koval and Liatu King.
King continues to look like the season’s best transfer addition with a 16-point, 14-rebound double-double. She was 8-of-14 and a force on defense (three steals), particularly early. Four-year starting forward Maddy Westbeld should be back soon.
And the Irish avoided their own additional injury calamity. Miles, whose feet were caught up in a loose ball in the first quarter, limped toward the bench and was seen by trainers before returning after three minutes of game time. The All-American point guard scored 16 points (6-of-9) with four rebounds and three assists in 27 minutes.
Injuries marred elite rivalry era
The rivalry between UConn and Notre Dame took off in the 1990s-2010s when both were competing in the Big East and meeting in Final Fours. They had the best players in the nation who would go on to illustrious WNBA championship careers.
Though they’re no longer in the same conference, the two programs still draw top recruits and the game holds a certain allure. Unfortunately, we’ve yet to see the matchup at full strength recently and likely lost the last chance to see the nation’s best guard duos face each other.
Bueckers and Miles played on very different rosters in the 2021-22 game held in Connecticut. Bueckers missed the 2022-23 game with a knee injury. Miles and Fudd missed last year’s meeting when Hidalgo went off for 34 points, 10 rebounds and six assists shooting 58 percent. And Fudd did not play on Thursday.
Bueckers, Miles and Fudd are all eligible for the WNBA Draft in April. Bueckers is the projected No. 1 pick, for which the Dallas Wings won the rights, and she has said it’s her last year as a Husky. She has an extra year of eligibility granted under the COVID-19 waiver. Miles and Fudd played redshirt years and have not given an indication of their plans.
