Notre Dame and Vanderbilt are running it back.
In what is a rematch of last season’s Sweet 16 matchup, a 67-64 Notre Dame victory in Fort Worth, Texas, the Fighting Irish and Commodores will face each other in the SEC/ACC Challenge in Nashville on Dec. 3.
Hannah Hidalgo‘s heroic triple-double led Notre Dame to the Elite Eight for the first time since 2019. She outdid fellow National Player of the Year candidate, Mikayla Blakes, by recording 31 points, 11 rebounds, 10 steals and 7 assists. Blakes had 26 points on just 7-of-26 shooting, stymied for most of the game by astounding Notre Dame defense.
Blakes was just a sophomore last season, however, and she averaged a nation’s best 27.0 points per game. Hidalgo, a senior this upcoming year, ranked third in the country with 25.3 points per game. It’ll be a blockbuster type of head-to-head, again, when the two clash on the floor together once more.
Vanderbilt has strewn together three consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances under head coach Shea Ralph, who’s entering her sixth season at the helm. The Commodores previously went a decade without reaching the tournament, including in Ralph’s first two seasons as she took over a struggling program.
Notre Dame head coach Niele Ivey took over a struggling program as well in 2020-21. The Irish went 13-18 the year before she assumed the top position at her alma mater. Ivey guided them to a 10-10 record in year one. Since then, Notre Dame went to four consecutive Sweet 16s before breaking through to the Elite Eight this past March.
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The next step for Ivey and company, obviously, is getting back to the Final Four. Ivey reached that height several times as a player and assistant coach at Notre Dame. Now she’s trying to do it as a head coach. She only has one more year to get there with Hidalgo as the centerpiece of her program.
Hidalgo has been one of the best players in women’s college basketball since she arrived. She didn’t just show it against Vanderbilt in the Sweet 16. She’s been showing it since her collegiate debut, a 31-point performance against eventual national champion South Carolina in Paris, France, on Nov. 6, 2023.
The upcoming game against a quality opponent in Vanderbilt will be another one of those opportunities for Hidalgo to assert herself as a preeminent face of the sport, and it will be another chance for Ivey to prove her program is still ascending toward being able to once again compete in the Final Four.
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