ESPN Bracketology: Is Notre Dame still a No. 2 seed after ACC Tournament loss?
Notre Dame went to Greensboro with the hope of running the table and turning itself back into an NCAA Tournament No. 1 seed. The regular season résumé, even in spite of losing two of the final three games, would have been strong enough in congruence with a conference tournament title to warrant top seed consideration.
A loss in the semifinals complicated things, though.
Notre Dame struggled to beat Cal in the quarterfinals, trailing by as many as six points in the second half. Duke was the better team in the second half of the semifinals, dispatching the Irish with a five-point defeat. Where does that leave head coach Niele Ivey’s team in NCAA Tournament seeding projections according to ESPN bracket expert Charlie Creme’s latest bracketology reveal?
Still on that No. 2 seed line.
Here’s a look at Creme’s predicted teams taking the top-three seed lines.
No. 1 seeds
South Carolina
UCLA
Texas
USC
No. 2 seeds
NC State
UConn
Notre Dame
TCU
No. 3 seeds
Oklahoma
Kentucky
LSU
Duke
Notre Dame played six of those 12 teams this season. The Irish had a record of 4-3 in those games; they played Duke twice and went 1-1, lost to TCU and NC State and beat USC, Texas and UConn. The victories over those later three teams all occurred in 2024. The Irish are a completely different team than who they were then, and that’s for the worse.
“We had a little more fight in us,” sophomore guard Hannah Hidalgo said. “We’ve gotten away from that.”
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According to Creme’s latest projection, which came out Sunday night exactly one week before the bracket is revealed on March 16, Purcell Pavilion in South Bend, Ind., would play host to No. 15 seed Lehigh, No. 10 seed Nebraska and No. 7 seed Oklahoma State. Notre Dame would play Lehigh in the first round and the winner of Nebraska and Oklahoma State in the second round.
The top two seeds Notre Dame would potentially meet in the Sweet 16 according to Creme’s outlook would be No. 3 seed LSU or No. 6 seed Florida State. The Seminoles beat the Irish in South Bend, 86-81, in the penultimate regular season game of the year.
Creme has the Irish in UCLA’s region, meanwhile, meaning Notre Dame would need to beat the Big Ten champion Bruins in the Elite Eight in Spokane, Wash., to make it to the Final Four in Tampa, Fla.
