Notre Dame coach Niele Ivey doubles down on Hannah Hidalgo as 'face of women's basketball'

Notre Dame coach Niele Ivey sat down with superstar guard Hannah Hidalgo recently to decompress in the aftermath of a Fighting Irish season that ended way too quickly and the subsequent mass exodus from South Bend that ensued thereafter.

The Irish fell in the Sweet 16 for the fourth consecutive year. They had four players hit the transfer portal, three go on to the WNBA and two exhaust their collegiate eligiblity. Many of them were key contributors for a team that ascended to No. 1 in the nation at the end of a 19-game winning streak.

Now, the makeup of Notre Dame’s 2025-26 roster is still in flux. It hasn’t been adequately remade via the transfer portal quite yet. And it can’t possibly be composed of a collection of talent that matched that of the previous season when it finally reaches that point.

The meeting between Ivey and Hidalgo — captured by ESPN as part of the outlet’s Full Court Press docuseries — still wasn’t somber, though. It wasn’t a pity party, by any means.

Quite the opposite.

Ivey and Hidalgo both agreed the upcoming Notre Dame women’s basketball season is full of promise. They called it a blank canvas. Time to paint a pretty picture. At the center of it?

Hidalgo. She has to be.

She may as well be the artist. May as well be in the foreground, background — every ground. Everywhere, just as she is on the court. Like she told Hidalgo straight to her face in that one-on-one encounter, Ivey said on ESPN’s SportsCenter Tuesday there is nobody stopping Hidalgo from being to the sport she plays what she is to that metaphorical painting.

The main attraction.

“She’s going to be the best player in the game,” Ivey said. “She’s ready for it. Rising junior. Somebody that has exploded on the stage since her freshman year. Coming off an incredible sophomore year. Yeah, she’s just ready for it. I’m excited that she’s going to be the face of women’s basketball. But she’s earned it and deserves it.”

Hidalgo averaged 23.8 points, 5.0 rebounds, 3.7 steals and 3.6 assists per game as a sophomore. She broke her own Notre Dame record for scoring average, her mark of 22.6 set as a freshman lasting just one year. In both seasons, she was an Associated Press First Team All-American. Only three other players have ever been back-to-back AP First Team All-Americans; JuJu Watkins of USC, Maya Moore of UConn and Courtney Paris of Oklahoma.

Watkins accomplished the feat in the same seasons as Hidalgo. If anyone has anything to say about Ivey’s claim of Hidalgo being the best of the best, it’d be her. Watkins was the AP Player of the Year this past season, after all — not Hidalgo.

But Watkins tore her ACL during the NCAA Tournament. Who knows when she’ll be back on the floor in a competitive capacity. Paige Bueckers‘ UConn career has officially come to a close. There are still many other immensely talented players in women’s college basketball — former Notre Dame point guard Olivia Miles, now at TCU, among them — but it really does feel like Hidalgo, no matter who will be playing around her, could be a notch (or two, three, four …) ahead of all of them not named Watkins.

Notre Dame’s roster situation is scary; the Irish currently have seven scholarship players on the 2025-26 roster. Ivey, though, is absolutely not wrong calling her shot in terms of what she has in Hidalgo.

The answer could be, as it relates to the evaluation of singular players, more than anyone else.

“I think she’s going to be phenomenal,” Ivey said. “She wants it. She’s hungry for that role. She’s got the chance to see it from a lot of different perspectives. She has that energy. She has the excitement. She’s a leader regardless because of the way she plays, and now she has a chance to be an upperclassman — somebody that has the experience now. I know she’s going to be a little bit more vocal. All eyes are on her, and she’s excited for that position. She’s excited to lead this team because she wants to win, ultimately.”