Notre Dame loses control of ACC with second loss in a row, this one at home vs. Florida State
A week ago, Notre Dame won on the road by 40 points and still had not lost an ACC game this season. Seven days later, the Fighting Irish have two conference losses and suddenly need a Sunday miracle to outright win a league it looked like there was no way they’d ever share or let alone lose.
But after an 86-81 loss to No. 24 Florida State at Purcell Pavilion in South Bend on Thursday, Notre Dame now needs to beat Louisville and hope NC State loses to SMU on Sunday to claim the conference title on its own. If both teams are victorious, they’ll share the regular season championship and the Wolfpack will get the No. 1 seed in the ACC Tournament thanks to their double overtime win over the Irish on Feb. 23.
The reality of high-level college basketball smacked head coach Niele Ivey’s team right in the face this week in the form of two losses in four days. She didn’t have enough answers. Neither did her players.
That was especially (and uncharacteristically) true of sophomore guard Hannah Hidalgo, a National Player of the Year candidate who looked like anything but that against Florida State. She shot 4 of 18 from the field and only had 1 assist. She wasn’t making her own shots and she wasn’t setting up any for anyone else. That’s a recipe for disaster when she’s supposed to be the best player on the court night in, night out.
The only player in the country Hidalgo does not have beat in points per game was wearing the opposite jersey Thursday night, and Florida State’s Ta’Niya Latson didn’t have her shooting touch either. She started the game 1 of 9 from the floor bur eventually got to 7 of 20 and finished with 23 points. Hidalgo had 16. Latson also had 9 assists … all on a bum ankle. She hadn’t played since Feb. 13.
Hidalgo’s game was a mere microcosm for everything that went wrong for Notre Dame against the Seminoles. She wasn’t the only one who played poorly. The Irish missed 15 layups and only made 11. They failed to get anyone other than Hidalgo, graduate senior forward Liatu King and senior guard Sonia Citron involved offensively. Those three players shot the ball a combined 47 times. Every other Irish player combined for 20 shot attempts. Graduate senior forward Maddy Westbeld, for instance, only had 4 chances to put a shot up.
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Defensively, it all went downhill for the home team in the second quarter. Notre Dame scored the first six points of the frame, built a 15-point lead and forced Florida State to call a quick timeout. Whatever head coach Brooke Wyckoff said in the beyond necessary breakup of the flow of the game, which was all Fighting Irish at that point, pushed the right buttons. Because from there, it was all Noles.
FSU went on a 21-3 run to take control of the game. The Irish were floundering on defense, always a step behind their hungrier counterparts who possessed newfound rhyme and reason. Heck, it looked like they were possessed.
Notre Dame battled back and even took a third-quarter lead, but it always felt like Florida State would have a few more pointed pushes toward the finish line in them than the Irish. And that rang true when Notre Dame pulled to within two points after trailing by 10 to begin the fourth quarter. FSU made it 12 for good measure with two and a half minutes left.
Now Notre Dame is doing what one of the most famous musical lines from one of the most famous Fighting Irish super fans’ songs says — “living on a prayer” to win the ACC.
