Notre Dame women’s basketball reset: Olivia Miles, AP Poll, NCAA Tournament

Olivia Miles’ statement season hasn’t gone unnoticed.

Sunday, the Notre Dame freshman point guard was named to the All-ACC Tournament Second Team. Miles averaged 12 points, nine assists and four rebounds in a win over Georgia Tech and a loss to Miami. She did most of that damage in the quarterfinals against the Yellow Jackets, scoring 17 points and dishing out 13 assists. She needed one more of the latter to tie a career high.

Monday, Miles made the list of five finalists for the Nancy Liebermann Award. It is given annually to the best point guard in NCAA women’s college basketball. She joined Northwestern’s Veronica Burton, LSU’s Khayla Pointer, Iowa’s Caitlin Clark and South Carolina’s Destanni Henderson as finalists for the prestigious award, which was won in back-to-back years (2012-13) by Notre Dame’s Skylar Diggins.

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The only freshman to earn first-team All-ACC honors this season, Miles has averaged team highs in points (13.7) and assists (7.2) per game. The latter mark ranks second in the country behind Clark. Miles has also generated a team-best 1.9 steals per game and comes away with 5.5 rebounds per game despite playing the point.

Head coach Niele Ivey lumped Miles in a group with graduate student forward Maya Dodson and freshman combo guard Sonia Citron as first-year Notre Dame players who have revitalized the Fighting Irish women’s basketball brand.

“The addition of all three has completely transformed our program in such a short amount of time,” Ivey said. “It’s just a credit to their work ethic and them being incredible teammates and incredible players.”

2nd in the nation in assists per game with 7.2.

5th different Irish player in program history to dish out 200+ assists.

Well deserved honor for @oliviamiles06!#LiebermanAward #GoIrish ☘️ pic.twitter.com/RsjurcvhF2

— Notre Dame WBB (@ndwbb) March 7, 2022

Notre Dame slides in AP Poll for second straight week

Notre Dame (22-8) rose as high as No. 14 in the Associated Press Top 25 in February. After two demoralizing losses to Louisville and an upset loss to Miami in the ACC Tournament, the Irish came in ranked No. 22 in the latest poll — down two spots from last week’s ranking.

Still, it has been a solid season of rankings for Ivey’s group. Notre Dame started unranked and made its first appearance in the poll at No. 24 in Week 4. The Irish have not fallen out since. That’s a testament to a degree of consistency developed by a largely inexperienced team.

Notre Dame has not lost back-to-back games all season. All it will take for that to remain true from start to finish is one win in the NCAA Tournament. The ability to bounce back is something that will stick with the likes of Miles, Citron and others who are set to return in 2022-23.

Notre Dame in ESPN bracketology projections

With less than one week until selection Sunday, Notre Dame is still sitting on a No. 5 seed according to ESPN bracketology expert Charlie Creme. As Creme has it now, the Irish will travel to Norman, Okla., to play No. 12 seed Stephen F. Austin (26-4) in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. Should Notre Dame win, it would play the winner of No. 4 seed Oklahoma (23-7) and No. 13 seed Belmont (22-7). The winner of the second round game in Norman would head to Spokane, Wash., for a regional where Stanford is slotted as the No. 1 seed.

Every Power Five conference tournament has already taken place except for that of the Big 12, which runs from March 10-13. With only one major conference having yet to play its conference tourney, there shouldn’t be too much movement toward the top of Creme’s bracket. Notre Dame’s projected location could change between now and Sunday, but it seems the Irish’s chances of hosting games in South Bend as a No. 4 seed went down with the loss to the Hurricanes last Saturday.

Another Notre Dame bracketology projection

There are not nearly as many outlets that do NCAA Tournament bracketology breakdowns for women’s basketball as there are for men’s basketball. Creme has essentially monopolized the market at ESPN. However, there one other work noting.

RealTimeRPI.com has Notre Dame as a No. 6 seed facing No. 11 seed Middle Tennessee State (22-5) in Knoxville, Tenn. The winner would play No. 3 seed Tennessee (21-8) or No. 14 seed Stony Brook (23-5). The winner would move on to the Albany Regional, where projected No. 1 overall seed South Carolina is the top team in the region.

Ivey is focused on improvement between now and tournament time no matter who the Irish play.

“I’m definitely going to dissect how to fix the zone and work on our man-to-man and all our fundamentals offensively and defensively,” Ivey said. “It is a time to reset and lock in and focus on what’s coming up. You always try to find ways to learn through film and try to put the team in situations where we can grow in areas that we made mistakes [against Miami].”