Hannah Hidalgo ties Notre Dame record with sixth ACC Rookie of the Week award
Hannah Hidalgo joined elite Notre Dame women’s basketball company on Tuesday in becoming the fifth player in program history to win ACC Rookie of the Week six times. The freshman guard is one more ACC Rookie of the Week win away from being in a league of her own.
And she’s got plenty of time to do it.
Conference play just started this week and although the Irish began the league slate with an 86-81 loss at Syracuse, Hidalgo was magnificent with 32 points, 7 steals, 6 assists and 5 rebounds. She’s averaging 24.5 points, 6.3 rebounds, 6.2 assists and 6.1 steals per game for the No. 16 Irish (9-2).
Hidalgo joins Jacqueline Batteast, Sonia Citron, Alicia Ratay and Brianna Turner as Notre Dame products with six rookie of the week wins. Batteast and Ratay earned their honors in the Big East. Citron and Turner won theirs in the ACC like Hidalgo.
Hidalgo has scored 30-plus points twice, which also tied a program record for a freshman. Her name is now next to Shari Matvey (1980) in that regard. Michelle Marciniak has the Irish record for single-game points by a freshman with 33 in 1991.
Hidalgo leads the ACC in scoring and ranks third in the country behind Iowa’s Caitlin Clark (30.9) and USC’s JuJu Watkins (26.8). Nobody in the country has more steals than Hidalgo. She’s already got 67. The Notre Dame freshman record is 90 by Skylar Diggins.
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After two double-digit-day breaks between games in December, the grind of conference play is here for Notre Dame. The Irish are on the road at Pitt on Wednesday before a string of three home games in a row vs. North Carolina on Jan. 7, Boston College on Jan. 11 and Miami on Jan. 14.
Hidalgo is going to need to be her usual self in those games if the Irish have any chance of piecing together wins and staying in the conference race. Junior guards Olivia Miles and Sonia Citron remain sidelined with knee injuries indefinitely.
The Irish have also been playing without key depth pieces in sophomore combo guard Cass Prosper and freshman sharpshooter Emma Risch. Prosper has had a boot on her right leg for a few weeks now. Risch has been dealing with hip soreness since last month as well.
Tipoff for tomorrow’s game against the Panthers is set for 6 p.m. ET on the ACC Network.
