No. 7 Notre Dame WBB comeback bid falls short at No. 20 NC State

Cassandre Prosper knew exactly how monumental her back-to-back three-pointers were in the fourth quarter at NC State on Sunday afternoon. The Notre Dame early enrollee true freshman was as animated as animated gets. So was her head coach, Niele Ivey, and the players on the Irish bench who had front-row seats to Prosper’s pair of corner-pocket bullseyes.

Prosper’s shots accounted for six of 11 consecutive points for the Fighting Irish on the heels of a stretch that cut a 16-point Wolfpack lead down to three with 4:36 left in the game. The Irish crawled within two points two minutes later, but that was as close as they got in a 69-65 loss to No. 20 NC State (16-5, 6-4 ACC). Prosper’s 11 points off the bench weren’t enough for No. 7 Notre Dame (17-3, 8-2).

“I thought Cass was phenomenal,” Ivey said. “She’s a huge spark off the bench today. She’s still growing and learning. I was really proud of her. We got some great bench minutes, and she was a huge bright spot for us.”

One of Prosper’s best games early in her college career was necessary for the Irish to even have a chance against a tough opponent in a hostile environment. Notre Dame was shorthanded playing without graduate student center Lauren Ebo, who was sidelined with a lower-body injury. Ebo recorded a double-double in her first start with the Irish last time out vs. Florida State. Ivey said there is not a timetable for Ebo’s return, but she described it as a “lingering” ailment and not one that was incurred in a recent practice.

“She just needed rest today,” Ivey said.

Freshman guard KK Bransford got the start in place of Ebo, and she was limited to 4 points on 2-of-6 shooting in 22 minutes of action. Prosper played a career-high 26 minutes with Ivey searching for any of her eight healthy scholarship players to produce.

Junior forward Maddy Westbeld understood the situation and subsequently attempted 21 shots, five more than her previous season-high. She had a team-high 19 points and 13 rebounds. Three of her eight made shots came from behind the three-point line with Notre Dame continuing to adjust to life without three-point specialist Dara Mabrey, who tore her ACL on Jan 22. The Irish scored just 9 points in the second quarter to mark the second time being held below 10 in a frame in the last two games. Opposing defenses have gone zone-heavy on the Irish since Mabrey went down, and it has worked in spurts.

“With Dara out, obviously they were going to pack it in, so the three was going to be open,” Westbeld said.

Notre Dame only shot 6-of-23 (26.1 percent) as a team from three-point range. Ivey said many of those misses ignited NC State’s offensive break.

Sophomore guard Sonia Citron had a rare off-night shooting the ball, making just 3-of-12 attempts from the floor and 1-of-6 from three. She tied Prosper with 11 points, two behind sophomore point guard Olivia Miles‘ 13. Notre Dame shot 38.2 percent as a team compared to 45 percent for NC State. The Irish won the battle of the boards 44-33, but NC State still nearly made the points in the paint a wash. The Irish led in that category, 32-30.

Without Ebo, NC State took it to Notre Dame around the basket. The Irish also couldn’t corral Wolfpack guard Diamond Johnson, who scored 20 points. Twelve of those came on four made three-pointers. The Notre Dame comeback could have started in earnest in the third quarter when Westbeld knocked down three-pointers on consecutive Irish possessions, but Johnson countered both of those with three-point connections of her own to maintain the home team’s double-digit advantage. Johnson also scored the final four points of the game for NC State, the same margin by which they won.

“Diamond Johnson just really took over,” Ivey said. “She was fantastic.”

Notre Dame could have made things interesting in the final minute when the Irish got the ball back with roughly 25 seconds left. They did not get a shot off quickly enough, however, and Ivey took a timeout with 7.9 seconds remaining. Prosper and Citron missed three-point shots from there, and the buzzer sounded.

“I thought the NC State defense was really tough,” Ivey said. “We were just trying to find different gaps with the things we were running. We had a couple specific plays we were looking at. I feel like they defended us well.”