NCAA Tournament win secured, Notre Dame women’s basketball can play loose against Oklahoma

You know that old saying, “Act like you’ve been here before”? Two days ago, all but two Notre Dame players couldn’t. Seventy-five percent of the Fighting Irish’s available scholarship players had never participated in an NCAA Tournament game.

Now, 100% have. And they know what it feels like and what it takes to earn a hard-fought victory, too.

Saturday’s 89-78 win over UMass was a milestone on many levels. It was Niele Ivey’s first tournament victory as a head coach. Point guard Olivia Miles became the first freshman in NCAA Tournament history — men’s or women’s — to register a triple-double. No. 5 seed Notre Dame (23-8) won a March Madness game for the first time since 2019.

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But most importantly, this group of girls — the one that will take on No. 4 seed Oklahoma (25-8) at the Lloyd Noble Center in Norman, Okla., Monday at 6 p.m. ET (ESPN2) with a trip to the Sweet 16 on the line — felt the rush of everything that comes with a do-or-die game this time of year.

“It was a great benchmark for us,” sophomore forward Maddy Westbeld said. “Starting out a game like that, we started out 10-2, was just a great confidence booster. We needed that. We’ve been slow to come out the last couple of games. So that was great for us. And I think going forward we’re just going to keep the momentum going.”

“We learned runs are going to happen and it’s important to know how to deal with them, how to stay calm under pressure and how to just keep playing our game no matter what happens,” freshman guard Sonia Citron said.

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Westbeld led Notre Dame with 19 points. Citron did not score in the first three quarters but erupted for nine in the fourth. They were two key figures in the Irish victory. Westbeld helped the Irish get out to a strong start, and Citron helped put the clamps down in crunch time. Both were huge for future confidence.

Of course, the blue and gold are going to need it Monday. Notre Dame plays the country’s No. 3 scoring offense in its own building. Sight lines are going to be familiar for the Sooners. Friends and family in the building wearing Crimson are going to be familiar too.

The unique thing about the NCAA Tournament on the women’s side is that true road games occur in the first and second rounds. Notre Dame went 7-5 in them during the regular season. The Irish were so close to securing a top-four tournament seed. This game would have been played at Purcell Pavilion, a place Notre Dame notched a 13-1 record, if they did.

That’s all hindsight. If the Irish are to survive and advance, it’s going to have to happen in a hostile environment.

“It’s a huge challenge,” Ivey said. “I felt like their crowd was really engaged [Saturday], a lot of energy. And they fed off that, especially in transition. Every basket, you can feel the energy rising. So we have to play our style of basketball but have to just try to drown out the noise and just make sure that we’re locked in.”

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Notre Dame has not played in another school’s arena in an NCAA Tournament game since knocking off Iowa in 2013’s run to the Final Four. Games like those — and national titles in 2001 and 2018 — helped build the Irish brand. This team has worked to restore it.

Oklahoma head coach Jennie Baranczyk has worked to restore what made Oklahoma a prominent power in the game in the 2000s as well. The Sooners made three Final Four appearances and finished as the national runner-up in 2002 but have not advanced to the Sweet 16 since 2013. To snap that streak, they’re going to have to beat one of the premier brands in the sport.

Baranczyk asked her players if facing Notre Dame means much to them. She said most of them associate this Irish team with Miles’ point guard play. Any associations of prestige past that don’t really matter much anyway. Notre Dame has to play well in front of a raucous crowd. Oklahoma has to try to defend home court.

Both teams have experience in those respective tasks. Game on.

“You always go in with really high regard and high respect, but you’ve still got to compete and you’ve still got to show up,” Baranczyk said. “So that’s really mostly where our focus is.”