Olivia Miles, Niele Ivey meet milestones in Notre Dame women’s basketball win vs. Virginia
It was a good day to be Notre Dame women’s basketball. The Fighting Irish kicked off the stretch run of conference play with a 95-54 victory over Virginia. The No. 3 team in the country has improved to 11-2 this season and still has not lost on American soil.
It was an even better day to be Olivia Miles and Niele Ivey.
The former, Notre Dame’s senior point guard, became the third player in program history to reach 1,000 points, 500 assists and 500 rebounds. She had a triple-double for the second game in a row with 14 assists, 11 points and 10 rebounds.
Miles, just 13 games into her comeback from a significant knee injury that required surgery and kept her out for the entirety of the 2023-24 season, has six triple-doubles in her career, three of which have come this season.
Miles is tied for the seventh-most triple-doubles in NCAA basketball history — men or women. Only six players — BYU’s Kyle Collinsworth (12) on the men’s side, Oregon’s Sabrina Ionescu (26), Iowa’s Caitlin Clark (17), Lamar’s Chastadie Barrs (9), Penne State’s Suzie McConnell (7) and Saint Mary’s Louella Tomlinson (7) on the women’s side — have more career triple-doubles than Miles.
Ivey, meanwhile, became the fastest head coach in Notre Dame and ACC history to get to 100 career wins. That’s quite a feat considering she’s the successor to a mentor in Muffet McGraw who piled up 848 wins and two national championships. Ivey is well on her way to comparable accolades if she stays the course in South Bend. She’s recruited quite a roster.
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In addition to Miles’s mastery, senior guard Sonia Citron had 25 points and 11 rebounds vs. Virginia on Sunday. That’s after she sat out Notre Dame’s previous game for what Ivey called soreness. Freshman center Kate Koval sat out the previous game as well, and she returned to chip in with 12 points and 5 rebounds before fouling out in 24 minutes.
As has become customary, much of the show was stolen by sophomore guard Hannah Hidalgo. She scored 28 points, once again increasing her second-best scoring average in women’s college basketball. She’s sitting at 26.0 now.
Notre Dame put 11 players on the floor in its latest blowout victory. The Irish have a few days off for the new year before continuing ACC play against North Carolina in Chapel Hill. The Tar Heels were off to a 12-2 start to their season before taking on Miami later Sunday evening.
