What to know, how to watch Notre Dame women’s basketball vs. UConn

Here’s a piece of trivia that would be fun if not impossible to track down; how many coaches have a winning record against UConn’s Geno Auriemma? Can’t be too many. Notre Dame head coach Niele Ivey is one of them.

Ivey holds a mark of 2-1 against Auriemma and the Huskies. That’s humbling for someone on the younger side, in her fifth season as a head coach, to be able to say against the greatest of all time, in his 40th season in Storrs, Conn.

Ivey has gone against Auriemma as a player, assistant coach and now head coach.

“He’s always been super nice to me,” Ivey said. “I’m grateful for that. There’s a lot of respect, hopefully, on his end for me as well, playing as a player and as an assistant, being around him for so long. But I have the utmost respect for him. He’s the winningest coach in basketball right now, not just women’s basketball, which is a credit to how great of a coach he is.”

It’s a testament to Auriemma and Ivey’s recruiting and coaching that tonight’s matchup between their two teams is a top-10 meeting televised nationally in primetime. The more things and coaches change, the more they stay the same.

Here’s everything to know about Notre Dame and UConn.

Notre Dame women’s basketball vs. UConn game info

• Teams: No. 8 Notre Dame (7-2) and No. 2 UConn (8-0)
• Head coaches: Niele Ivey (96-34, fifth year at Notre Dame); Geno Auriemma (1,221-162, 40th year at UConn)
• All-time series: UConn leads 39-15, but the Irish have won the last two meetings.
• Date: Dec. 12, 2024
• Location: Purcell Pavilion (South Bend, Ind.)
• Time: 7 p.m. ET
• Television: ESPN
• TV broadcasters: Ryan Ruocco, Rebecca Lobo and Holly Rowe
• Radio: 96.1 FM WSBT in South Bend
• Radio broadcaster: Sean Stires and Karen Keyes

What to know about Notre Dame

• The Fighting Irish wiped away the frustration of consecutive losses at the Cayman Islands Classic with wins over No. 4 Texas and Syracuse. More and more, what happened in the two days over Thanksgiving is looking more and more like an anomaly.

• Still, this is an Irish team that will likely only put six players on the floor against the Huskies. Sophomore guard Emma Risch still hasn’t fully cracked the regular rotation, and graduate senior forwards Maddy Westbeld and Liza Karlen are still out with lower-leg injuries. They’ve yet to make their season debuts.

• The last time we saw Notre Dame sophomore guard Hannah Hidalgo play vs. the Huskies, she went for 34 points, 10 rebounds & 6 assists in an 82-67 win. Fighting Irish head coach Niele Ivey: “She’s a big-time player, so these moments are what she’s born for.”

• Notre Dame has rounded into its best form of the season with senior guard Sonia Citron finding her scoring touch. She’s averaging 21.7 points per game in her last three appearances, in addition to everything she does defensively. She’s going to draw the assignment of guarding UConn guard Paige Bueckers in the way she hounded USC’s Juju Watkins, which brings us to the Huskies…

What to know about UConn

• Bueckers, in her fifth collegiate season in a career that’s been hampered by injuries, is still the Huskies’ best player. She’s averaging 18.9 points, 5.5 rebounds, 4.8 assists and 2.3 steals per game on 56.3 percent shooting. She was only 5 of 17 shooting against Notre Dame last season, so she’s likely looking for some redemption.

• UConn is young in the post. The Huskies’ front court leaders are freshmen Sarah Strong and Jana El Alfy and sophomore Ice Brady. Strong, 6-2 and the nation’s No. 1 recruit in her class, has a tremendous stat line of 16.3 points, 7.6 rebounds, 3.6 assists, 2.5 steals and 1.5 blocks per game. It’ll like be a tag-team effort from Notre Dame 6-5 center Kate Koval and 6-0 graduate senior Liatu King to slow her down, but the Irish also have to account for El Alfy and Brady playing regular minutes.

• UConn has three ranked wins this season over North Carolina, Ole Miss and Louisville.

Quotable

Notre Dame head coach Niele Ivey
• “This is a rivalry. This is something that women’s basketball fans look forward to, the Notre Dame-UConn matchup. We get a chance to see them early, see where we’re at. Where they are right now? No. 2 in the country, playing really elite basketball. It’s a great opportunity for us.”

• “Excited to be home. I’ve heard it’s going to be a crazy, loud, sold-out crowd, and that’s what I’ve always dreamed of for this program. So we’re excited.”

• “It’s such a special rivalry. I try to express that to the team because sometimes you bring in grad transfers and freshmen who don’t understand the magnitude behind this kind of matchup. Not trying to make it too big but just understanding it’s something special.”

By the numbers

The team with the better average has a bolded number in each category.

Stat	Notre Dame	UConn
Scoring offense	85.8	80.4
Scoring margin	22.8	30.9
FG%	46.8	51.8
3FG%	38.2	34.7
3FG made/game	7.3	8.5
FT%	75.9	66.3
FT made/game	13.3	6.6
Rebounds	46.7	38.8
Rebound margin	9.9	9.1
Assists	16.7	22.3
Turnovers	16.2	11.0
Turnover margin	2.9	7.4
Assist/turnover ratio	1.0	2.0
Steals	12.6	10.6
Blocks	6.9	3.8