Hannah Hidalgo dazzles as Notre Dame rolls past Fairfield 79-60 in women’s March Madness
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Hannah Hidalgo had a dominant performance to show that she is still one of the best players in women’s basketball.
The Notre Dame junior had 23 points, nine rebounds, eight steals and six assists as the sixth-seeded Fighting Irish led the entire game en route to a 79-60 victory over 11th-seeded Fairfield on Saturday in the first round of the women’s NCAA Tournament.
Hidalgo was an AP first-team All-America selection her first two years, but was a second-team pick this season despite winning ACC player of the year for the second straight season.
When asked if she viewed the game as a statement or letting out frustration for not making the first team, Hidalgo said it wasn’t at all.
“I’m going to still go out and play the same way I’ve been playing. I’ve been playing consistently this whole season and since my freshman year,” she said. “Right now it’s about winning so I don’t care about any of the accolades. I didn’t care about ’em going into this year and I’m here to win.”
Hidalgo’s bigger aim is trying to get the Fighting Irish into the Sweet 16. They will face third-seeded Ohio State on Monday after the Buckeyes advanced with a 75-54 win over Howard.
Notre Dame has reached the tournament’s second weekend in each of their last 14 March Madness trips.
Hidalgo, the Division I leader in steals, had five in the first half, along with 13 points, seven rebounds and five assists as the Fighting Irish had a 36-24 lead at the break. All told, Hidalgo factored on all but 10 points in the first two quarters.
“I think her success and her stats speaks for itself. But again I think she’s one of the best players in the country,” coach Noelle Ivey said. “We’re trying to win, and she mentioned that, like that’s second to anything else. When you have somebody with that maturity, that can do what she does, it’s phenomenal.”
Iyana Moore scored 18 points and Cassandre Prosper had 17 points and eight rebounds as the Fighting Irish won for the 10th time in their last 12 games.
Notre Dame had a 36-24 advantage at halftime and put it out of reach with an 11-2 run to start the third. The Fighting Irish’s largest lead was 54-31 late in the third quarter.
“Our attempt was to try to kind of throw it up to somebody else so that we weren’t bringing the ball up in an open floor against her. But certainly she picked her moments and made us pay for it,” Fairfield coach Carly Thibault-DuDonis said of Hidalgo. “So when we were getting maybe a little bit of a defensive stop with some momentum to try to score in transition, she did a great job of halting that and we weren’t able to score with numbers. There’s not a lot of people out there like her, she’s very one-of-a-kind.”
Long-distance woes
The Stags led the nation in 3-pointers, making 11.4 per game, but were 9 of 29 beyond the arc, including 2 of 11 in the first half.
Meghan Anderson led Fairfield with 21 points and Jillian Huerter scored 12. Kaety L’Amoreaux — the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference player of the year — had 7 points.
“I don’t even think we attempted enough 3s. We’re at our best when we get a couple of ball reversals and a paint touch,” Thibault-DuDonis said. “I thought they did a really nice job of digging in early in a possession, and we didn’t get to a second action enough to get to that point in an offensive possession. So in a microcosm, going forward, we need to be a little bit more physically tougher, mentally focused, to be who we are when someone tries to take away what we’re good at.”
Up next
Notre Dame won its second national championship in Columbus in 2018 when it defeated Mississippi State in the title game of the Women’s Final Four. This will be only the second time in six meetings that they will face the Buckeyes on their home floor.
The Fighting Irish have a 4-1 series edge, including a 99-76 victory in a 2017 Sweet 16 matchup in Lexington, Kentucky.
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AP March Madness bracket: https://apnews.com/hub/ncaa-womens-bracket and coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness