Don’t do it.
If you’re a director of basketball operations in charge of scheduling for a major Division I women’s basketball program that has a national ranking next to your name, here’s some advice when it comes to firming up a marquee home game for down the road.
If you see a call with a 574 area code flash on your phone, don’t answer it. Let it go to voice mail. Or stutter and stammer your way through the call with some lame excuse of how you’d really like to play that powerhouse program that calls that area code home, but you just don’t have space.
If you take the bait and bring a nationally ranked Notre Dame women’s basketball team to your building, maybe even put it on national television and/or primetime, you’re playing right into the Irish hands.
And, likely, playing your way into a loss.
On a Saturday that featured a matchup of two nationally ranked/undefeated teams, two teams with aspirations of racing through the regular season and getting to Tampa, the site of this year’s Final Four, No. 5 Notre Dame went and did it again.
Went to the home of a wanna-be-good program and dismantled it. Piece by piece until there was nothing left.
A year ago, Notre Dame traveled to nationally ranked Tennessee in late November and won. In January, it went out to Connecticut, home to its former Big East colleague/nemesis and won.
On Saturday, it escaped the permacloud that has settled over Northern Indiana for the sunshine and movie stars of Los Angeles and, yep, ran away with a 74-61 win. This time, it was No. 3 USC that fell into the trap of believing it had Notre Dame right where it wanted it.
“Overall, they were awesome,” head coach Niele Ivey said of her Irish.
They never gave the Trojans a chance. Watching Notre Dame on TV was like watching it work back at Rolfs Hall. It moved and cut and shot it and defended as it pleased. That practice squad may have given the Irish more of a challenge during the week than the Trojans did on the weekend.
Notre Dame simply didn’t win Saturday as much as it went into a revved-up Galen Center and silenced it. Shhhhhh. Owned it and owned the previously undefeated team that calls that arena home. It stared down the A and B and C list of celebrities – everyone from Snoop and his snazzy JuJu Watkins coat seated at center court to actor Jason Sudeikis to women’s basketball royalty Cheryl Miller and Candace Parker.
This one was billed as Watkins’ moment, so much so that NBC even ran a half-hour doc in the run-up/lead-in. Irish guards Hannah Hidalgo and Olivia Miles stole the show. Stole the spotlight from Watkins, who was relegated to a bit player in her own building.
The program from slow-paced Indiana had no trouble adjusting to life in the fast lane of Hollywood.
Notre Dame never trailed and led by as many as 21 points. It had the lead for an obscene 37:28 of a possible 40 minutes. It made it look easy.
“I think we’re one of the best teams in the country,” senior guard Sonia Citron said. “We proved that today.”
It proved it by putting the ball into the hands of Hidalgo and Miles and said, take us home. We’re riding all the way with you. Hidalgo responded in a Hildalgo way with 24 points, six rebounds and eight assists. Miles was right there step for step across those 94 feet, finishing with 20 points, eight rebounds and seven assists.
“I don’t want to take the game for granted,” Hidalgo said. “I’m just excited and blessed to play the game of basketball. It’s a privilege to do it at this high level. I’m just having fun.”
So much talk in the offseason and now early in the season has centered on both coasts — East and West. With Caitlyn Clark and Angel Reese having taken their games — and their rivalry — to the WNBA, who would take their place in women’s college basketball this season? How about Connecticut’s Paige Bueckers on the East Coast? How about Watkins on the West Coast?
How about splitting those spotlights to also include the two guards from the flyover country that is Northern Indiana? Ignore what both can do — what both have done — and you do the game a disservice. Hidalgo and Miles deserve equal top billing. They deserve lead-in docs before nationally televised games. They deserve every accolade and article written about them moving forward.
We saw that Watkins is an elite talent, even though she had as many eye rolls early in the first half as baskets (two). She didn’t necessarily make her teammates better or carry the Trojans through trouble.
When Watkins laid her head on the pillow Saturday night, she probably saw Citron in her dreams. Her nightmares. Citron was everywhere Watkins wanted to go. Defending her. Guarding her. Swatting her. Watkins never got going because Citron wouldn’t have it.
“We set the tone,” Ivey said, “with our defensive intensity.”
A showdown with fourth-ranked Texas back in South Bend lurks early next month. So does another chapter in the rivalry with No. 2 Connecticut. It looks like it might be No. 1 South Carolina and everybody else moving forward but be sure to put Notre Dame near the front of that everybody else line.
Notre Dame wasn’t at its best and isn’t anywhere close to it with so many key contributors in their designer clothes camped toward the end of the bench. The Irish best, though, was better than the Trojans, and good enough on Saturday.
Is it good enough to get them through the winter and deep into March and April and back to Tampa for a shot at a natty? After what we saw Saturday, don’t do what NBC did in the run-up to this one.
Don’t sell them short.
Follow South Bend Tribune and NDInsider columnist Tom Noie on X (formerly Twitter): @tnoieNDI. Contact Noie at tnoie@sbtinfo.com
