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Notre Dame took home its first ACC Tournament title since 2019, and its sixth since joining the league in 2013. The fourth-seeded Fighting Irish defeated the second-seeded NC State Wolfpack in the title game 55-51, behind 22 points from freshman and Tournament MVP Hannah Hidalgo. Teammates Maddy Westbeld and Sonia Citron added 16 points and 11 points, respectively, en route to the All-Tournament First Team.
Hidalgo averaged 19.3 points per game over Notre Dame’s three contests and put up identical six-rebound, six-assist and two-steal stat lines in all three contests.
Which Players Stood Out?
Citron and Westbeld provided the experience to balance out the fact that this was Hidalgo’s first tournament rodeo, although Hidalgo has certainly not played or acted like a freshman at any point this season. The Fighting Irish showed poise and composure throughout the tournament, attributes they’ve had to display all season due to their number of injuries and different lineups.
“I would say even as a freshman we were kind of thrown into the fire, so we've been in situations like this a lot,” Citron said. So I think [the composure] just comes from doing it. I'm a junior; Maddy is a senior now. We've played a good bunch of games.”
The All-Tournament First Team was an all-championship participant affair, as NC State’s Aziaha James and Saniya Rivers rounded it out. James led the Wolfpack in scoring in two of their three games, plus averaged 7.3 rebounds and 5.7 assists per contest. Rivers didn’t put up stat lines quite as impressive, but she was the spark for the Wolfpack when they needed one.
The All-Tournament Second Team only had one representative from the title game, NC State’s River Baldwin.The graduate center dominated Notre Dame in the third quarter of the title game, putting up 12 of NC State’s 22 second-half points and getting the Wolfpack back in the game after their poor second-quarter performance.
The four remaining players on the All-Tournament Second Team represented three schools, with Florida State placing both Makayla Timpson and Ta'Niya Latson on the squad. Before running out of energy against Baldwin’s Wolfpack due to playing three games in three days, the sixth-seeded Seminoles took down Wake Forest and then upset third-seeded Syracuse in a game Latson stated the night before FSU would win. In the effort against the Orange, Latson put up 25 points on 55.6% shooting while Timpson added 10 points and 18 rebounds, more than half as many as Syracuse grabbed as a team, and good for her 17th double-double of the season and extending her single-season program record for double-doubles. Timpson led the tournament in rebounds, averaging 13.3 per game.
Virginia Tech’s Georgia Amoore also made the All-Tournament Second Team after putting in a yeoman’s effort in both of the Hokies’ games without her running mate Liz Kitley. Amoore averaged 25.5 points over the two contests. In the win against Miami, Amoore was one of only two Hokies to score in double figures, finishing with 27 points and the final 12 Virginia Tech points of the contest. In their loss to Notre Dame, it was a similar situation, at least in terms of Amoore nearly doing everything herself. She again was only one of two Virginia Tech players to score in double figures and scored 45% of the Hokies’ points.
Rounding out the All-Tournament Second Team was Georgia Tech’s Tonie Morgan, one of two players who lost on the second day of the tournament (certainly not something you see every time around) I thought had a good argument to be on an All-Tournament team, along with Boston College’s Dontavia Waggoner. Morgan put up a stellar stat line average of 21.5 points, 9.5 rebounds, six assists, 1.5 steals and a 1.2 assist-to-turnover ratio.
Looking ahead
So, what’s next? The conference teams have a week to get some much-needed rest before Sunday’s NCAA Tournament Selection Show. Her Hoop Stats bracketologist Megan Gauer projects the ACC will get nine teams in, the most of any conference: Duke, Florida State, Louisville, Miami, NC State, North Carolina, Notre Dame, Syracuse and Virginia Tech. Of those, the team the closest to the bubble going into the tournament was Miami, who, in my and Megan’s opinion, took a flying leap squarely onto the right side of it, probably also cementing a bye past the play-in round.
Of those nine, a third are expected to get hosting slots: Notre Dame, NC State and Virginia Tech, although the Hokies’ spot in the top 16 may be slightly less certain if more news comes out about Kitley’s injury. Hokies’ coach Kenny Brooks was understandably both noncommittal about his star’s status and protective of her privacy. I thought going into this week that Syracuse had a shot to play its way up from the five-seed line to a four, but Orange’s loss to Florida State obviously dashed that hope.
Now, if you need (or want) a full recap of what went down over the past five days, I’ve got you covered there too:
Day 1
One game, one upset, as 13-seed Boston College defeated 12-seed Clemson by 13, 85-72. T’yana Todd set a new career-high for the Eagles with 24 points, including a blistering 83.3% from beyond the arc. Fellow sophomore Teya Sidberry finished with 20 points and 10 rebounds to aid the upset effort, including a solo 7-2 run when the Tigers got the margin back within four midway through the fourth. It also started a theme seen a bunch over the first couple days of the tournament – teams getting revenge for regular-season losses, as the Tigers had defeated the Eagles by 10 in the regular season.
In the next game, Pitt fell to Georgia Tech for the second time this season, but this game was much closer than the first one. In the regular season meeting, the Yellow Jackets led for the entire game. In this one, there were 17 lead changes and six ties, and the margin never got into double figures until the Panthers got into “have to foul” territory at the end of the game. The Yellow Jackets closed out the game on a 7-2 run with all seven Georgia Tech points coming from the charity stripe. Pitt head coach Tory Verdi expressed his frustration with his team’s effort in its last regular season game in a since-deleted tweet, but repeatedly indicated he was much happier with his team’s effort in this game in postgame media. As for the Yellow Jackets, head coach Nell Fortner, who picked up her 250th career win as a head coach with the victory, said that her team’s start was a bit “shaky,” but they were able to “settle in.”
The last game of Day 1 saw another upset, as 14-seed Wake Forest took down 11-seed Virginia. The Cavaliers were a popular underdog pick for the tournament, but it was not to be. The Demon Deacons seem to be Virginia’s ACC Tournament kryptonite, as it is the third season in a row they’ve taken down the Cavaliers in Greensboro. Wake Forest was down 11 after three quarters, but went on a 20-1 run to flip the script and get the win. Prior to the fourth, Wake Forest did not score more than 14 in a quarter, but outscored Virginia 23-9 in the final frame. Even with its offensive output in the fourth, it was Wake Forest’s defense that head coach Megan Gebbia was happiest with postgame.
“It was a bad third quarter, we've got to put it behind us,” Gebbia said. “Now it's on to the fourth, and this has to be our quarter. And it was, especially on the defensive end. I know we had to score, too, but we locked down in the fourth quarter.”
Day 2
Round 2 started with Louisville’s first game of the tournament, a rematch against a Boston College team they’d whomped by 28 at home in late January, then barely escaped by two in Chestnut Hill a few weeks later. The series tiebreaker in Greensboro resembled the second game, finishing with a three-point margin. In fact, Louisville needed a 6-0 run in both games to take the lead for good, and the tournament edition of the matchup featured 10 ties and seven lead changes. As you might expect from a game in which his Cardinals were favored by 13.5, Louisville coach Jeff Walz was less than thrilled with the way his team played overall.
“We were very sloppy at the offensive end, very stagnant at times, didn't look to attack when the opportunities were there, and then when we did, we just didn't make the right play,” Walz said.
The one player he was pleased with was Olivia Cochran, who had the job of matching up with with Dontavia Waggoner, whom Boston College coach Joanna Bernabei-McNamee calls “the spark that ignites us on the defensive end.” Waggoner wasn’t the Eagles’ high-scorer in this game, but still had a complete effort, scoring 12 points while pulling down seven rebounds (six of those on the offensive side), swatting two blocks and grabbing six steals. Those offensive rebounds and steals in particular were key to the Eagles staying in the game, as BC outscored Louisville 31-28 between the second-chance points and points off turnovers.
The next game was the No. 8 vs. No. 9 game between North Carolina and Miami, teams who finished their non-NCAA Tournament seasons with identical 19-12 records As for the game itself, Tar Heels’ coach Courtney Banghart did a pretty good job succinctly summarizing why her team lost.
“I thought we did a good job with their initial attack, but couldn't get their second attack,” Banghart said. “And then [we] couldn't make enough plays offensively. Couldn't make enough shots, couldn't make our teammates better when we didn't make our shots.”
Her Tar Heels led for 33:36 of the contest, and Miami trailed by as many as 14 points. However, the Hurricanes never lost faith, as they’d seen this film before. In the teams’ meeting during the conference regular season, Miami was down as many as 19 in the contest and 13 to start the fourth quarter before getting the game within one with under a minute to play. And while that game was back on Jan. 25, Miami coach Katie Meier said her team “watched a good portion of that comeback while they were eating dinner [last night].” This time, though, the Hurricanes completed the comeback. Miami’s Lazaria Spearman, who scored the baskets to tie the game and take the lead back from the Tar Heels, reminded her team all they had to do was “get three stops and we're out.” And they did, coming away with a thrilling 60-59 win.
While the two early games had a total margin of four, both late games were double-digit victories. Even so, the third game was another example of a tournament game being much closer than the regular season iteration. Duke beat Georgia Tech by 38 in Durham in January. The margin on Thursday was less than a third of that, as the Blue Devils prevailed 70-58 behind four players in double figures. As a team, Duke shot 50.8% from the floor. Overall a pretty solid effort considering the Blue Devils’ youth.
“It was the first postseason game for a lot of my players, and I thought the freshmen reacted well,” Blue Devils coach Kara Lawson observed after the game. “I thought they came in and gave us a good lift.”
First-years Jadyn Donovan and Oluchi Okananwa combined for 25 points, 12 rebounds, six assists and four steals.
The final game of the night saw Wake Forest fall to Florida State for the third time this season. It marked Ta’Niya Latson’s first appearance in the postseason, as she was injured prior to the tournament last year. That meant she wasn’t a part of the Demon Deacons’ 20-point comeback against the Seminoles in the second round of last year’s tournament. This year, Brooke Wyckoff’s team left no doubt, leading by double digits from the 8:57 mark of the second quarter onward. Makayla Timpson’s 22-point, 13-rebound effort also broke the Seminoles’ single-season double-double record.
Quarterfinals
In the season series decider, after Louisville and Notre Dame each won on their home floors in the past month, the Fighting Irish came out on top, never trailing and holding Louisville to 58 total points, tying the Cardinals’ lowest scoring output of the season. Jayda Curry was arguably the sole bright spot for the Cardinals, putting up a season-best 26 points, including 15 in the final quarter when Louisville got the margin within single digits after trailing by as many as 22. As for her squad withstanding that Louisville run, Notre Dame head coach Niele Ivey said the big thing for her squad was just staying composed: “One of my time-outs that's all I put on the board, is poise.”
Next up was regular-season champion and top-seeded Virginia Tech’s first game of the tournament, a 55-47 win over nine-seed Miami. The bad news for the Hokies was that it came with a glaring hole in their lineup, as three-time ACC Player of the Year Liz Kitley was ruled out for at least the ACC Tournament after injuring her knee in the regular-season finale against Virginia. The good news is that the Hokies still had Georgia Amoore, who put up 27 to lead her team to victory. Postgame, head coach Kenny Brooks noted that while parts of the game were ugly his team did show the resiliency it needed in March.
The next quarterfinal was yet another rubber match in a season series in which each team had won on its home floor. NC State took the win over Duke, 54-51. Wolfpack coach Wes Moore had a similar comment to Brooks in how his team won, also noting that it was ugly at times but his team “found a way to get it done.”. As you might expect from the conference’s best defense, the Blue Devils held the Wolfpack a full 20 points below their season scoring average, but it was NC State’s defensive effort in the second half that closed the game out, only allowing Duke six made field goals after halftime.
The final game of the day was the only upset of the quarterfinals, as sixth-seeded Florida State avenged its regular season loss to third-seeded Syracuse. It was clear from the night before that the Seminoles had revenge on their minds after the Orange came back from an 18-point deficit in the regular season to pick up the win at home at the JMA Wireless Dome. In fact, sophomore Ta’Niya Latson stated unequivocally in FSU’s postgame press conference after their Wake Forest win: “We're going to win tomorrow.” And they did, 78-65, never trailing in the process. Latson and O’Mariah Gordon combined for 49 points, and Gordon’s 24 points were a new career-high. Postgame, Wyckoff said that her team’s game plan “was very personnel-based,” unsurprisingly centering around Orange star Dyaisha Fair, who put up 23 points
“We were trying to keep [Fair] off the 3-point line,” Wyckoff said. “We just told our players we're going to stay up on her, crowd her, make her into a driver. If you get beat, that's okay, we'll bring help and make her take a contested 2-pointer. That was the goal.”
Semifinals
Virginia Tech has had two stars you have to circle all season, and playing without one of them proved too much two days in a row, as the Hokies fell to Notre Dame 82-53. In addition to missing Kitley, Amoore noted; “We just didn't play well. We did stupid stuff.” Behind Amoore, only Olivia Summiel scored in double figures for the Hokies, with their third-leading scorer in the game, Cayla King, putting up six. For Notre Dame, it was a complete team effort, as four Fighting Irish players scored 14 or more points, and two more put up eight. The Irish bested their ACC-leading 45.6% field-goal percentage by three percentage points against the Hokies. The spot of bad news for Notre Dame was the injury in the third quarter to Kylee Watson, whose knee gave out while playing defense. With the injury and an already short bench, Notre Dame coach Niele Ivey and her squad had to quickly adapt.
“I'm going to adjust and pivot to the situation and scenario, so we'll just see tomorrow, see who our opponent is, and I'll adjust from there,” Ivey said.
Both semifinals, somewhat unusually, ended up being blowouts. Both the Fighting Irish and Hokies were only on their second games of the tournament, but Florida State, which faced NC State in the second semifinal, was on its third in three days. And it showed. Especially after the Seminoles clearly got hyped up for the game against Syracuse, it looked like they just ran out of energy Friday, as shots that were falling against the Orange bounced off the rim against the Wolfpack. Of course, NC State deserves credit too. After the two teams played to overtime in Raleigh earlier in the season, the Wolfpack clearly took notes from that game and applied them to the rematch.
“Last time we played them, River [Baldwin] had 21 points in three quarters before she hurt her ankle,” NC State coach Wes Moore said. “We felt that. We felt Mimi [Collins] had an opportunity to really do some damage there inside, as well. Definitely was an emphasis. We wanted to get some post touches.”
Championship:
It was NC State vs. Notre Dame for the title. Both teams started off hot out of the gate, but the second half of the first quarter was one of the uglier offensive displays of the tournament, with both teams combining to go 2-for-17 over the final four minutes and change of the first period. The Fighting Irish held the Wolfpack to just seven points in the second period, giving them a six-point halftime lead.
Coming out of the locker room, it was obvious that NC State had discussed getting the ball into the post to River Baldwin, especially with Watson sidelined, and it worked. Baldwin put up 10 points on 80% shooting in the third quarter. As a team, the Wolfpack combined to shoot 50.7% from the field in the third, the best performance by either team in any quarter.
Even with that effort, the Wolfpack went into the fourth up just two. The Wolfpack struggled offensively in the fourth quarter, getting outscored 14-8 in the final frame. Hidalgo had five of the six final Fighting Irish points. With the extraordinary level of poise she’s shown all season, the point guard explained how she and and her team were able to close out the victory.
“We noticed the ball screen was working, so we kind of cleared out and spaced out and just put Baldwin in a ball screen, and if they collapsed, the kick out for the shooter was open, and if not, then it was a one-on-one for the drive,” Hidalgo said. ”It worked, and so I made a move on her and was able to get all the way to the basket.”
In addition to some of the best offensive execution of the afternoon, Notre Dame closed out the game on a 12-2 run and only allowed NC State two points in the final 6:44.
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