We need to talk about the elephant in the room. A 5-foot-6 elephant with a baby doll face and a rabid need for basketball. One who wears hoops in her ears and makes hoops on the court. One who plays with a Magic Johnson-like joy and has an unlimited arsenal of celebrations. One who had 29 points, 10 rebounds and eight assists in No. 8 Notre Dame’s 79-68 upset win over No. 2 UConn on Thursday.
If there were doubts before, there are none now. Hannah Hidalgo is the best player in the country.
Lots of people know her name, but almost no one includes her in conversations involving Paige Bueckers and JuJu Watkins. Now Hidalgo, a sophomore, has forced her way in. She’s been great throughout her career and all season long, but given the stage and the competition, Thursday’s performance was her strongest and clearest argument yet.
“Hannah was fantastic,” Notre Dame coach Niele Ivey said. “She plays with her heart. In the first half, her threes got us going, but just the way she scores really ignites us.”
When Ivey started recruiting for the class of 2023, she was immediately drawn to Hidalgo. Ivey wanted another point guard to complement Olivia Miles and from the first time she watched her play, she believed Hidalgo was the one. Hidalgo was different, Ivey said then. She said it again after Thursday’s virtuoso performance.
“She always plays with a chip on her shoulder,” Ivey said. “She always wears her heart on her sleeve. She has that passion, that energy and the love and joy for the game. She’s a big-time, big-stage player. She’s just different.”
This is the first time in series history that UConn has lost three games in a row to Notre Dame. It’s no coincidence that two of those contests have occurred when Hidalgo was leading the Irish.
“She attacks everything she does,” UConn coach Geno Auriemma said. “The way she attacks your defense and then when she’s on defense she attacks your offense, the way that she leads her team in so many different ways, I think you put all of those three things together and it’s just a really, really, really difficult matchup.”
Hidalgo more than embraces the big moments — she swallows them whole. When Notre Dame forced overtime against Texas last week, every player was marked with the same serious expression as they walked out for the jump ball. But Hidalgo looked gleeful. She wore an open-mouth smile, with her wild eyes darting around the arena, almost as though she knew what would happen next. Notre Dame came away with an 80-70 victory and Hidalgo led the way with 30 points.
She had the same energy against UConn. Hidalgo missed her first four shots, but she has a short memory–unless of course, she’s making shots. Hidalgo made her first basket with 1:39 left in the first quarter and her second just 20 seconds later. After that, she never cooled down. With every make, Hidalgo cycled through her celebrations. Following her third made three, Hidalgo counted them up on her hands. Sometimes she put goggles to her eyes, or hit one of her signatures, stomping, flexing and screaming into the Purcell Pavilion.
Women’s College Basketball Top 25 Rankings
Eden Laase’s rankings for Week 11. Ohio State slides and three new teams move in.
Women’s Basketball Stock Report: Sarah Strong Is Rising, Who Is Falling?
The top recruit in this year’s freshman class has shined for Geno Auriemma’s Huskies this season“I know I’m that energy piece for my team, so I try to bring it not only every game, but every practice,” Hidalgo said. “My teammates feed off of that so I’m trying to consistently bring that energy.”
Like at the end of the third quarter, when UConn had closed the gap to just one point and Hidalgo stepped back to hit a buzzer-beating three-pointer. Teammate Crassandre Proser threw a triumphant fist in the air, holding it as she walked toward a bench filled with excited players. The crowd erupted and Hidalgo looked at Arike Ogunbowale, the former Notre Dame All-American and national champion who’s now in the WNBA, sitting courtside. “I remember she hit a big shot against UConn, so when I made that three I looked over like, ‘Yo, we in it too,’ ” Hidalgo said.
Ogunbowale’s shot was the biggest shot in Notre Dame history, but that’s the way Hidalgo sees herself — as one of the best. No matter who the competition might be.
In the postgame press conference, Kylee Watson, a Notre Dame forward who is out with an injury, jokingly asked Ivey a question: “When you were in your prime, who would win in one-on-one, you or Hannah?”
“Of course I’m going to say me,” Ivey said looking at Hidalgo. “I’m confident, just like you.” Then, taking the cue, Hidalgo responded. “I would be all over Coach Ivey,” she said. “She would not get no buckets.” Hidalgo was smiling, but it was clear she meant it.
The unbridled joy, the sky-high confidence and the inability to feel pressure are just a few of the intangibles that make Hidalgo great, but that’s far from the end of the list. “Her talent is obvious,” Auriemma said. “Even if you’re not a basketball person you can tell that the talent level that she has is pretty unique.” Hidalgo oozes star power. She is undersized, but it never seems to matter. She’s one of the few players in the country whose offense is as good as her defense. She’s third in the NCAA in scoring at 24.6 points per game and second in steals with 4.11. Against UConn, Fighting Irish greats Skylar Diggins-Smith, Ogunbowale, Marina Mabrey and Jewell Loyd were all in attendance, each of them standing to cheer when Hidalgo made a big play – and there were plenty of them. Before the game against UConn, Hidalgo was honored for being the fastest player in Notre Dame history to reach 1,000 points, doing it in 44 games.
A 5-foot-6 grinning guard who loves defense more than offense is not the prototypical best player in the country. And while Bueckers and Watkins have their own elite skill sets, no one is doing the things Hidalgo is doing. She has it all — the personality, the gaudy stats, the offense, the defense and the eye-catching style of play. That’s what makes her different.
