The Notre Dame Fighting Irish have been one of the bigger surprises in the NCAA Tournament. Star Hannah Hidalgo has been putting on an incredible performance throughout the tournament, including breaking the record for steals in a tournament run. She has been able to dominate, but the team faces its toughest test yet on Sunday against the UConn Huskies in the Elite 8. Let’s take a closer look at what Hidalgo said regarding this game and the team’s mindset.
Hannah Hidalgo says the Elite 8 game will be different for the Notre Dame Fighting Irish
There have been a lot of changes for Notre Dame this season, bringing some inexperience against their longtime rival, UConn. While speaking 24 hours before their Elite 8 game against the Huskies, Fighting Irish star Hannah Hidalgo mentioned how this is a different team than the one that played against UConn earlier this season.
“I feel like I can say that UConn hasn’t seen the best Notre Dame. I take joy in knowing that when they saw us the first time, it was not Notre Dame basketball. Now we’re playing Notre Dame basketball to the best of our ability, and so I think it’ll be a fun game.”
This is the second time these teams have matched up this year. They played back on Jan. 19 in Storrs, with the Huskies winning by 38 points. Hidalgo would be held to 16 points on 5-of-15 shooting. She would also mention on Saturday how some of her teammates may have been a bit overwhelmed and afraid of the stage.
“I think before when we played UConn, we played a little afraid… I think we were a little probably starstruck. Being in a stage like that was different. … it was a lot of people’s first time playing at UConn, against UConn. So now that we’ve seen it, we’ve been through it, I think it’ll help us a lot.”
UConn and Notre Dame will be playing in the Elite 8 on Sunday afternoon. They will play the winner of the Regional 4 section of the bracket (South Carolina, Oklahoma, TCU, Virginia). It will be intriguing to see if Hidalgo and the Fighting Irish can pull off one of the bigger upsets of the NCAA Tournament.
Sports Illustrated predicts Hannah Hidalgo to have historic performance in Elite 8
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