The Notre Dame women’s basketball team has received yet another blow ahead of next week’s NCAA Tournament as they fight to save their season.
Niele Ivey’s team was announced as the No. 1 team in the country just one month ago as they cruised towards the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) title, putting together a remarkable 19-game winning streak that left them on course to finish in top spot. However, back-to-back defeats ahead of their final game of the season had a dramatic impact.
While Notre Dame’s final game of the regular season ended in a convincing 72–59 victory over Louisville, it wasn’t enough to see them finish above NC State in the Conference standings. Then came the ACC’s postseason tournament, where the Fighting Irish entered as defending champions.
Having finished second in the regular season standings, Notre Dame was afforded a bye to the quarter-finals. There, the team defeated California 73-64, but hopes of winning back-to-back tournaments would end the following day at the hands of eventual winners Duke in the final four.
It represented a third defeat in five games for Ivey and her players, who have fallen from the No. 1 spot to No. 8 in the space of a month. Notre Dame initially dropped two places to No. 3 following the Feb 23 defeat to NC State, before tumbling another three spots to No. 6 after going 1-1 to end the regular season.
Now, as a result of an upset to then-No. 11 Duke in the semifinals of the ACC Tournament, the Fighting Irish now sit in eighth-place in the AP rankings ahead of the NCAA Tournament, where it is set to learn its seeding fate for the post-season competition on Sunday night.
It could become disastrous for Ivey and co. depending on where they place in the rankings and what that means for their entry point in next week’s tournament. Notre Dame has already missed out on automatic qualification after failing to win its respective conference tournament.
While the Irish are still a probable first- and second-round host in the NCAA Tournament, which is applicable to the top 16 seeds, they will still undoubtedly have a trickier route to the final – where they will be hoping to secure just their third national title, and first since 2018, to at least have something to show for all their hard work this season.
Following Saturday’s ACC semifinal defeat to Duke, Ivey took full responsibility for the result, yet was confident her side could bounce back. “I feel like we played below our standard. So that’s frustrating,” she told On3. “We’ve got to get better, and that’s on me, I need to make this team get better, and that’s something when we get back on this court, we will be better for this loss.”
- Source: NEWHD MEDIA
