Everything Notre Dame PG Hannah Hidalgo said at the espnW Summit NYC
Notre Dame point guard Hannah Hidalgo shared the stage at the espnW Summit in New York City on Thursday with UConn guard Azzi Fudd and South Carolina guard Tessa Johnson, a fellow freshman this past season. The first thing Hidalgo was asked elicited some laughter from the live audience, to nobody’s surprise.
Hidalgo is appointment viewing, on and off the court.
“My teammates call me a gnat because I’m all over them,” Hidalgo said when asked if she has a go-to nickname.
There were a couple other quick-hitting questions thrown Hidalgo’s way. She said the high point of her career so far was Notre Dame winning the ACC Tournament in March. The low point was Notre Dame losing to Oregon State in the Sweet 16. She gave props to her parents and coaches for getting her to where she is today.
Here’s everything else Hidalgo said at the summit.
On arriving at Notre Dame and becoming one of the best players in the country as a true freshman…
“I know what God instilled in me. I know the gifts that he’s placed in me, even from a young age. I’m big on my faith. I know God as blessed me with a talent so it’s so easy to be able to just go out there and just play my game. Also, I have coaches and teammates that have so much confidence in me. When they tell me to go score the ball, we need you to score, we need you to play defense like you do, it just makes everything so easy to just go out and do it when they give you the keys to do so.”
On Notre Dame head coach Niele Ivey being a players’ coach…
“It’s definitely a blessing to be able to have that connection with your coach, to be able to go to her and say, ‘This isn’t working’ or ‘What do you see? I don’t know what to do in this situation.’ It just makes the game so much easier and it makes me as a player want to run through a wall for a coach like that who gives everything and instills everything in you. It’s truly a blessing to be able to have that connection with her.”
On Notre Dame’s chances of winning the national title in the next few seasons…
“Absolutely. Absolutely. Not to be cocky, but we have a lot of talent. Women’s basketball in general has a lot of talent. You can find it all over. But we have a lot of injuries coming back and transfers, especially players like Olivia Miles coming back. A lot of people might have forgotten, but she’s going to come back and shock the world with the talent she has. Emma Risch, Cassandre Prosper. We just have so much firepower coming back. It’s going to be exciting.”
On someone she looks up to…
“[Skylar Diggins-Smith], for sure. Obviously she went to Notre Dame, but she is just a dog on the court. Her being a smaller guard and just the defensive firepower that she brings, I’m able to look at that and kind of model my game after that.”
More on what Ivey means to her…
“Just to persevere. Obviously Coach Ivey went through some stuff during the season, and just to be able to see her come out on the court with all the stuff that she had gone through and was still going through and still to be able to come to practices and talk to recruits even through everything that she had been through, it was amazing to see. I saw how much she persevered through all the stuff she was going through.”
