Observations: Notre Dame women's basketball clinches ACC Tournament double-bye by beating Clemson

On a night when Notre Dame honored four seniors in a pregame ceremony at Purcell Pavilion, it was the dichotomy between youth and experience that defined the Fighting Irish’s latest conquest.

With just over one minute left in yet another blowout victory for Notre Dame inside the friendly confines of its own arena, head coach Niele Ivey subbed in her two walk-ons — Sarah Cernugel and Trinity Cha. Their insertion into the lineup was the product of a powerful performances from players young and old.

One of the four seniors, graduate senior center Maya Dodson, shined in the spotlight. She shared it with true freshman Sonia Citron. As a result of their 43 combined points, No. 14 Notre Dame had no problems putting away Clemson, 77-56, to remain unbeaten at home (13-0) and clinch a double-bye in next week’s ACC Tournament.

“I’m the old one,” Dodson said with a laugh. “I try to keep it steady, bring the energy. I’m happy I was able to do that today. I enjoy being one of the older ones on this group. They give me life, and I just love playing with them.”

Here are three observations from the Notre Dame (21-6, 13-4 ACC) victory.

BOX SCORE

1. Dodson dominates

The graduate transfer from Stanford is playing her best basketball of the season at just the right time.

Dodson scored 22 points on 10-of-12 shooting, grabbed nine rebounds (to narrowly miss out on an eighth double-double in the last 12 games) blocked five shots and stole the ball twice from Tigers. The latter two stats tend to say the most about her game nightly, no matter how many points she puts in that column.

“I do get into defensive zones,” Dodson said. “Sometimes I forget I need to go score on the other end. I’m working towards that. But I love playing defense, and that’s something that gives me a lot of joy.”

She had it figured out on both ends of the floor against Clemson (9-19, 3-14).

2. Citron captivates crowd

Talk about having it working on both ends of the floor.

Somehow, Citron epitomized that better than Dodson. She scored 21 points on 7-of-13 shooting, snagged a game-high 13 rebounds, dished out eight assists and came away with four steals. Six of her rebounds came on the offensive glass. Like Dodson and defense, Citron characterizes a good game based on hustling for second chances.

“Coach Ivey and all the other coaches have asked me to go in and get the boards — on offense, on defense, on everything — because everyone needs to box out,” Citron said. “I really try to get those o-boards especially because we need people crashing.”

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She said that as she gestured to Dodson on the dais to her right. She said sometimes Dodson is the only one doing so, which is obviously unacceptable. Thursday, Dodson was not alone in that regard.

If anything, she was outdone. And that’s hard to do.

That wasn’t the only mumbly banter had during the postgame press conference. Citron was asked if she played her best game of the season. Probably thinking of her 29-point outing at Michigan State, she didn’t say yes right away. Ivey answered for her.

“It was your most complete game, yes,” she said.

Most complete often equates to best — especially in a coach’s eyes.

3. Defense downs Delicia

The Irish went into the game knowing they had to contain the ACC’s top scorer during conference play: graduate senior guard Delicia Washington. Notre Dame was able to do so for most of the night by sticking to a two-three zone, which isn’t normally a recipe to curtail singular players.

Still, Washington only scored two points in the first half — both of which came from the free throw line. She finished the game with 13 points but only on 5-of-16 shooting. The Tigers were led by junior forward Amari Robinson‘s 18 points. Forty-seven of the 56 came from just three players as the Irish held yet another opponent to less than 60.

Ivey’s crew did its job defensively.

“I was really locked in focusing on Washington, and I thought we did a great job of having awareness of where she was,” Ivey said.