Notre Dame comes up short in Sweet 16 loss to Oregon State
In a two-point game with the game clock ducking down under 30 seconds, Notre Dame completely lost Oregon State’s best player under the basket. Raegan Beers received a pass from OSU front-court mate Timea Gardiner and put away an easy layup.
She put away Notre Dame’s season, too.
No. 3 seed Oregon State beat No. 2 seed Notre Dame, 70-65, in the Sweet 16 on Friday at MVP Arenas in Albany, N.Y. The Fighting Irish (28-7) were ousted in the same round of the NCAA Tournament for the third consecutive season under head coach Niele Ivey.
“It’s never easy taking a loss or losing, but I feel like I’ve won with this team because they’re amazing,” Ivey said. “They inspire me, and I’m grateful to be able to stay here with them and be able to lead them. This is going to propel next season. We are going to use this as motivation. We’re going to be better. We’re going to be great, and I’m excited to get back to work with them.”
Oregon State led Notre Dame in almost every crucial statistic. Shooting percentage, rebounding, bench points, points in the paint, assists. Just about everything.
Just about. But not quite. The game came down to the wire because of one lopsided margin that was actually in favor of the shorthanded Irish, who put six players on the floor to combat Oregon State’s fresh corps of nine.
The Beavers turned the ball over a staggering 26 times. Notre Dame coughed it up just 5 times.
Despite Oregon State doing everything else required to win a basketball game of this magnitude at this stage of the season against an opponent as formidable as Notre Dame, a team riding a 10-game winning streak into the Sweet 16, the number of extra possessions the Beavers gifted the Irish nearly allowed the latter to keep dancing in Albany.
But as it turned out, Notre Dame did need to do those other things better to come out on top. The 24-percent disparity in shooting, 60 to 36, was too much. So was the Beavers’ 42-24 edge on the glass and their 40-28 advantage in points in the paint. Oregon State assisted on 20 field goal makes. Notre Dame attempted 25 more shots than the Beavers, 73 to 48, and only had 11 assists.
“It was a really strategic game for us on the offensive end,” senior forward Maddy Westbeld said. “We kind of knew what we were going to get. I think we started to get in our head a little bit in that regard.”
The total team game that guided Notre Dame into the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament vanished. Westbeld and junior guard Sonia Citron played hero ball with freshman point guard Hannah Hidalgo having one of the most ineffective games of her career.
Thanks to OSU’s turnovers, 22 points from Citron and 19 from Westbeld were nearly enough. But 10 from Hidalgo on 4-of-17 shooting proved that Notre Dame was only going to advance as far as all three would take them. They were a fine-tuned tricycle down the stretch run of the season, but Friday the front wheel fell off.
Beers and Gardiner, meanwhile, were unstoppable forces in the paint. Notre Dame missed senior center Kylee Watson as an extra body to battle them. Westbeld and senior center Nat Marshall were not enough. Beers beat the Irish up for 18 points on 9-of-12 shooting, and Gardiner had 21 on 9-of-15. They both notched double-digit rebounds. None of Notre Dame’s six players who received minutes had more than 7.
The way Gardiner dished to Beers for an easy score with the game on the line was unfortunately fitting for the Fighting Irish. Everything came easy to them all afternoon. It was never easier than when it mattered most. That duo was simply too much for Notre Dame to handle, especially on an afternoon in which one of the best players in NCAA women’s basketball, Hidalgo, was not herself.
“She was a little frustrated with a couple of her shots that normally go in,” Ivey said. “Just my conversations is just to empower her, lift her up, positive words of encouragement, knowing that just got to get to the next play, and it’s okay. The game is not perfect, and she knows that. Just trying to build confidence in her in any way that I can.”
A job for Ivey going into Hidalgo’s sophomore season. Her sensational freshman one is officially over.
