How Notre Dame women's basketball upset NC State for monumental win
Maya Dodson stepped down from the dais, ready to leave the postgame press conference room at Purcell Pavilion empty-handed. Notre Dame head coach Niele Ivey wouldn’t let her.
“Don’t forget this,” Ivey said, raising a white piece of paper in Dodson’s direction from a few feet behind her.
It was a stat sheet documenting the biggest win of Ivey’s young coaching career and one of the most dominant performances of Dodson’s lengthy playing career.
Notre Dame 69, NC State 66.
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Those were the two most important numbers on the sheet. Some others? Dodson’s 20 points and 10 rebounds, her fourth double-double in the last six games. The Wolfpack’s ranking was definitely of note, too; No. 3. The No. 20 Fighting Irish (17-4, 8-2 ACC) took down a top-five opponent for the first time since beating UConn in the NCAA Tournament three years ago. They handed NC State (19-3, 10-1) its first ACC loss of the season in the process.
“That was an amazing win to beat NC State, one of the best teams in the country,” Ivey said. “I’m just so proud of this group. It was a huge challenge. And the fact that our team rose to that challenge and came out victorious, it’s a dream. It’s a dream for me to have my first top-five win.”
Ivey teared up during her opening statement. Dodson held back waterworks of her own when answering the first question that came her way. Both had reasons, different in nature. Unique to themselves. But both could come together over a shared emotion when their eyes dried up and the entirety of the situation could be properly reflected upon.
“Euphoria,” Ivey said.
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Ivey has felt it before. She won a national championship with Notre Dame as a player. And then again as an assistant coach. But Tuesday was different. It was her own.
“I’ve been a part of a lot, but I was in the background,” Ivey said. “This is my first opportunity to strategize and lead this group to a victory [of this magnitude]. A well-fought victory.”
Well-fought indeed.
Notre Dame led by as many as seven in the first half behind Dodson’s relentless pursuit of the ball around the offensive glass. Seven of her 10 boards came on that end of the floor. The Wolfpack still narrowed the deficit to four by halftime. Two Notre Dame bench players, junior forward Sam Brunelle and Abby Prohaska, left for the locker room in the midst of NC State’s late second-quarter run.
Brunelle hit her head on the court and twisted her ankle after a strong offensive play resulting in two points for NC State starting center Elissa Cunane. Prohaska battled for a rebound with Wolfpack Jada Boyd, who popped Prohaska in the nose, shortly thereafter. Brunelle returned and gutted out six second-half minutes. Prohaska did not see the floor again because of a bloody nose.
Ivey’s already-slim eight-player rotation dipped to seven. Six and a half considering the severity of Brunelle’s ailments.
“She was playing on one leg,” Ivey said. “She was determined.”
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Determination was something Dodson embodied from the opening tip — quite literally. She stole it away from Cunane, all 6-5 of her. Then she went to work in the post, connecting on her first four shots on her way to finishing 9-of-14 from the field. Seeing two teammates helped to the locker room only made her want to push even harder.
“It was very emotional,” Dodson said. “It’s hard to see three of your players going out. You know how hard they work, and they’re in pain. But we knew we had to focus and lock in. The best way to do that was to win this game for them. Don’t have them getting hurt for nothing. And that’s what we did.”
It didn’t matter freshman point guard Olivia Miles shot 5-of-16 from the floor two days after scoring 30 points. It didn’t matter freshman combo guard Sonia Citron shot 1-of-12. Those two knocked down the four critical free throws that pushed Notre Dame’s lead to 69-63 in the final 90 seconds.
Notre Dame might have needed every one of those just to make it to overtime had NC State connected on one of its multiple three-point tries in the waning moments. The looks were there. They just didn’t fall. Maybe it was Ivey deciding before the game to ditch the 2-3 zone entirely to play man-to-man for 40 minutes. NC State subsequently shot 5-of-20 from three-point range.
Or maybe it was just the luck of the Irish signaling a return to good graces for an up-and-coming Notre Dame team with aspirations of winning more games like Tuesday’s.
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Last year’s squad wouldn’t have ever gotten far enough to be in a position to hope for missed shots at the buzzer to beat a top-five team. An early-season version of this year’s team might’ve gotten a bit closer, but odds are it would have faltered before getting all the way there. That was the case against UConn on the road, after all.
Tuesday was almost the same old story. NC State went on a 10-2 run in the middle of the frame to pull within two. The Irish led by as many as 11 at the beginning of the frame. But Ivey’s group did just enough to hold on. The freshmen free throws. The rebounds on both ends of the floor from players up and down the lineup; Notre Dame won the rebounding battle 45-38 against a taller team.
Winning plays were made. And for the first time in years, fans leaving Purcell Pavilion felt what it was like to walk into the cold, northern Indiana night knowing the team they root for has what it takes to beat some of the best teams in women’s college basketball. That’s a feeling best summed up by one eight-letter word.
Euphoria.
