Notre Dame women's basketball reset: How recent losses have affected Irish's NCAA Tournament outlook
The ebbs and flows of February NCAA basketball come in bunches. Notre Dame has experienced both.
Head coach Niele Ivey‘s group was riding a serious high after beating No. 3 NC State on Feb. 1. Since toppling the top team in the ACC, the Fighting Irish have posted a 2-2 record. Win, loss. Win, loss. In that order. The effect of those defeats were felt the most in the NET Rankings.
The Irish (19-6, 10-4 ACC) rose as high as No. 13 in the oh-so-important rankings that have much to do with determining the NCAA Tournament field. After Sunday’s uncompetitive (for a multitude of factors) 73-47 loss to Louisville, Notre Dame dropped to No. 19 in the NET. The Irish hold the same spot in the latest AP Poll.
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Sixteen teams host the first and second round of the tournament on their respective campuses. When ESPN analyst Charlie Creme comes out with his latest bracketology update, Notre Dame will likely have fallen off the cut line to host tournament games in South Bend. The Irish were a No. 4 seed in Creme’s last two bracket reveals but likely project as more of a No. 5 seed after the Louisville loss and a head-scratching defeat at Florida State a week prior.
Is Notre Dame out of the hosting conversation? No. Absolutely not. But the next two weeks will determine the Irish’s fate on that front one way or the other. Notre Dame has three regular season games remaining on the schedule, plus a potential makeup game at Virginia. Two of the matchups are against ranked teams. The Irish are on the road at No. 16 Georgia Tech (19-6, 10-4) — a team with an identical record to them — this Thursday. It’s a Quadrant 1 game. It would be Notre Dame’s biggest road win of the season. It would be Notre Dame’s first time losing consecutive games this season if it went the other way.
It’s a pivotal point in the season. Period.
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Notre Dame is no stranger to responding to a tough blowout loss to Louisville, either. The Cardinals blew the Irish out by 33 points four years ago. Notre Dame won its next 13 games, a streak snapped by none other than Louisville, 74-72, in the ACC Championship Game. The Irish then rattled off six straight wins in the NCAA Tournament to earn the program’s second national title.
“That’s the first thing I thought of being in this moment here,” Ivey said after Sunday’s loss. “In 2018, we didn’t play well very similar to this today. We weren’t our best. Didn’t play well for 40 minutes. And we didn’t let that define us. We fought back, got better and learned from it and used it as motivation. That’s what we’re going to have to do now. We have a really great opportunity to finish strong.”
The Irish will be heavily favored against Clemson and Virginia, two of the three worst teams in the ACC record-wise. But then it’s a rematch with Louisville in the regular season finale on Feb. 27. If Notre Dame does beat Clemson at Purcell Pavilion on Feb. 24, an undefeated home record will be on the line. The Irish haven’t gone through the course of an entire season without losing at home since that magical 2017-18 campaign.
But again, more than an unblemished record at home and the simple ability to say “We beat another top-five team!”, Notre Dame needs that victory for NCAA Tournament purposes. The Irish have a much better chance of advancing to the Sweet 16 if they get to play both games they need to win to get there in South Bend. Winning upcoming Q1 games against Georgia Tech and Louisville provide the Irish the best chance of making that possibility a reality.
Week 14 AP Poll
- South Carolina (23-1)
- Stanford (21-3)
- Louisville (22-2)
- Indiana (18-3)
- NC State (23-3)
- Iowa State (21-3)
- Baylor (19-5)
- Arizona (18-4)
- Michigan (20-4)
- UConn (17-5)
- LSU (21-4)
- Tennessee (21-4)
- Maryland (18-6)
- Texas (17-6)
- Oklahoma (20-4)
- Georgia Tech (19-6)
- Florida (18-6)
- Ohio State (18-4)
- Notre Dame (19-6)
- BYU (21-2)
- Georgia (17-7)
- Iowa (16-6)
- Virginia Tech (19-6)
- North Carolina (19-5)
- Florida Gulf Coast (22-2)
Notre Dame national team statistic rankings
- Scoring offense: 74.1 ppg (30th)
- Scoring defense: 62.5 ppg (159th)
- Rebound margin: 6.1 (41st)
- Assists per game: 17.3 apg (15th)
- Turnovers per game: 15.5 (143rd)
- Assist to turnover ratio: 1.12 (33rd)
- Turnovers forced per game: 17.5 (109th)
Upcoming Notre Dame schedule
Feb. 17, 8 p.m. ET: at No. 11 Georgia Tech (19-6, 10-4)
Feb. 24, 8 p.m. ET: vs. Clemson (9-17, 3-12)
Feb. 27, TBD: vs. No. 3 Louisville (22-2, 13-1)
*at Virginia (3-19, 0-13): TBD (makeup from Dec. 30 and Jan. 25 postponements)
