Notre Dame junior point guard Olivia Miles officially out for season
On the same night freshman Hannah Hidalgo scored a career-high 34 points led No. 15 Notre Dame in an 82-67 toppling of No. 8 UConn in Storrs, Conn., news finally broke of junior Olivia Miles’ plan to sit out the rest of the 2023-24 season. She won’t get the chance to team up with Hidalgo in the same backcourt until 2024-25 at the earliest. A Fighting Irish spokesperson confirmed the report.
Miles has not played since injuring her knee in the 2022-23 regular-season finale. She said in October she could make her return to the floor in Notre Dame’s season opener on Nov. 6. That was the best-case scenario. It didn’t manifest. The worst-case scenario — or the one with the longest timetable, if that’s the preferred vernacular? Not playing at all and taking a redshirt year.
That’s what it’s ultimately going to be. She has two years of eligibility remaining.
“She’s been working so hard,” Notre Dame head coach Niele Ivey said Saturday after the UConn game. “I’m really proud of Liv. She’s getting stronger and better and better.”
It was always an intriguing thought wondering what Hidalgo and Miles could accomplish on the floor at the same time this season. Miles was Hidalgo before Hidalgo was Hidalgo. It was Miles setting the world on fire with triple-doubles and highlight-reel transition buckets in the first two full seasons of her career. In 67 games and 61 starts, Miles has averaged 13.6 points, 6.8 assists, 6.2 rebounds and 2.1 steals per game.
She’s a stat-sheet stuffer. Hidalgo has taken that to a new level.
In the first 19 games of Hidalgo’s career, she’s averaging 24.4 points, 5.9 rebounds, 5.6 assists and 5.1 steals per game. Miles might still be a better pure distributor of the ball, but when all things are considered on both ends of the floor it’s hard if not impossible to find someone who impacts every game more than Hidalgo.
But because the pass-first element with Miles is there, it doesn’t seem like it would be difficult to put her back at the point and slide Hidalgo to shooting guard. Sonia Citron would play the wing as always with Maddy Westbeld at forward and Kylee Watson or Nat Marshall at center. Ivey would have a true four- or five-out offense in that lineup. The length and range on defense with those three guards jamming up opposing backcourts would translate to offense at an even higher rate than it already does missing Miles.
Now Ivey will have to wait until next season to tinker with what could be the most explosive lineup in women’s college basketball. If Westbeld comes back for a fifth season and the Irish do not lose any pieces to the transfer portal, a championship window would just be opening.
