Notre Dame 2025-2026 Regular-Season Thread.

[DallasDomer]

ND Beats USC at Home on Hidalgo Jumper with 1.9 Seconds Left
This wasn't pretty by any means, but ND got a much-needed victory, holding the Trojans to 8 points in the fourth quarter (while scoring 15 themselves). Overall, USC had 21 turnovers and 16 of those were steals by the Irish. Hannah HIdalgo led the way with 5 steals, Cassan Prosper had 3 and KK Bransford had 4 steals and 3 blocks. Hidalgo led ND with 22, Vanessa DeJesus had 13 (11 in the first half) and Bransford 11, most of which came in the 2nd half.
Here's the winning shot:

Excellent that ND took down #11 USC. A win is a win. But the loss at Michigan has me very confused. It seems this ND team is still learning to play as a team, or USC hasn't figured out how to play together, or nobody has any idea how good or bad they are yet.

Imo it will take ten or so more games to get a better read. The next game is Central Michigan which ND has better win, then it gets interesting with Mississippi then Florida State (a conference game in early December??). In summary glad ND won but I don't know what's going on yet, I should have just said that.

 

[DefenseBB]

The early season schedule is propped up by erroneous rankings.
To wit:
Duke was preseason rank #7 due to their Elite 8 run last year and bring in a good recruiting class but they lost Okananwa and then lost to Baylor who got a big rank bump without really proving anything- they lost this week to Iowa. Duke has now lost to WVU and USF so how good is that Baylor win?
NC State beat an over ranked #8 Tennessee but then lost to SoCal but the voters incorrectly jumped SC up way too much. SoCal got stomped at home vs SCar and now lost at ND. NC State has since lost to TCU at home, so were they worthy of that preseason #9 rank and the boost it gave SoCal and TCU?
My point is the early (and sometimes bad rankings) over inflate wins. ND will undoubtedly get a bump for beating what we now know is a merely good SoCal team.

Due to the shear number of shabby OOC games with the better teams stomping mid major teams by 50+ points, the voters over rank teams, beating up on Akron, Chicago State and FDU did ND no favors when they played a legit P4 team.
ND plays Central Michigan next, then Ole Miss, FSU, Moorhead and JMU so that’s 1 good P4 team, one mediocre P4, and 3 mid majors with significantly less talent. I just hope the voters use some better assessment skills, not only for ranking ND but for many of the early over ranked teams.

The gist is ND won tonight but is really SoCal top 11 team? I think not….but hey, Irish fans tout this win all you can as those who pay attention know this will be a down year for you….

 

[JellyBean]

ND Beats USC at Home on Hidalgo Jumper with 1.9 Seconds Left
This wasn't pretty by any means, but ND got a much-needed victory, holding the Trojans to 8 points in the fourth quarter (while scoring 15 themselves). Overall, USC had 21 turnovers and 16 of those were steals by the Irish. Hannah HIdalgo led the way with 5 steals, Cassan Prosper had 3 and KK Bransford had 4 steals and 3 blocks. Hidalgo led ND with 22, Vanessa DeJesus had 13 (11 in the first half) and Bransford 11, most of which came in the 2nd half.
Here's the winning shot:

That was a great game! I loved the back and forth how both teams competed. Congrats on the win.

 

[Dillon77]

The early season schedule is propped up by erroneous rankings.
To wit:
Duke was preseason rank #7 due to their Elite 8 run last year and bring in a good recruiting class but they lost Okananwa and then lost to Baylor who got a big rank bump without really proving anything- they lost this week to Iowa. Duke has now lost to WVU and USF so how good is that Baylor win?
NC State beat an over ranked #8 Tennessee but then lost to SoCal but the voters incorrectly jumped SC up way too much. SoCal got stomped at home vs SCar and now lost at ND. NC State has since lost to TCU at home, so were they worthy of that preseason #9 rank and the boost it gave SoCal and TCU?
My point is the early (and sometimes bad rankings) over inflate wins. ND will undoubtedly get a bump for beating what we now know is a merely good SoCal team.

Due to the shear number of shabby OOC games with the better teams stomping mid major teams by 50+ points, the voters over rank teams, beating up on Akron, Chicago State and FDU did ND no favors when they played a legit P4 team.
ND plays Central Michigan next, then Ole Miss, FSU, Moorhead and JMU so that’s 1 good P4 team, one mediocre P4, and 3 mid majors with significantly less talent. I just hope the voters use some better assessment skills, not only for ranking ND but for many of the early over ranked teams.

The gist is ND won tonight but is really SoCal top 11 team? I think not….but hey, Irish fans tout this win all you can as those who pay attention know this will be a down year for you….

Given that most of the folks who post in this thread are "those who pay attention," perhaps the "tout this win all you can" is a bit sardonic by half, but point taken. 😎 for the uninitiated.

• Your point about erroneous (or inflated/misplaced) rankings is spot on.
• In the case of many teams like USC or Notre Dame, there are also a lot of new players to mesh and gel. You can see it on the floor. USC has talent, but they're missing a -- say -- Kayleigh Heckel to make sense of it all.
• ND has no post presence or outside shooting, so they're best relying on chaos so their three athletes (Hidalgo, Bransford, Prosper) can get to the hoop or help in other ways. I, for one, am on record everywhere as calling this a "bridge year" and I'll stick with it. It was still an entertaining win.

 

[Reypl21]

The early season schedule is propped up by erroneous rankings.
To wit:
Duke was preseason rank #7 due to their Elite 8 run last year and bring in a good recruiting class but they lost Okananwa and then lost to Baylor who got a big rank bump without really proving anything- they lost this week to Iowa. Duke has now lost to WVU and USF so how good is that Baylor win?
NC State beat an over ranked #8 Tennessee but then lost to SoCal but the voters incorrectly jumped SC up way too much. SoCal got stomped at home vs SCar and now lost at ND. NC State has since lost to TCU at home, so were they worthy of that preseason #9 rank and the boost it gave SoCal and TCU?
My point is the early (and sometimes bad rankings) over inflate wins. ND will undoubtedly get a bump for beating what we now know is a merely good SoCal team.

Due to the shear number of shabby OOC games with the better teams stomping mid major teams by 50+ points, the voters over rank teams, beating up on Akron, Chicago State and FDU did ND no favors when they played a legit P4 team.
ND plays Central Michigan next, then Ole Miss, FSU, Moorhead and JMU so that’s 1 good P4 team, one mediocre P4, and 3 mid majors with significantly less talent. I just hope the voters use some better assessment skills, not only for ranking ND but for many of the early over ranked teams.

The gist is ND won tonight but is really SoCal top 11 team? I think not….but hey, Irish fans tout this win all you can as those who pay attention know this will be a down year for you….

I agree with your ranking thoughts. Pre-season rankings are hard to get right, because you truly never know. I don't know or care what ND will be ranked after this game, just glad they won. We know this year will be a little rough, but it's good to see improvements from last weekend. That's all you can ask for.

 

[Reypl21]

Really happy with the game! A few thoughts:
1. This team pulled out a win and still hasn't fully incorporated Moore and Cowles yet. Moore specifically I think can provide some outside shooting this team needs, and she can score. Cowles is the low post presence we need. She was posting hard yesterday, but we didn't get her the ball.
2. Proud of Hannah for the end of the game yesterday. She had a a couple of drives she dished off that I thimk last week she could've forced up. And assist to KK and an open 3 to Prosper that missed. She hit the big shot that counted though (which was very contested by Smith).
3. KK! She was pretty quiet all game until the 4th. That's when I started to notice her physicality. She had a good defensive play where she forced Smith to fade away in the post. Smith is physical as they come too. She muscled up some tough shots too. Wish she had a little bit more confidence in the 3 ball, because she had a couple open looks. I hope this game is a building block for her.
3. VDJ, I wasn't expecting her to be the primary defender on Davidson. She did a pretty good job. Her 3's in the first half were important. We really need her experience and ball handling to keep Hannah fresh. She is another feisty defender that was causing turnovers.
4. The defense was great. Hannah and VDJ were harassing the ball handlers in the second half. KK and Prosper were then blowing up the passes. Who needs half court offense when you can get into transition? Well defense is this teams best offense. I'm always a half court offense complainer, but they were trying some different looks. They were responding better to Hannah getting hedged on screens.