Notre Dame 2025-2026 Regular-Season Thread.

[BRS24]

Geno knows greatness.

 

[Dillon77]

You don't see or hear that too often from Coach G, so that's something she should take to heart.
Irish fans will love to hear Hannah wants to come back and get a shot at UConn again. Actually, all fans should: it's great for the game. Thanks for passing along....

 

[Dillon77]

Geno knows greatness.

Yup. He should...gosh knows he sees enough of it looking out on his own practice court.
He's said some complimentary things about Irish players over the years, but Hannah seems to have captured something in him.

 

[VA Huskie]

Well, the great late-season/tournament run by Notre Dame ends in a 70-52 loss to UConn.
While this was not totally unexpected, we Irish fans were still into the game wholeheartedly, particularly when it was hovering around 10.

However, Geno has amassed top-flight talent from around the world. He employed it and it paid dividends. Sarah Strong is, indeed, awesome, but it sure seems like her co-partner just showed up in Blanca Quinonez. Wow...what an athlete and her three-pt form is spectacular. And now he brings Jana El Alfy off the bench to lead a charge on the offensive boards. Simply too much.
Great team...all power to them.

Hannah had to be in overdrive and she was, finishing with another double double. In the process, she became the first NCAA male or female player to garner more than 900 steals. Wow. The trouble was there was no other Irish player capable of attacking UConn's defense with HH. The second highest scorer was Vanessa de who had a mere 8 points and 5 boards. Iyana Moore was dormant until the fourth, which was too little, too late. A tip of the hat to Strong, who did a good job of keeping Cass Prosper on a leash, not allowing her to get free to build up steam for her attacks to the hoop, which is her best mode.

I thought this was a "bridge" team to next year because there simply wasn't quite enough talent to challenge the top teams. We saw that today. But, hey, they idid do better than expected and the coaches maximized their play to a level I never expected.
Or perhaps these players finally got a chance. In particular, I think Vanessa de Jesus was a great complement to Hannah Hidalgo all season; being able to bring the ball up, play solid defense, keep calm and shoot some threes. I think Hannah will need another "VdJ" next year and that's a huge pat on the pack to Vanessa. Well done.

Well....time to move onto Leah Macy playing power forward, Jenica Lewis being a shooting guard and a slew of 6'2" wings in Jacy Abii, Bella Ragone and Amari Byles. Volleyball/Hoops player Isabella Sangha will be aboard, too. Now we';; see if Cass Prosper or KK Bransford will come back and add some transfers (a center?). And, of course, Ms. Hidalgo.

Thanks Irish!!

Love your comments. Always insightful and balanced. I went into this game not liking HH…I’m just not comfortable with her emotional outbursts. Came out of it more respectful of her talents and less focused on her behavior. Must be really fun to root for her!