The No. 1 Notre Dame women's basketball team falls in their first game in ACC play against the No. 13 NC State Wolfpack in an action-packed 104-95 double-overtime thriller. The Fighting Irish put up 95 points against the Wolfpack, but it just was t enough against an NC State team that came ready to take on the No. 1 team in the country.
In their first week ranked as the No. 1 team in the country, the Fighting Irish took care of business early in the week against Miami, but the No. 12 ranked Wolfpack welcomed Notre Dame to Reynolds Coliseum ready for a Sunday heavy-weight matchup.
Notre Dame Fighting Irish lose for first time in months
In a back-and-forth game, the Wolfpack took a four-point lead into halftime up 40-36. Notre Dame came out of halftime ready to go and ended the third quarter with a one-point lead over a hungry NC State team.
The fourth quarter is truly where all the action happened, as NC State took as much as a three-point lead, and Notre Dame always had a shot at answering to either tie the game or take a one-point lead again. In the final second of regulation, Sonia Citron, who had 23 points on the day, hit a huge two-pointer to tie the game with 0.6 seconds left on the clock.
NC State tried to get a wick shot off to win the game on a walk-off, but it was offline, and the overtime the game went. In overtime, no team took more than a two-point lead. with about three seconds left, there was. timeout by Notre Dame to set up inbounds in the corner of their end of the court.
Top ranking might be short lived for Notre Dame women's basketball
The Fighting Irish got the ball into Olivia Miles, who heaved up a shot from the corner but missed the rime. Maddy Westfield got the rebound, adn a foul was called as she tried to put the ball back up, leaving the Fighting Irish thinking they could have free throws to end the game. However, after review, it showed the finding occurred after time expired and double time was imminent.
In double overtime, the Wolfpack seemed to find ways to hit more shots than the Fighting Irish could adn started to build a lead. They got a lead as big as 10 points at one point, and at that point, it felt like Notre Dame knew what was coming. The Fighting Irish went into foul mode at NC State and sensed they had the game in hand.
With the ACC Championship game on the line, the Fighting Irish were unable to get it done. Hannah Hildago was the leading scorer for Notre Dame yet again, with 26 points, five rebounds, and three assists.
With this loss, Notre Dame will almost certainly fall out of the No. 1 ranking, but it shouldn't fall too far. The Fighting Irish will have another chance to get back into the win column as they take on Florida State on Thursday, February 27 at 8:00 p.m. EST on ACC Network.