Hannah Hidalgo’s best move is taking the ball away. She led the nation in steals as a freshman and has continued to terrorize opponents as a sophomore. But she does not refer to her craft in those words. The Notre Dame Fighting Irish guard prefers some more ambitious language. Hidalgo describes her goal not as taking the ball away but as taking the heart of the ballhandler away.
“That’s where the joy comes from,” she says. “Just knowing you’ve done that to an offensive player.”
It’s hard to argue with that characterization. The best of Hidalgo’s steals very much do feel like snatching more than just the ball, and Hidalgo’s overwhelming reaction is often a clear, pulsating joy. If there are valid arguments over the best defender in women’s college basketball, it’s difficult to imagine any such debates over the most gleeful. That one is all Hidalgo.
“That’s her swag, her fearlessness,” Notre Dame coach Niele Ivey says of Hidalgo and her 3.7 steals per game. “That intensity is really fun to watch.”
It will be key to playing onward for the Fighting Irish. After sputtering through a lackluster end of the regular season, No. 3 seed Notre Dame locked in and breezed through its first two rounds of tournament play, looking better than it had in weeks. It now faces a tough Sweet 16 matchup against the No. 2 seed TCU Horned Frogs on Saturday. The Fighting Irish have tried to refocus on their defensive potential as they aim to play deeper into March. And no one provides a spark there quite like Hidalgo.
The guard finished the season among the most prolific scorers in the country. Her 24.1 PPG was third in Division I. Hidalgo can score in bunches, and she has become a more efficient, well-rounded shooter in her sophomore year. Yet it’s her defense that is her signature. Hidalgo is only 5' 6", very often the smallest player on the floor. But she has quick hands and quicker instincts. She can be even better off the ball than on it.
Hidalgo annoys her opponents, and she exhausts them, and then she takes away their hearts.
Her defensive skills were obvious to Ivey right away when she began recruiting Hidalgo. “You don’t see that very often, especially in AAU, where you have players that value that side of the ball,” the coach says. “It’s all offense when it comes to AAU.” Hidalgo was different. She stood out at first because she was small and then because she was fearless. The Jersey girl was “fiery, so feisty” from the first time Ivey saw her, and that came from her defense.
“It’s just always been something that I’ve taken pride in,” Hidalgo says. “Just knowing that I’m the smallest player on the floor, it’s being able to bring something different.”
That ability has only grown in the years since. “Her IQ is something that’s kind of underrated, because she really, really understands the game very well for her being so young still,” Ivey says. Hidalgo is a film junkie obsessive about studying opposing tendencies. If she is an instinctual defender, she is a smart, practiced one, too.
“She can read people very well,” Ivey says. “She knows when to go and get the dribble… She can find the moments to apply pressure.”
That will be key against TCU in the Sweet 16. It was the Horned Frogs who handed the Fighting Irish their first loss of the year back in November. That was long enough ago that both teams look different now; Notre Dame, notably, played that game just seven deep and was missing forwards Maddy Westbeld and Kate Koval. Their presence makes the frontcourt much stronger and more competitive for Notre Dame. (That’s especially crucial against 6' 7" TCU center Sedona Prince.) But this group is built around its guards. Hidalgo shares the backcourt with potential WNBA lottery picks Olivia Miles and Sonia Citron. All three were stung by their blown lead in that early loss to TCU.
“A few days ago, we watched the film from when we played them in November, and I was just cringing,” Miles said. “It was difficult to watch. Coach Ivey showed it to us for a specific reason. She showed it to us to ignite something in us, to make us mad, to see how we were playing and how we’ve been playing recently.”
The difference in how the Irish have been playing recently has primarily been rooted in their defense. (“I think we got back to our fundamentals, our principles,” Miles said of how they regrouped in their week off before the start of tournament play. “We were slacking on defense.”) That’s been evident in a stouter frontcourt and more aggressive rebounding. But the spirit begins with their pint-sized leading scorer, applying pressure, wreaking havoc and taking hearts away in the backcourt.
“That feeds her game,” Ivey says. “She plays with that edge.”
More March Madness on Sports Illustrated
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Hannah Hidalgo and the Art of the Steal .
