Hannah Hidalgo showed out with 29 points, 10 rebounds and eight assists in No. 8 Notre Dame’s 78-68 victory over No. 2 UConn on Thursday. Hidalgo’s standout performance allowed the Irish to hand the Huskies their first loss of the season, and her performance didn’t go unnoticed by some of the basketball world’s biggest stars.
“Hannah Hidalgo really one of them,” said NBA star Damian Lillard.
Hidalgo has been proving herself as one of the best two-way players in college basketball, and that has earned her much-deserved praise. Hidalgo and teammate Olivia Miles also got a shoutout from Memphis Grizzlies guard Ja Morant for their performance against UConn.
Despite seemly tweaking her ankle in the first quarter, Miles put up 16 points, nine of them in the last 10 minutes, to help make sure UConn didn’t make a comeback.
“Hannah Hidalgo & Olivia Miles nice !!” Morant wrote.
But one of the sweetest moments for Hidalgo on Thursday was after the game when the Seattle Storm’s Skylar Diggins-Smith — one of the notable Notre Dame alums in the crowd — came up to her to give her a hug.
Hidalgo warned her that she was sweaty, but Diggins-Smith didn’t mind. The six-time WNBA All-Star also had some words of encouragement for the sophomore.
“Great job. Keep going, OK?” she said. “That’s how you play.”
Last season, Hidalgo broke Diggins-Smith’s Notre Dame single-season record for most steals with a total of 160.
None of the praise she is getting is too surprising, as Hidalgo has been getting noticed from basketball stars since the start of her college career. Last season during Hidalgo’s college basketball debut against South Carolina, Kevin Durant said she and MiLaysia Fulwiley — both freshmen at the time — were “moving DIFFERENT out here.”
A year later, Hidalgo is making a major name for herself. On Thursday before the game, she was recognized for being the fastest player to reach 1,000 career points in Notre Dame history.
