March Madness 2025: Notre Dame looks to avenge early season loss to TCU in Sweet 16 NCAA tournament matchup

During the opening weekend of the NCAA tournament, Notre Dame’s women’s basketball team played like it remembered its identity. In wins over Michigan and Stephen F. Austin, the players showed off their speed. They suffocated teams on defense. They hustled for rebounds and loose balls and played like every game could be their last.

They truly were the Fighting Irish.

“We're a bunch of fighters, and we respond when we're challenged. Coach Ivey challenged us, and we responded. We got better, and I think we've shown that these past two games,” senior Sonia Citron said after the win over Michigan in South Bend.

Notre Dame coach Niele Ivey agreed. She saw her team get knocked down at the end of the season, losing two of its last three regular-season games, and in the ACC tournament semifinals. And she then saw the same group get back up and keep pushing.

“I knew that they were fighters, like they mentioned. I knew that they were resilient. We just went through a tough stretch," Ivey said Sunday. "We did the same stretch back in November. This group wants to win. They are unselfish, and just came across a couple bad performances that we learned from. So I knew that this team was going to respond. It's something that we've done in the past this season, and I'm just happy that it's happening right now."

They'll need that fighter mentality as they head to Birmingham to play in the Sweet 16. No. 3 seed Notre Dame will face off on Saturday with No. 2 seed TCU, the Big 12 champion that beat Louisville to earn their spot in the second weekend of the tournament. TCU has overcome its own challenges, including forfeiting games and holding open tryouts for the team just last season. But Hailey Van Lith joined the team as a transfer after four seasons at Louisville, and en route to the Sweet 16, the Horned Frogs went 33-3 and finished the season ranked No. 6 in the Associated Press Top 25 rankings.

One of those 33 wins was against Notre Dame at the Cayman Islands Classic in November, with TCU winning by eight points.

In that game, TCU overcame a 14-point deficit in the second half. Van Lith scored 19 points after the break, and Sedona Prince had 20 points and 20 rebounds. Prince was particularly effective in the paint, as she had eight blocks, and Notre Dame’s frontcourt was held to a total of eight points. Van Lith and Prince were the Horned Frogs' top scorers this season, averaging 17.7 and 17.5 points per game, respectively.

“I mean, that win was huge for us, it was a way for us to prove ourselves to the basketball community,” Van Lith said, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. “People weren’t necessarily doubting us, they were just waiting for us to go do something unexpected, and we pulled that off earlier in the year. They’re obviously an incredible team, they have a lot of talented players, but we’re very talented as well, so kind of I think it’s going to be a great game. It’s going to be so good for women’s basketball.”

As Van Lith alluded to, the ND-TCU matchup will feature a host of players who are well-known to college basketball fans. Citron, Prince, Van Lith, Olivia Miles and Maddy Westbeld are not just seniors, but veterans who have all played deep into previous tournaments and are top WNBA prospects. Citron and Westbeld have played in the Sweet 16 in every season they’ve been at Notre Dame. Miles’ experience on the court has been limited because of injury, but she’s been with the Irish through their ups and downs. While this is the TCU women's first Sweet 16 in school history, Prince has played in nine NCAA tournament games, and Van Lith went to the Final Four with Louisville in 2022, in addition to two Elite Eights.

With that much experience on both sides of the floor, Notre Dame will need to key in on the chemistry and fight that helped the Irish bounce back from the loss to TCU early in the season, and their losses just a few weeks before the NCAA tournament. They will have to focus on the speed and shooting that ranks Notre Dame third in the NCAA in field goal percentage, and fourth in scoring offense.

They have to be the team they know they can be: fighters.

“I think we have the fight because we want to win,” Hidalgo said. “We are competitors and we want to win and we want to get all the way to the national championship, and that's really where our fight comes from.”

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