ALBANY — Hannah Hidalgo’s approach to basketball is distinctly Shakespearean.
“Though she be but little, she is fierce.”
That line from “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” pretty well sums up Hidalgo, the 5-foot-6 Notre Dame freshman guard whose breakout first collegiate season and relentless defense have helped carry the Fighting Irish into the Sweet 16 of the NCAA women’s basketball tournament.
It’s a mentality she’s had since she was a little — well, little-er — girl growing up in New Jersey.
“Growing up, I was always smaller,” Hidalgo said Thursday at MVP Arena, where she and No. 2 seed Notre Dame will take on No. 3 Oregon State on Friday at 2:30 p.m. in an Albany Regional 1 semifinal. No. 1 South Carolina and No. 4 Indiana meet in the other regional semifinal at 5 p.m. “As you can see, I’m not very tall right now. But, I was always smaller. I didn’t know how to score over bigger defenders, and so I had to find a different way to impact my team.”
Hidalgo found that way to make an impact on the defensive end, making life miserable for opposing ball handlers.
“My defense is something that I can always control,” Hidalgo said. “And someone told me once when I was growing up that defense wins championships. So I always took pride in my defense since then, just bringing the energy, bringing the physical [play] and just being aggressive.”
It’s translated to a spectacular freshman season.
A first-team AP All-America, and both the Rookie and Defensive Player of the Year in the ACC, Hidalgo has harried the opposition throughout the season.
Her 157 steals are by far the most of any Division I women’s basketball player this season, with only Siena’s Elisa Mevius (135) within 25 of her total.
“You don't see a lot of players that love to play defense, and she loves to play defense,” Notre Dame head coach Niele Ivey said. “Her offense is most of the time dictated by her defense.”
Oh, and along the way, Hidalgo learned how to score, too.
In her college debut against South Carolina — a game played in Paris as part of an overseas tour — Hidalgo erupted for 31 points.
Handed the keys to a Notre Dame squad short on depth, Hidalgo kept putting up sensational performances, averaging 22.9 points per game this season.
“This entire season, she's improved every game,” Ivey said. “She has been a sponge. Very high IQ. Ultimate competitor. I knew she was going to be special. I knew that. I feel like she's definitely exceeded my expectations.”
Oregon State coach Scott Rueck knows that finding some way to deal with Hidalgo will be the biggest challenge for the No. 4 seed Beavers on Friday.
“She impacts the game in so many ways,” Rueck said. “Her pace and her speed is special. Her ability to score is special, and her ability to disrupt defensively is special.
“She’s dynamic, and we’re going to have to slow her down. You don’t stop her, but we’re going to need to disrupt her as much as we can.”
Most of the time this season, Hidalgo’s been the one doing the disrupting.
That’s always started on the defensive end for her, fed by her ability to study and anticipate the players she’s guarding.
“I read their body, kind of how they’re moving, if they’re going to rise up, and I’m able to anticipate the ball,” she said. “Whether they’re going to put it behind their back or cross over, I make sure I have my hand there, but my mindset going in is just like, ‘I want the ball.’”
In a season that’s seen women’s basketball reach record audiences behind a bevy of star players — Iowa’s record-setting, era-defining Caitlin Clark, who will be the main attraction in Albany when the Hawkeyes play Colorado in a Regional 2 semi on Saturday, but also the likes of UConn’s Paige Bueckers, LSU’s Angel Reese and USC freshman sensation JuJu Watkins — Hidalgo has made herself a must-see attraction.
Even for her teammates.
“You don't see a lot of people do what she does on the offensive end and the defensive end," Notre Dame junior guard Sonia Citron said, "and the way she just picks up people and terrorizes them, I would pay to see that, too.”
GAMECOCKS STAYING FOCUSED
Only four Division I basketball programs — Texas in 1985-86, Tennessee in 1997-98, Baylor in 2011-12 and UConn on six different occasions — have ever finished a season as undefeated national champions.
South Carolina, the top seed in Albany Regional 1, is four wins from joining that club.
Not that head coach Dawn Staley wants her team paying that particular piece of history any attention as they head into Friday's Sweet 16 tilt against Indiana.
“They have zero idea,” Staley said of her 32-0 Gamecocks. “They have short memories, and they only deal with the present, which is pretty cool. You don’t have to talk them off of a ledge because they’re thinking it’s going to be an easy thing. They take it one game at a time.”
Talk of history has popped up only once this season for South Carolina, Staley said, when the team was doing media ahead of its first-round tournament game.
“I did hear our players talk about some stuff I’ve never heard them talk about, that’s in the future,” she said. “I’m like, ‘We have to talk about Presbyterian. That’s the only them that matters at this point.’ Like right now, Indiana is the only team that matters at this point, because the margin of victory is so small at this stage of the game.
“I just want to keep them focused on what’s right in front of us.”