“Get players that are dogs” (EXCLUSIVE)

Notre Dame sophomore Hannah Hidalgo is one of the biggest stars in women’s college basketball. She burst onto the college basketball season in the 2024 season and has since gone on to have two excellent seasons for the Fighting Irish. The TCU Horned Frogs eliminated Notre Dame from March Madness in the Sweet 16.

After the season ended, Hidalgo returned to Notre Dame for a third season. In an exclusive interview with Sportskeeda’s Mark Medina, Hidalgo spoke about her decision to return and her goals for next season. She spoke about the importance of working hard and her and her teammates giving their best.

“I think for us, it’s so important to get players that just want to win and who don’t care who’s having a great game or if they’re not having a great game and that they just want to win,” she said. “That’s ultimately going to be the biggest goal. At some point, it’s important to get players that are dogs like that and just want to win.

When you have players that are going to work hard, it’s all you can ask for. If they’re diving on the floor for loose balls and if they’re going and getting every rebound, that is something that is so big for us now to focus on that and making sure we’re all just giving it our all.”

Hannah Hidalgo will have more responsibility next season with the departure of Olivia Miles

Hannah Hidalgo was the leading scorer of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish this past season, averaging 23.8 points per game. Olivia Miles was the next leading scorer on the team, averaging 15.4 ppg. However, Hidalgo will not have Miles by her side next season as she has decided to enter the transfer portal.

On Tuesday, Miles appeared on “NBA on TNT” to announce that she is officially transferring to the TCU Horned Frogs, the team that eliminated Notre Dame this past season. As a result, Hidalgo will be without her number-two option next season.

While Miles’ decision to transfer was a surprise, her decision to leave the team was not. Before Miles announced she was entering the transfer portal, most pundits and fans expected to see her in the WNBA draft. Miles was projected to be a top-five pick if she declared for the draft. However, she decided to return to college for her final season of eligibility.

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Alexander O’Reilly is a journalist at Sportskeeda from Kingston, Ontario with over seven years in the field at companies including SenShot, RVBlogger, Monarch Media, WordAgents, GSeC LLC, and IGC.

His favorite college team is Duke, and his favorite sporting memory was Duke winning March Madness in 2010. JJ Redick was Alex’s favorite college player when he was young but more recently, Caleb Williams gets the nod. As the Chicago Bears are Alex’s favorite NFL team, this was a perfect match.

Alex’s proudest moment came when he was interviewed by a radio station in Ottawa on his opinion on recent moves by the Ottawa Senators, which gave him a confidence boost and the knowledge that he could succeed as a writer.

Aside from sports, Alex likes to spend his time playing games. He is also very passionate about running and strives to improve at the half and full marathon distances.

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Edited by Abhimanyu Gupta