Skill of the Irish: 3 takeaways from UNC women’s basketball’s tough loss to Notre Dame

North Carolina has relied on its suffocating defense all season, but it wasn’t enough to slow down Notre Dame.

The No. 3 Fighting Irish beat North Carolina 76-66 on Sunday afternoon at Carmichael Arena by raining 3s and dominating the boards. This breaks the No. 17 Tar Heels’ streak of two wins in the matchup.

“They had to play great against us, and that’s our goal,” North Carolina coach Courtney Banghart said. “If the other team has to shoot 62% on 13 made 3s to beat us, then we look forward to next time.”

This is only the sixth opponent this season (out of 16) that UNC has failed to hold to a season-low in scoring. But, when Olivia Miles and Hannah Hidalgo are using the game to fill their highlight tapes with stepback threes and scoop shots through traffic, there’s only so much you can do.

Hidalgo led all scorers with 24 points, Miles finished with 19 and both guards knocked down five triples each. Senior forward Maria Gakdeng led the Tar Heels in scoring with an efficient 16 points on 6-for-7 shooting. Lexi Donarski added 13 points (3-of-4 from 3-point range) and Alyssa Ustby recorded a double-double with 12 points, 11 rebounds and three assists.

Here are three takeaways from the game:

Notre Dame on fire from deep

Miles knocked down a career-high five 3-pointers Sunday with a combination of between-the-legs crossovers, stepbacks and plenty of other nasty moves — both off of ball screens and by creating for herself.

Hidalgo was equally effective. Her five triples came more in catch-and-shoot situations. She was able to find open looks by taking advantage of options off of half-court sets and in transition.

“When you play a team that’s really well-balanced in their scoring front, and a lot of people can make an impact, that’s where it’s hard to keep track of two players and make sure they’re not going to hurt us from 3,” Ustby said, “because you have so many other responsibilities on the team in terms of everybody rotating.”

Notre Dame entered Sunday as the eighth-best scoring offense in the nation. The Fighting Irish tout high-volume efficiency around the perimeter — leading the nation in 3-point percentage — and can quickly take control of games when they’re knocking down shots from deep. Against the Tar Heels, Notre Dame did just that, draining 13 triples at a 62% clip.

The Fighting Irish are only the seventh team in the nation this season to shoot 60% or better from 3-point range with at least 20 attempts — and now they’ve done so twice.

“Our game plan was they’re a top-10 offense and we’re a top-10 defense — it’s go time,” Banghart said. “It’s going to be really hard at any level to win when the other team shoots 13-for-21 from 3. It’s just the way it is.”

North Carolina dominates points in the paint

While the Fighting Irish certainly were the more successful team from deep (UNC shot 29% from beyond the perimeter), the Tar Heels were effective when they could get the ball inside to their bigs.

“[It was] very physical down low,” Gakdeng said. “I think they were fouling a little bit but the refs missed those calls. Definitely, when I caught it, I was able to finish, knowing that I’m pretty efficient there.”

North Carolina had 28 points in the paint to 22 for Notre Dame (a good portion of which were second-chance buckets).

And, if Gakdeng’s overall efficiency and performances against ranked competition are any indication — take her team-high 21 points against now-No. 13 Georgia Tech — it wouldn’t hurt to feed her the ball more. The issue for North Carolina, however, was the Fighting Irish’s disruptive defense, which was keen on denying the entry pass to Gakdeng in the post.

“We’d been working on it all week, to push her off the block,” Notre Dame coach Niele Ivey said. “We’d been working on bringing some help from the opposite post and bringing some help from the wing and really worked on ball pressure. We were trying to be physical with her.”

Fighting Irish win on the boards

Notre Dame won the rebounding battle, finishing with 40 boards to North Carolina’s 28. This helped the Fighting Irish generate 20 second-chance points to bolster their hot shooting night.

“That’s 20 points on top of what they were shooting,” Banghart said. “That’s not good enough.”

UNC’s performance on the boards was a bit baffling considering the dominance of Tar Heel forwards Ustby and Gakdeng. But it points to an ongoing issue with rotation rebounding, which Banghart harped on following UNC’s 82-76 loss to then-No. 25 Georgia Tech on Dec. 15.

Notre Dame’s starting guards (Hidalgo, Miles and Sonia Citron) combined for 12 rebounds. North Carolina, on the other hand, pulled down just four rebounds across its starting guards of Donarski, Indya Nivar and Reniya Kelly.

“We need our perimeter players to be better rebounders,” Banghart said on Sunday. “We need them to pursue better. We need them to prioritize it. I can promise you we work on it. That shift has to happen for us to take another step forward in rebounding.”

North Carolina moves on to face No. 14 Duke at Carmichael Arena on Thursday. That game tips off at 7 p.m.