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Notre Dame had some fun in The Flats on Thursday night.
The No. 14 Irish (16-4, 6-3) won a second consecutive road game with a dominant performance on both ends of the floor, this time topping Georgia Tech (13-9, 4-6) by a score of 85-48. Hannah Hidalgo scored 35 points, re-breaking the single-game freshman scoring record of 34 she broke on Saturday. Kylee Watson added a season-high 19 points (8-10 from the floor) and narrowly missed a double-double, finishing with 9 rebounds.
“I knew I had to be more aggressive, especially offensively,” Watson said after the game when asked about her success. “A lot of it had to do with great reads, and I feel like it really came easy tonight. A lot of my points were off the pick-and-roll after Hannah tossed a great dime.”
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The dimes were aplenty on Thursday, too. Notre Dame notched assists on 20 of its 36 baskets. Hidalgo had 8 of them, and Watson tied a career-high with 4.
Notre Dame - and Watson in particular - came out on fire. After a 9-9 start but prior to the first media timeout, Notre Dame hit 9 of 13 shots, and Watson had 9 points and 2 blocks. Hidalgo had 6 points and 2 steals, and both Westbeld and Citron knocked down treys. Fourteen of Notre Dame’s points came in the paint.
Of note, Georgia Tech 3-point ace Rusne Augustinaite picked up two fouls before the mid-quarter break, causing Yellow Jackets head coach Nell Fortner to pull her for the remainder of the quarter.
The Irish ended up closing out Q1 on a 19-0 run. Georgia Tech shot just 21 percent from the floor and went 1-11 from deep. Augustinaite made the sole trey on the Yellow Jacket’s first possession before her exit. Georgia Tech averages 18.8 3-point attempts per game.
The scoring run continued into the second quarter and ended at 26-0. That is the longest run of the season, topping a 25-0 run at NJIT in the second game of the season. The Irish offense went relatively quiet for the rest of the half thanks to some Georgia Tech defensive adjustments in the paint and a few missed open looks.
But the defense continued to throttle Georgia Tech.
Nat Marshall had blocks on back-to-back possessions and notched three defensive rebounds. Tech went 3-20 from the floor (15 percent), and leading scorer Kara Dunn was 0-3. Fellow starters Kayla Blackshear and Augustinaite went a combined 0-6 themselves.
For the second consecutive game, Hidalgo hit a buzzer-beating shot going into the half. This time a driving teardrop in the lane after a near turnover but nimble recovery. She also notched her 100 and 101st steal of the year during the frame, becoming just the second player in Notre Dame history to do so. Skylar Diggins-Smith did it twice.
It was 46-17 in favor of the visitors at the break. Hidalgo led all scorers with 18 points, and Watson had 11 plus 6 rebounds. Citron added 6 boards of her own, and Notre Dame had 6 total blocks. The Irish entered the contest averaging 4.5 blocks per game.
Watson added a few more buckets in Q3 as Notre Dame went 6-7 to eliminate any doubt. The Yellow Jackets ended up shooting 34.4 percent in the second half and were led by Dunn’s 15 points, but it was too little too late.
“Tonight was huge for my confidence and for the team’s confidence,” Watson said. “It’s big for us to continue the momentum as we hit the last part of the season.”
At the buzzer, Notre Dame had 56 paint points, its most against a major conference foe this season. They also shot 52.2 percent from the floor, continuing to shoot the lights out on the road. The Irish entered Thursday night’s game shooting 49.6 percent from the floor in away games, a mark that ranked fourth in the nation at the time.
Notre Dame takes the court against Pittsburgh next for a Sunday afternoon game at Purcell Pavilion. It tips off at 2 p.m., on the ACC Network.