Quick Recap: Fighting Irish Defeat Mississippi St. 53-48, Advance to Sweet 16

How Sweet It Is

The Notre Dame Fighting Irish Women’s Basketball team just got done with a grinding game in the NCAA Tournament Round of 32. In a Sunday afternoon grudge match, the Irish came away with the victory over the Mississippi State Bulldogs 53-48. It was not the prettiest game from both teams, but a win is a win especially in March Madness.

How Things Shook Out

This game was very low-scoring. Both teams scored 80+ in each of their Round of 64 games, so this final score seems like a typo, but it isn’t. Partially, shots were not falling for either teams at times, and some defense especially from the Irish players helped make this one as low scoring as it was. Neither team scored more than 15 points in one quarter, too.

The Irish took a 2-point lead into halftime and were able to go on an 11-point run from the end of the first half until the midway part of the third quarter. However, after the score was 41-31, the Irish gave up a 10-0 run to the Bulldogs in the fourth quarter, causing Niele Ivey to call a timeout to have everyone regroup after the game was tied. That seemed to help, as the Irish gave up just 7 more points in the last 6+ minutes of the game.

Photo by Michael Hickey/NCAA Photos via Getty Images

What really helped the Irish get the victory was the play of Lauren Ebo. She had 18 rebounds, beating the program NCAA Tournament record of 16 by Katryna Gaither in 1997. This game was really won on the boards, as the Irish got 49 rebounds to Miss. St.’s 32, and 37 of the 49 boards were defensive, too. It was a struggle of a game, but one that the Irish came away victors. Sonia Citron had a pretty quiet 14 points, going on a scoring drought during the second and third quarters. Ebo was the only other player with a double-digit point total with 10.

Next Up

The Irish move onto the Sweet 16 next weekend in Greenville, SC. The Irish will play the 2-seed Maryland Terrapins on Saturday, March 25 at 11:30am ET. ESPN will broadcast the game.