South Jersey’s Hannah Hidalgo is showing no signs of slowing down at Notre Dame

NEWARK, N.J. — How do you follow up the debut of all college debuts? After dropping 31 points — albeit in a loss — on Dawn Staley’s South Carolina team, in Paris, on national television, and after becoming the talk of NCAA women’s basketball so much so that NBA star Kevin Durant alerted his social media following to get to a television, what could possibly live up to all of that?

What does an encore even look like?

For Notre Dame’s Hannah Hidalgo, 18, who grew up in Merchantville, N.J., and graduated from Paul VI, it looked a lot like feet shuffling, active hands, swiping the ball away from whichever New Jersey Institute of Technology player was in front of her. Sure, Hidalgo followed up her 31-point effort — a Notre Dame record for points in a debut, male or female — by scoring another 26 points during a runaway, 104-57 Fighting Irish win Sunday afternoon. But it was her on-ball defending that stood out most. She had five steals in the first quarter and finished with 12 on the day, tying a Notre Dame single-game record in the process.

“I think that’s what her special gift is, is that she loves to defend,” Notre Dame coach Niele Ivey said. “It’s contagious with the team. She feeds her game off of the energy on the defensive end. You don’t see too many guards, especially freshman guards, that can change the trajectory of the game with their defense and the willingness and the want to play defense.”

It was a homecoming for South Jersey’s Hidalgo and a few other Notre Dame players from the New York metro area. The entire Paul VI girls’ basketball team was in attendance. So were Hidalgo’s parents, which includes her father, Orlando, Paul VI’s coach, as well as siblings and other family members. They all got treated to another stat-sheet-stuffing performance — she added six rebounds and six assists to go with those 26 points and 12 steals — and the continued realization that the 2023 New Jersey Gatorade player of the year and McDonald’s All-America game co-MVP is not slowing down anytime soon.

» READ MORE: Hannah Hidalgo’s second stint with Team USA Basketball brings out a more confident guard

Orlando Hidalgo is a basketball coach and dad, so despite a first-half stat line that featured 14 points, six steals, and five rebounds, there he was, a few rows back from midcourt near the Notre Dame bench, hands around the edges of his mouth, shouting instructions to his daughter.

“He has this whistle that’s very distinct from everyone else,” Hannah said later. In other words, she heard him.

It wasn’t a perfect half, though. There were two turnovers against one assist. Her 6-for-13 effort in the first half featured makes on two of four attempts from beyond the three-point arc, but the rest of her points came mostly at the rim.

“It’s the little things,” Orlando said during the break. “I just see certain things in the game that I know she can do, so I kind of just let her know to make adjustments in her game.”

On this occasion, Orlando realized that NJIT was sagging off Hannah on defense, leaving her open to shoot. But Hannah, Orlando said, was taking that space and taking her time, not shooting the ball at normal game speed.

“She thinks too much and the shots don’t go in,” he said.

Orlando is still coaching at Paul VI, so he won’t get to attend every Notre Dame game once the high school season starts. But he’ll obviously be watching. He was in Paris earlier in the week for Hannah’s debut, and said the way she dominated didn’t come as any surprise to him. They had spent countless hours in the gym during Hannah’s childhood. She played on a competitive AAU team, Philly Rise, and represented the U.S. during multiple FIBA competitions, including this past summer’s U19 Women’s World Cup gold medal win over Spain in front of a record-setting crowd in Madrid.

Facing Staley in Paris was just another game to the Hidalgos. The reaction after was just validation.

“We knew that one day it was going to pay off,” Orlando said. “It’s not just hard work, it’s perfect hard work, because anybody can work hard. But it’s the attention to detail that you put into the game and into your practice that eventually pay off on a stage like that.

“People can finally see who she is, what she’s been doing for years. She’s finally on a big stage and basically shining.”

» READ MORE: How a trio of area basketball players reconnected at Paul VI and are taking their game to the college level

No. 10 Notre Dame’s trip to Paris was a business trip, of course. There was a basketball game to be played between two preseason top-10 teams. But first, the Eiffel Tower. And then some more sights of the Eiffel Tower, this time from a boat, Hannah’s favorite non-basketball experience on the trip, she said. There was time for shopping and snacking on strawberry and Nutella crepes, too.

Then came the basketball game, which Notre Dame lost, 100-71. And after fulfilling some media obligations, Hannah learned about the Durant post.

“It was amazing,” she told The Inquirer on Friday ahead of the weekend’s homecoming. “It felt great to see, in my first game, Kevin Durant posting about me.”

Forgive the modesty, but she seemed much more excited to get back to New Jersey for Sunday’s game, when she would have the chance to play in front of so many friends and family members that she needed to borrow from other teammates’ ticket allotment.

From the second the plane landed Saturday, “All I kept saying was, we’re back home,’” she said.

Adjusting to college life has so far been pretty easy, and those international and AAU experiences certainly helped, Hannah said. Her teammates and coaches have been helpful, not just with basketball but with school.

“I would have to try to fail because I have so many resources and my support system is just great,” she said.

As far as the basketball goes, the headline-grabbing debut was exciting, but it hasn’t changed her demeanor, she said. Asked how she guards against getting a big head, she turned to her faith.

“I know that everything that I have is given from God,” Hannah said. “I don’t want to blow my head up because next thing you know it’ll be so quick for me to fall. I like to keep my head on my shoulders and just enjoy the moment. I know in the blink of an eye everything could be taken away from me. I don’t want to take anything for granted or have my head get too big.”

She then used a line that’s become synonymous with Eagles star Jalen Hurts: “Keep the main thing the main thing.”

For Hannah Hidalgo, the basketball will continue to do the talking.