Basketball

Hannah Hidalgo continues surging for No. 8 Notre Dame with Christ as her 'everything'

By Joshua Doering Dec 11, 2024
Notre Dame's Hannah Hidalgo against Texas, Dec. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Michael Caterina)

Notre Dame star Hannah Hidalgo established herself as one of the best players in the country last season as a freshman, earning first-team All-American honors from the Associated Press and the Women’s Basketball Coaches’ Association. Nine games into her sophomore season, Hidalgo has been even better.

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She is tied for second in the nation in scoring at 24.6 points per game (up from 22.6 last season) while shooting 46.2% from the field (up from 44.6%) and 39.5% from 3-point range (up from 34.0%). She’s also tied for No. 1 in the nation in steals at 4.1 per game.

In Sunday’s 93-62 win at Syracuse to open ACC play, Hidalgo broke a program record by reaching the 1,000-point mark in just her 44th game for the Fighting Irish (the previous record was held by Beth Morgan, who needed 60 games). Hidalgo finished the day with 24 points, 10 rebounds and three assists, the seventh time this season she scored 24 or more points.

As she has emerged as one of the faces of college basketball, Hidalgo’s relationship with God has helped keep her grounded. She regularly gives thanks to God in interviews and joined the Sports Spectrum Podcast in August to talk about her faith journey as well as her outstanding freshman season.

“Christ is my everything,” she said on the podcast. “I mean, He’s my Lord and Savior. He’s the reason that I fight, the reason that I do everything, the reason that I’m able to do what I do. He’s just everything in my life, and I wouldn’t be able to do anything without Him.”

A McDonald’s All-American coming out of St. Paul IV Catholic High School in Haddonfield, New Jersey, Hidalgo took official visits to Duke, Notre Dame and Stanford. She picked Notre Dame in part because of the strong relationships and sense of community she saw within the program.

“It felt like a family,” Hidalgo said on the podcast. “It felt like a home. The people truly felt genuine, like they truly loved each other. It truly felt like a family environment. Not feeling that from other schools, it really meant a lot seeing that at Notre Dame.”

With Notre Dame’s other All-American guard, Olivia Miles, sidelined by an injury last season, Hidalgo led the shorthanded Fighting Irish to a 29-7 record, an ACC Tournament championship and a trip to the NCAA Tournament’s Sweet 16. She was named ACC Tournament MVP, ACC Rookie of the Year and ACC Defender of the Year.

“My coaches and my teammates put a lot of trust in me from the moment I stepped on the floor. … It was really big to just have teammates and coaches that have that type of trust in you,” Hidalgo said on the podcast. “It gives you a lot of confidence. I think the Lord really opened a lot of doors for me.”

Away from the court, Hidalgo was appointed as the team’s prayer leader. She would pray before meals when recruits were visiting and lead the team in prayer before games.

“It meant a lot to me because I feel they see Christ in me, and they want me to pray,” she said on the podcast. “So that was big.”

Hidalgo’s family has been a crucial part of both her basketball career and her faith journey. Every member of her immediate family is connected to the sport in some way, and she has a routine of calling her parents to pray before games. Her dad, Orlando, is a basketball coach and encourages her to think of a Bible verse when her emotions get the best of her on the court. One that Hannah often uses comes from Ephesians 4:26: “Be angry and sin not.”

“In all this, she’s always known that these blessings come from God,” Orlando said in an interview for a feature story on Hannah in the Winter 2024 edition of Sports Spectrum Magazine. “If she’s able to break the records, it’s because God gave her the ability to do that. And if she wins an award, she makes sure that God gets the glory because she knows that at any moment, these things can be taken away.”

The No. 8 Fighting Irish (7-2) got as high as No. 3 in the AP top-25 poll before losing back-to-back games at the Cayman Islands Classic. Thursday’s visit from No. 2 UConn (8-0) gives Notre Dame an opportunity for a third win over a top-five team, and pits Hidalgo against Huskies star and fellow National Player of the Year candidate Paige Bueckers. The game tips off at 7 p.m. ET and will be broadcast on ESPN.

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