Coming on Jan. 29: The Best College Player Visiting Haas This Season

The best college basketball player visiting Haas Pavilion this season?

You’ll have to wait until Jan. 29 to get an in-person look at Notre Dame junior guard Hannah Hidalgo, already a two-time first-team All-American.

The Bears faced Hidalgo last season in South Bend, Indiana, and she was terrific, but not extraordinary, providing 24 points and three steals in a 91-52 victory.

Well, she was extraordinary and then some on Wednesday night.

Hidalgo not only broke the Notre Dame single-game scoring record by putting up 44 points in an 85-58 win over Akron but she eclipsed an NCAA record with 16 steals, surpassing the mark of 14, previously held by seven women.

Yes, the game was a wipeout, as we so often see in early-season college hoops. And the gap between the haves and have-nots in women’s basketball remains wider than in the men’s game.

Still . . . 16 steals!

No one else has done that, even in November when blue blood programs routinely clobber overmatched opponents looking for a payday.

To give you an idea how remarkable 16 steals in a game is, consider that the NCAA women’s season leader entering Wednesday had 18 in three games.

ESPN reported that no NBA or WNBA player has ever recorded 40-plus points and 10-plus steals in a single game. The most recent college basketball player to do that was Amy Patton for Northern Arizona in 2012.

Hidalgo, who had 12 steals in her second college game as a freshman two years, leads the nation so far this season at 34.3 points and 7.7 steals per game. The 5-foot-6 native of Merchantville, NJ, also is contributing 7.7 rebounds and 5.0 assists to the 18th-ranked Irish, who are 3-0.

Hidalgo led the NCAA with 160 steals as a freshman and with 119 last season. Just three games into her junior season, she already has 302 career steals, although that remains miles behind the NCAA’s career record of 649 steals by Lamar’s Chastadie Barrs from 2016-19.

For further context, consider these single-game records:

— Cal’s single-game record is 10 steals, achieved four times, including twice by Brittany Boyd

— The Cal men’s record is 8 steals by Jason Kidd and AJ Diggs

— The NCAA men’s record is 13, accomplished twice by Oklahoma’s Mookie Blaylock

— The WNBA single-game record is 10 by Ticha Penicheiro of Sacramento in 2003

— The NBA standard is 11 by New Jersey’s Kendall Gill in 1999

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