What's Next For Notre Dame Women's Basketball After Embarrassing Loss to Michigan?

Notre Dame lost to Michigan by 39 points on Saturday, three days after Hannah Hidalgo set an NCAA record with 16 steals against Akron.

Notre Dame junior Hannah Hidalgo dribbles with the ball after recording her 15th of 16 steals during an NCAA women's college basketball game between Notre Dame and Akron Wednesday, Nov. 12, 2025, at Purcell Pavilion in South Bend, Indiana. | Austin Hough / South Bend Tribune / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Oh, how quickly things can change in 72 hours. On Tuesday, the Notre Dame Women's Basketball team crushed Akron, 85-48, to get to 3-0. But it wasn't the final score that caught the national media's attention. It was junior guard Hannah Hidalgo.

The AP Preseason All-American set an NCAA record with 16 steals and scored a program-best 44 points in the win. To top it off, Hidalgo became the only player in the history of the NBA, WNBA, or NCAA (men or women, any division) to record at least 40 points and 15 steals in a game, and was just a rebound shy of recording a triple-double, too

Hannah Hidalgo of @ndwbb is the first player in NBA, WNBA or NCAA history (men or women, any division) with 40+ points and 15+ steals in a game. pic.twitter.com/2bcP8xuZKF

— OptaSTATS (@OptaSTATS) November 13, 2025

Social media erupted after Hidalgo's career night, and she was rewarded with her own special interview on SportsCenter.

A record-setting night calls for a SportsCenter visit 🤩

Hannah Hidalgo now owns the NCAA D-I steals record and program scoring record 🔥 pic.twitter.com/9aLDkqFhbZ

— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) November 13, 2025

Hannah went crazy, and here's the evidence

if the stat sheet didn’t convince you, the highlights will 😮‍💨#GoIrish // @HannahHidalgo pic.twitter.com/pVI5tGqJBn

— Notre Dame Women's Basketball (@ndwbb) November 13, 2025

But that's now water under the bridge after the dudd Notre Dame put up on Saturday against Michigan in its Shamrock Series matchup.

Whatever adjective you want to use to describe a butt whopping -- spanked, smoked, blown out, etc. -- that's what happened to the Irish. Notre Dame didn't lead at any point in the game and was outscored in every quarter. Talk about a rough day at the office, especially after an outstanding performance less than 72 hours ago.

What Notre Dame's loss to Michigan means?

Not a whole lot, but it's definitely a gut-punch for Niele Ivey's squad. I suppose it could impact Notre Dame's NCAA seeding come tournament time, but Notre Dame has to make the tourney first, and we're a whole calendar year from that. However, any talk about Notre Dame being a legit Final Four team can be put to rest after Saturday's performance.

What to expect from Notre Dame moving forward

Hopefully not another 39-point defeat. But sometimes teams fail to show up after a big win, especially when your star player sets an NCAA record and a single-game program record.

The good thing for the Irish is they've got six days to prepare for their next game (vs. USC), so, hopefully, they can get a lot corrected before Friday's showdown against No. 8 USC. But if they don't, Notre Dame might get it taken to them again.

USC is legit, despite losing to the reigning champs in South Carolina by double digits on Saturday. The Trojans beat No. 9 NC State last week and have a ton of talent on their squad. So, Notre Dame needs to bring its A-game if the Irish are going to bounce back.

Saturday's game against USC is at 5 p.m. CT and is scheduled to be televised on ESPN.