No. 10 Notre Dame tops NC State to reach ACC semifinals
GREENSBORO, N.C. (AP) — Sonia Citron had a season-high 28 points to help 10th-ranked Notre Dame beat three-time reigning champion North Carolina State 66-60 in Friday’s quarterfinals at the Atlantic Coast Conference Tournament.
Maddy Westbeld added 15 points and 10 rebounds for the Fighting Irish (25-4), the top seed. Notre Dame opened the tournament without injured star guard Olivia Miles, but emerged from a grinding second period in which both teams struggled to make shots by coming out of halftime strong to wrestle away control.
Notre Dame led by as many as 14 points midway through the fourth quarter.
Miles, a first-team all-ACC performer who excels as a scorer and a playmaker, went down with a knee injury in last weekend’s win at Louisville that clinched the regular-season title. Citron had 27 points to help the Irish survive, then came through with another strong showing to open tournament play.
This time, she made 8 of 18 shots, 11 of 15 free throws and hit a fourth-quarter 3-pointer to go with nine rebounds and five assists.
Aziaha James and Saniya Rivers each scored 14 points to lead the eighth-seeded Wolfpack (20-11), who had won 10 straight ACC Tournament games since the start of the three-year title run in 2020.
But N.C. State — playing again without top scorer Diamond Johnson due to a lingering ankle injury — shot just 30% after the opening period and made just 2 of 15 3-pointers for the game. The Wolfpack fell behind in a double-digit hole in the third quarter and just couldn’t erase the gap even after going to full-court pressure to speed up the game late that got them within two possessions multiple times.
BIG PICTURE
N.C. State: The Wolfpack started off this week’s tournament with Thursday’s second-round win against 9-seed Syracuse to extend the long tournament winning streak, which gave coach Wes Moore his 800th career win. N.C. State led this one 18-14 after a strong opening quarter, but made just 2 of 13 in the second with a chance to grow the lead. Instead, Westbeld’s 3-pointer capped a personal 7-0 run that gave Notre Dame a 25-22 halftime lead that would grow to put the Wolfpack in catch-up mode the rest of the afternoon.
Notre Dame: Things aren’t getting easier. The Irish had already lost starter Dara Mabrey to a season-ending injury before Miles went down last week at Louisville. Miles sat alongside Mabrey for this one, getting up at one point to offer advice to freshman Cassandre Prosper before slowly and gingerly making the few steps back to her seat. Notre Dame also saw reserve Natalija Marshall spend the second half with an icebag pressed to her right eye after taking an inadvertent elbow from Prosper on a second-quarter rebound attempt.
UP NEXT
N.C. State: Will await its NCAA Tournament seeding.
Notre Dame: Will face fourth-seeded Louisville in Saturday’s semifinals.
___
Follow Aaron Beard on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/aaronbeardap
___
AP women’s college basketball: https://apnews.com/hub/womens-college-basketball and https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-womens-college-basketball-poll and https://twitter.com/AP_Top25