After a 26-5 regular season and earning the opportunity to host as a No. 3 seed in the NCAA Tournament, three Notre Dame guards have earned national recognition for their bodies of work this year.
On Wednesday, the Associated Press and U.S. Basketball Writers Association announced their annual awards. For the AP, Hannah Hidalgo was named to the First Team, Olivia Miles was named to the Second Team, and Sonia Citron earned Honorable Mention. For the USBWA, Hidalgo earned First Team recognition, while Miles was Second Team.
Hidalgo has now been named to the AP All-America First Team as a freshman and sophomore, becoming just the fourth player in history to do so and joining USC’s JuJu Watkins, Connecticut’s Maya Moore and Oklahoma’s Courtney Paris.
Hidalgo is pacing the Irish this season on both ends of the court. She leads the team with 24.2 points and 3.7 steals per game, marks that both rank fourth in the nation. Hidalgo also ranks fourth in the ACC with a 40.7 success rate from beyond the arc and is averaging a pair of triples per game.
The 5-6 guard has already re-written portions of the Irish record book, too. At the ACC Tournament, Hidalgo joined Irish legend Arike Ogunbowale as the only players in Notre Dame history to post multiple 700-point seasons. She also has 108 steals this year, the sophomore record. It is just the fourth time in program history a Notre Dame player has had a 100-steal season. Hidalgo did it last year as well (160).
Miles is averaging 16.2 points, 5.9 rebounds and 5.8 assists per game. She is the only player in the nation averaging 15-5-5 while shooting greater than 40 percent from deep. In the last 15 years, Iowa’s Caitlin Clark and Oregon’s Sabrina Ionescu are the only other players to achieve that feat.
Additionally, Miles leads the nation with three triple-doubles this season and became the first player in ACC history with back-to-back triple-doubles (Loyola and Virginia). Her 20-point triple-double in Notre Dame’s opener against Mercyhurst came on the heels of a year off while rehabbing a torn ACL, making her the first player in NBA, WNBA or college basketball player in history to sit out for a year due to injury and post a 20-point triple-double in their first game back.
Citron has quietly stuffed the stat sheet nearly every time she takes the floor this year. She is posting 13.8 points, 5.3 rebounds and 2.8 assists per game. In the last 10 games, those numbers jump to 15.2 points, 5.4 rebounds and 2.9 assists per game with a 57.5 percent success rate from the floor. She also has seven games this year with 3+ steals.