ATLANTA – Notre Dame phenom Hannah Hidalgo has been named a 2026 Naismith Women’s College Defensive Player of the Year finalist, as announced by the Atlanta Tipoff Club on Wednesday.
The junior is the best on-ball defender in college basketball, leading the country in steals per game with an unbelievable mark of 5.6.
Over the past weekend Hidalgo completely wrecked the opposition’s offensive gameplans, recording eight steals in each of the first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament games to lead the Irish to the Sweet Sixteen. The eight steals in a game are a program record for most steals in an NCAA Tournament game.
The guard has five career games of 10 or more steals, four coming this season, making Hidalgo one of just two players since the start of the 1999-00 season to record five or more career games of 10+ steals.
Hidalgo set the NCAA record for steals in a game earlier this season, recording 16 against Akron. The junior has three games with 30+ points and 10+ steals. There has only been one other player in the country to record 30 or more points and 10 or more steals in a single game and it occurred just once.
The guard has already broken the Notre Dame program record for steals in a career, as she currently sits at 468, passing Irish legend Skylar Diggins’ mark of 381 earlier this season. The junior also broke her own program record for steals in a season with 189.
Hidalgo and the Fighting Irish travel to Fort Worth, Texas, to take on No. 2 seed Vanderbilt in the Sweet Sixteen at 2:30 p.m. ET on Friday, March 27 inside Dickies Arena. The game will air on ESPN.