On Thursday, Stanford women’s basketball fell to No. 3 Notre Dame by a final score of 96-47. Notre Dame guard Hannah Hidalgo was the top performer for the Irish with 24 points and five assists while guard Olivia Miles had 20 points. Stanford guard Tess Heal was the lone Cardinal to score in double figures with 10 points. Notre Dame improves to 20-2 overall and 11-0 in the ACC while Stanford falls to 11-11 overall and 3-8 in the ACC.

BOX SCORE: Stanford at Notre Dame-Thursday, February 6th

This game was one-way traffic for the Irish from the jump. Stanford start forward Nunu Agara took a hard fall in the first few minutes of the game and did not return. With her done so early, Stanford never really had a shot. Notre Dame led 17-8 at the end of the 1st quarter and then blew the doors off the Cardinal 33-7 in the 2nd quarter to lead 50-15 at halftime.

In the 3rd quarter, Notre Dame outscored Stanford 26-15 and then in the 4th quarter outscored Stanford 20-17, walking out with a 96-47 victory in the end. The second half wasn’t as bad for Stanford as the first half, but when you get utterly dominated like they did in the first half, it doesn’t really matter how the second half goes anyways.

Stanford’s biggest issue in this game was their poor shooting. They shot just 31.1% from the field and 27.3% from 3-point range. They were never able to get the lid off the basket as every point they scored was a real struggle. Notre Dame in contrast was in a great offensive flow all night as they shot 55.4% from the field and 52.9% from 3-point range on 17 attempts (nine makes).

It's really weird to see Stanford get dominated like this given their pedigree and history, but given their current roster, especially with Agara going down, this result really shouldn’t be surprising. With dreams of making the NCAA tourney fading like a shadow, Stanford just needs to make sure they don’t let this result shake their mental resolve.

To touch quickly on Notre Dame, still an amazing performance by them. Hidalgo and Miles both played fantastic. It’ll be interesting to see how they do against a ranked Cal team on Sunday and whether or not the Golden Bears are able to put up at least a bit of a fight.

Up next for Stanford is a road game at Louisville on Super Bowl Sunday. Tipoff is set for 9:00 AM PT on ESPN2.

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