Why this NCAA opener wasn't just another game for one Notre Dame women's basketball player
Tom Noie
SOUTH BEND – Bouncing through the locker room lounge late Saturday afternoon, her smile said it all.
Said how Notre Dame women’s basketball graduate student guard Anna DeWolfe wanted to scream about being the last member of the starting lineup introduced to a sold-out Purcell Pavilion crowd as chills danced across her body.
Said what it meant to take and make her first shot, which allowed her and the Irish to settle into a first-round NCAA Tournament game that they would win comfortably, 81-67, over Kent State.
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Said everything that she didn’t want to say at the post-game interview dais, when the moment felt too big and the spotlight too bright, so she stayed with the script and offered the usual player speak.
Said what this day meant to her. To her family. To her collegiate career.
Anna DeWolfe has done a lot in her five years of college basketball — the first four at Fordham before one last one at Notre Dame. She’s scored a lot of points (2,168). She’s played a lot of games (144). She’s racked up a laundry list of impressive accolades (Atlantic 10 rookie of the year, A-10 player of the year, 5,079 career minutes) as a good, solid, steady college guard.
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Even in her one season in South Bend, DeWolfe has done plenty of what she considered unthinkable. Like playing in the first women’s basketball game in Paris. Like winning a conference tournament championship. Like riding shotgun as a veteran voice alongside some of the best to ever do it for a program that have had a lot of players do it.
Until Saturday, after a restless night’s sleep knowing what Saturday would mean, DeWolfe had never done what she did against Kent State. She did it in a Notre Dame uniform. Did it in front of family members and in front of friends.
DeWolfe has checked a lot of boxes in her collegiate career. On Saturday, she checked one of the few that remained unchecked. She played in an NCAA Tournament game.
“This was one of the biggest reasons why I transferred, to make the tournament,” DeWolfe said away from the post-game dais and back in the familiar embrace/energy of the Irish locker room. “I felt like I was missing that one really important thing that you work for.”
That moment was something that Irish head coach Niele Ivey promised that she could do and would do if she chose to play her fifth year somewhere other than Fordham.
DeWolfe remembers well that initial phone conversation. It was about this time last year, when her fourth year at Fordham again ended early. Prior to choosing to play at the A-10 school, DeWolfe heard stories from her future teammates about what it was like to play in the NCAA Tournament. Fordham did it when DeWolfe was still in high school back in Cumberland, Maine, back when she was setting records and scoring points and doing stuff that players her size (5-foot-8) don’t normally do.
It would be so cool, DeWolfe’s future Fordham teammates told her, to experience the highs that make up March Madness. But one March came and went. Then another. A third. A fourth. DeWolfe still hadn’t experienced anything about March, except workouts and the wonder of what that month might be like in the NCAA.
Would she ever know? She didn’t know.
“It was really hard at a mid-major,” DeWolfe said. “You’d practice and prepare all year and it would come down to one day and you were done. I really wanted that.”
Can't take any of this for granted — not now
Time wasn’t running out. It was just about out.
Come to Notre Dame, DeWolfe remembers Ivey telling her, and be a veteran guard on a talented team and you’ll play in the NCAA Tournament. DeWolfe was sold on Notre Dame right then and there.
So, this is March.
Saturday’s 2:20 p.m. tip couldn’t come soon enough for DeWolfe. She spent much of Friday night and Saturday morning tossing and turning. Sleep wasn’t going to come in one solid stretch of six or seven hours. DeWolfe insisted she slept, but maybe an hour here, a couple of hours there.
Ever the veteran guard, DeWolfe tried to keep her thoughts on what Notre Dame needed to do against Kent State. Move the ball the way the Irish moved it in winning three games in three days to capture the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament championship. Rebound. Defend. Stay tough. Stay together.
Occasionally, after another toss or another turn, DeWolfe would let her mind go there. Like, I’m finally playing in the NCAA Tournament. All those hours in the gym. All those games. All those years. Saturday was the ultimate payday.
Surreal. All of it still, even an hour after Saturday’s game where Notre Dame led for 36:30 went final. She didn't want to let the moment go. She didn't want to stop smiling.
“I’m just so excited to have this opportunity and enjoy every second of it,” DeWolfe said. “This is it. Like, I’m never going to have this opportunity again.”
It all started with the starting lineups. On a veteran Notre Dame team, DeWolfe likely — usually — would be introduced first, soon after the house lights dimmed. NCAA Tournament protocol stipulates that starters are introduced by position — forwards first, then guards — and by number from lowest to highest.
That freshman wizard Hannah Hidalgo wears No. 3 and junior sniper Sonia Citron wears No. 11 meant that DeWolfe, No. 13, would be introduced last, a sacred spot often reserved for a team’s best/most veteran player. That’s when it hit her. First, the chills, then, the realization that this is March.
“That was really cool,” DeWolfe said. “Super special. It was kind of the cherry on top for me.”
That starting lineup moment could’ve been and should’ve been enough for DeWolfe. Until it was time to play — and time to win. Then DeWolfe did what she’s long done, first at Fordham and this past winter at Notre Dame. She played. DeWolfe banged in her first shot a — 3-pointer — barely three minutes in. Less than a minute later, she added a mid-range jumper. Any nerves were gone. She was in her game bag. After a stretch of not getting to double figures in four of the last five games, DeWolfe finished with 12 points, a rebound and three assists in 28 minutes.
“It was kind of like a relief when you see the first one go through,” DeWolfe said. “Just let the game come to me.”
It came to her Saturday.
“I was really, really excited for her,” Ivey said.
She’ll take it, all of it, because the questions that have hounded her for over four years were answered. She always wondered what an NCAA Tournament game would be like. Would she ever play in one? Could she ever deliver in one?
Yes, and yes.
Notre Dame will continue to chase its national championship dream Monday, at home, in the second round. DeWolfe already has lived a dream.
What’s playing in the NCAA tournament at ND like for the one they call AD?
Pretty freaking cool.
All of it.
At last.
Follow South Bend Tribune and NDInsider columnist Tom Noie on X (formerly Twitter): @tnoieNDI. Contact: (574) 235-6153.