FORT WORTH, TEXAS — Hannah Hidalgo knows Mikayla Blakes’ game quite well, dating back to the two New Jersey natives’ high school and AAU games.
And she sees a lot of Caitlin Clark, the NCAA’s all-time points leader, in it.
“She can score the ball, yeah, in so many different ways,” Hidalgo said. “Obviously we all know she’s the No. 1 scorer in the country, but just the way she’s able to put the ball in the hoop, it’s unlike I feel like I’ve ever seen. Like Caitlin [Clark] type of level. She can score on all three levels, whether that’s getting all the way to the basket, her midrange, or her 3. Of course, that’s always tough to guard.”
Hidalgo and Blakes will meet for the first time collegiately when Hidalgo’s No. 6 Notre Dame faces No. 2 Vanderbilt in the Sweet 16 on Friday. The regional semifinal of the Fort Worth 1 regional is at 2:30 p.m. ET on ESPN.
The sophomore Blakes is averaging a DI-best 27 points per game, the exact average — down to the decimal — of Clark’s output during her junior year at Iowa. Their field goal and 3-point percentages are similar, though as the point guard, Clark led the nation in assists.
Clark finished her four-year Iowa career with a record 3,951 points, breaking the DI women’s record held by Kelsey Plum, the AIAW record held by Pearl Moore and the men’s DI record held by Pete Maravich. Clark increased her output to 31.7 as a senior while leading Iowa, her home state program, to a second consecutive national title game run to shatter the mark.
Blakes is sitting at 1,661 points. At that rate, she would finish with 3,322.
Hidalgo is known more for her ability to pick pockets as a dangerous two-way player. The Notre Dame junior led the nation in average steals (5.6) again this year after doing so as a freshman (4.6).
“I love the way that they play her on defense,” Vanderbilt head coach Shea Ralph said. “It allowed her — I said this yesterday — to be a free safety in a lot of ways. Because of her high IQ and competitiveness, she takes full advantage of that. She’s a really good defensive player.”
Hidalgo averages 25.2 points (third in DI) predominantly doing her work driving into the paint and in transition, with 6.7 rebounds and 5.2 assists per game on average. She’s taken on a leadership role this year for an underdog No. 6-seeded Fighting Irish squad that wasn’t expected to reach its fifth consecutive Sweet 16.
Hidalgo, a native of Merchantville, New Jersey, recalled playing Blakes, who’s from Somerset, about 60 miles away, as a senior and winning.
“It was a show,” Hidalgo said. “Two dynamic guards. I had to guard her the whole game. I think just her ability to do what she does, you know, the things that she brings to her team is so different. It’s exciting, because I’ve been playing against Mikayla for a long time now, and I played with her at [Team] USA. It will be fun to now play against her at the collegiate level.”
Notre Dame has not reached an Elite Eight since Muffet McGraw’s back-to-back national championship appearances in 2018 and 2019. It would be Notre Dame head coach Niele Ivey’s first Elite Eight.
Vanderbilt, in its fifth season under the rebuilding guidance of Ralph, is in its first Sweet 16 since 2009. It has not reached an Elite Eight since 2002. The winner plays the winner of No. 1 overall seed UConn and No. 4 seed North Carolina.
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