Zoe Brooks, Tilda Trygger power N.C. State to a stunning upset of Notre Dame: What we learned about ACC contenders

Wes Moore’s Wolfpack toppling Niele Ivey’s Fighting Irish in double overtime on ESPN felt like women’s college basketball’s game of the year.

RALEIGH, N.C. – Just 22.5 seconds remained on the clock when the whistle blew. Zoe Brooks nodded and clapped her hands as a referee signaled that she had been fouled by Notre Dame’s Liatu King, who dropped her jaw in disbelief.

As Brooks received a soft bounce pass from the referee at the free throw line, North Carolina State senior guard Aziaha James stood a few feet behind her, waving her arms down in an attempt to hush a hyped-up sold-out crowd at Reynolds Coliseum, many of whom had been in the historic building for more than three hours, showing up early for ESPN’s College GameDay. The fans obliged, and then Brooks did what she would do 14 times over the course of the game.

The Wolfpack guard inhaled deeply, slowly filling up her chest and then letting it out, just like her dad told her to. She ignored barbs from her former high school adversary Hannah Hidalgo. She dribbled twice with her right hand, then locked her eyes on the basket and shot.

Swish.

“She was just talking to me at the free throw line. We were playing with each other for years in the past, so we were just chirping,” Brooks said of her back-and-forth with Hidalgo, a fellow native of New Jersey. “I just started recently taking a deep breath (before free throws). I get really nervous sometimes and I just miss… I feel a lot more comfortable when I shoot free throws now.”

Notre Dame’s Sonia Citron’s incredible 3-pointer just before the buzzer of regulation would send the game into overtime, but Brooks continued to provide N.C. State with heroics as the contest was extended by two extra periods. She sank a floater to put the Wolfpack ahead by four points in the second overtime, and then grabbed a defensive rebound that turned into a play that made the majority of 5,500 fans in Reynolds roar their loudest.

After securing that miss by the Fighting Irish, Brooks flicked a pass up the floor to James. In a foot race to the rim with Olivia Miles, James hesitated just a bit to slow the All-American Notre Dame guard down, and then she whipped the ball from her left to her right hand behind her back, then tossed it back in her left to finish a layup at the rim untouched. It d was a slick move that would’ve made fellow Tidewater native Allen Iverson proud. The sweet bucket by James put the Wolfpack ahead by six points with 2:49 to play in the second overtime.

Saniya Rivers didn’t see the play in real time, too focused on getting to her position on the other end of the court, but knew from the crowd reaction that she needed to watch the jumbotron during the next timeout.

“Everybody was going crazy,” Rivers said. “ZaZa was being ZaZa. She done did something. It looked really good on the replay.”

The game seemed over for good when James hugged Wolfpack coach Wes Moore with 31.9 seconds left, just after Rivers grabbed her 13th rebound of the game and was fouled. She knocked down one of two shots to give the Wolfpack their largest lead at 10 points. Miles responded with a 3-pointer, and then a familiar scene played out: Brooks was fouled and then flushed two shots from the charity stripe.

Brooks and freshman forward Tilda Trygger jumped into each other’s arms as James dribbled out the clock. When the buzzer sounded, photographers and folks carrying bulky TV cameras flooded the court to capture the celebration.

No. 13 N.C. State handed No. 1 Notre Dame its first loss in ACC play, 104-95 in double-overtime on Sunday afternoon on national television. It was the third time a Moore-coached Wolfpack squad defeated the team ranked atop the Associated Press Top 25 poll, and the first time N.C. State beat the No. 1 team at home since 1978 when the Wayland Baptist Flying Queens left Raleigh with an L.

“Really? Heck, I didn’t even know that,” Moore said when N.C. State Director of Athletic Communications Kylie Magar shouted the stat out before the postgame press conference. “Can we get maybe a billboard or something?”

Five N.C. State players scored in double figures, but Brooks led the way with a signature performance – a career-high 33 points to go with 10 rebounds and three assists, while shooting a perfect 14-of-14 from the free throw line.

“We already knew what Zoe could do,” Rivers said. “I still don’t feel like she’s scratched the surface yet.”

Each time Brooks would go to the bench during timeouts, Brandon Miller – N.C. State’s Director of Scouting and Video Operations – would hype her up by calling her “Big Zoe.” Against Notre Dame, the 5-foot-10 sophomore lived up to the playful moniker.

“I like challenges, and I had a lot of fun today. I’m very competitive,” Brooks said.

Brooks’ clutch play, Citron’s unbelievable shot, Miles hushing the crowd, a bandaged James returning to the court after getting cut above her right eyebrow, the battle in the paint between Trygger and King, Hidalgo dazzling with her spin moves and acrobatic layups, Rivers sending Notre Dame shot attempts into the stands, the presence of ESPN and scouts from seven WNBA teams, a rowdy and proud bunch of fans – all of it combined made this arguably the Game of the Year in women’s college basketball so far this season.

“With the way the arena is set up, it feels like the fans are like right on top of you. They were super loud,” Notre Dame coach Niele Ivey said of Reynolds Coliseum. “You can tell (the players) feed off the energy. We’ve been in a lot of hostile environments. This is one of the top 10.”

There were 21 lead changes and 21 times the score was tied. But it felt like N.C. State – with the backing of a raucous bunch of supporters, some of whom received donuts from Moore on Sunday morning after camping out since late Saturday night – were in control most of the time. The Wolfpack led for more than 33 minutes.

And the result proved a couple of things.

Mitchell Northam / SB Nation

Notre Dame is not invincible

Notre Dame is, in fact, beatable, even when they’re at full strength. In the Irish’s two previous two defeats – at the hands of the Big 12’s TCU and Utah in the Cayman Islands – they were missing regular frontcourt contributors Liza Karlen and Maddy Westbeld.

On Sunday in Reynolds, Karlen, an All-Big East selection and finalist for the McClain Award last season at Marquette, didn’t really contribute. She tallied two points, two rebounds and a block in just 11 minutes of action. And Westbeld, a former All-ACC selection who was wearing a flashy pair of Sabrina 1s on Sunday, was held to just six points, two rebounds and three steals in 40 minutes.

And while Miles and Hidalgo are bonafide stars, this was a game where Notre Dame needed all of its supporting cast to step up and play well. Citron did that with solid defense and her wild 3-pointer to send the game in overtime, and King contributed a double-double – leading the team in rebounding and steals – but the Irish needed more, especially in a game where Hidalgo (31.6) posted her second-worst field goal percentage of the season and Miles had her third-worst (39.1).

Notre Dame entered this game as the nation’s top 3-point shooting team, making 40.6 percent of their shots from deep this season. But they connected on just 25.9 percent of them – their fourth-worst mark of the season – against N.C. State.

“I thought our shot selection could have been a lot better,” Ivey said. “I thought we kind of settled. I think if we could have kind of mixed it up more, getting to the rim, getting downhill, getting some more paint touches, maybe that number wouldn’t have been as low as it was.”

Entering the weekend, Notre Dame was backing up their ranking as the nation’s No. 1 team. They were undefeated in ACC play and also boasted victories over contenders like USC, UConn and Texas. A win against N.C. State would have given the Irish the outright regular season title and clinched them the No. 1 seed in Greensboro, North Carolina, at the ACC Tournament.

Rivers – who was one assist shy of a triple-double – said that she and the rest of the Wolfpack didn’t know exactly what was at-stake for Notre Dame in this game, but they certainly played like it. Once again, just like when they made their run to the Final Four last season, N.C. State played the role of party-crashers.

“We’re here to stay,” Rivers said. “We’re here to fight, and we’re hoping to cut down some nets this season.”

Indeed, this result also proves that N.C. State is capable of winning big in March again. They just went through a gauntlet of games to prove it, playing five of their last six against ranked opponents. The Wolfpack won five games in that stretch, the lone loss coming in Chapel Hill to rival North Carolina by a single point in a contest where N.C. State missed eight free throws. They didn’t make that same mistake against Notre Dame. N.C. State was 24-of-26 from the charity stripe as a team.

“It just shows the heart we have,” Brooks said. “We didn’t stand down against anybody. We weren’t scared of anybody.”

Mitchell Northam / SB Nation

Tilda Trygger is the answer

After last season’s Final Four run, the worry for N.C. State coming into this season was in the frontcourt. Moore and everyone else knew he had a stellar trio of guards returning in James, Rivers and Brooks, and a do-it-all Swiss-army-knife tweener in Madison Hayes – but who was going to replace All-ACC selection River Baldwin and the tough and versatile Mimi Collins? Who was going to rebound and protect the rim? Who was going to be the center in the four-out, one-in system that Moore loves to run?

Initially, the plan was for Caitlin Weimar to step into that role. She arrived at N.C. State in the offseason after four stellar seasons at Boston University where the 6-foot-4 forward was a two-time Patriot League Defensive Player of the Year. But a preseason hip injury and then surgery kept Weimar out of the lineup and she departed N.C. State midseason without ever playing a single minute for the Wolfpack.

So, Moore had to turn to a stable of young and largely inexperienced players to try and find the right fit. Eventually, he found the answer in a 6-foot-6 freshman from Stockholm, Sweden. Since Tilda Trygger entered the starting lineup for the Wolfpack, the team is 13-2. When Trygger has two blocks or more in a game, N.C. State is 6-0. When Trygger scores at least nine points, the Wolfpack are 7-1.

Simply put, when Trygger plays well – as she did Sunday, scoring a season-high-tying 19 points on 8-of-9 shooting to go along with nine rebounds, two blocks and assist – the Wolfpack almost always win. Against Notre Dame, Trygger played with confidence as she knocked down two 3-pointers, with fearlessness as she challenged Hidalgo at the rim, and with a skillful touch as she missed just one shot. The way she has stepped up for N.C. State has answered the questions surrounding the Wolfpack’s frontcourt situation. She’s proven to be more than qualified to fill the shoes of Baldwin.

“Tilda is going to be big for us this year,” Rivers said. “She’s playing out of position right now, but she’s doing amazing. She’s holding it down. She wants to be out on the wing and shooting all the time, but seeing her bang down there with the fives and hit career-highs is just beautiful. I couldn’t ask for a better teammate.”

Moore added: “Tilda has done an unbelievable job. It was hard to take her off the court.”

Mitchell Northam / SB Nation

All eyes on Greensboro

The result of this game has also made the ACC race a bit more interesting.

Notre Dame is still likely to win the conference title and secure the No. 1 seed in Greensboro. The Irish would have to lose one more game and N.C. State would have to win out to force a different situation. But days ago it felt like Notre Dame was going to bulldoze its way to the ACC titles in the regular season and conference tournament. Now, we know there’s at least one team that is equipped to challenge them.

Moreover, Notre Dame versus N.C. State looks like another great rivalry that the ACC can tout. The Wolfpack are now 4-3 against the Fighting Irish since Ivey took the reins in South Bend from Muffet McGraw. In that stretch, N.C. State has won twice in Reynolds Coliseum, once at Purcell Pavillion, and also bounced the Irish from the 2022 NCAA Tournament. Ivey’s Notre Dame, meanwhile, has ousted N.C. State from each of the last two ACC Tournaments. The average margin of victory between these two sides over their last seven meetings is 6.42 points.

Before this game, even the most casual viewers of women’s college basketball would argue that Notre Dame’s trio of Miles, Hidalgo and Citron represented the best backcourt in the country. But now, N.C. State’s collection of James, Rivers and Brooks have a case to be made in that debate.

Here’s what each collectively produced Sunday:

James, Rivers and Brooks: 67 points, 28 rebounds, 14 assists, four steals, 39 percent shooting

Miles, Hidalgo and Citron: 71 points, 21 rebounds, nine assists, five steals, 41 percent shooting

Wes Moore knows which group he’s picking.

“We got some pretty good guards,” Moore said. “Notre Dame deserves all the attention they get. But I like ours too.”