The Notre Dame women’s basketball social media crew hopped around the team bus interviewing players as they traveled to O’Hare to make their trip to Rome for their season opener.
When the camera got to coach Niele Ivey, she was asked the first thing she would do when she arrived in Italy.
“I’m practicing,” Ivey said. “This is a business trip. We’re going to practice.”
Only two more days of preparation lie ahead before the college basketball season opens with No. 13 Notre Dame playing Villanova in Rome. After months of work, the Irish and other area teams will find out how they stack up against outside competition.
Here are five questions about those teams as the season tips off.
1. Will Hannah Hidalgo make a run at national player of the year?
Hidalgo already has put together one of the greatest careers in Notre Dame history. She ranks second in scoring with 2,460 points, just 166 behind Arike Ogunbowale. She also owns the Irish steals records for a game (16), a season (202 last season) and a career (481).
She’s back for her senior season after using the offseason to build strength and leadership skills for an Irish team that’s counting on several first-year players and transfers. Hidalgo said she gained eight pounds in the offseason after focusing on work in the weight room.
“I was able to gain muscle, got a lot stronger,” she said. “And then of course leading is so much different because we have a completely new team. Freshmen, transfers, (sophomore Leah) Macy didn’t play last year. … It’s been a lot different, but it’s been fun leading this group of girls because they’re sponges.”
Hidalgo, a three-time All-American, was the Naismith and WBCA defensive player of the year last season, when she also set the NCAA Division I record with 16 steals against Akron.
Her two-way dominance and experience make her one of the leading candidates for national player of the year, alongside 2026 winner Sarah Strong of Connecticut and USC guard JuJu Watkins.
“You can’t simulate her speed, especially defensively,” Truman State coach Theo Dean said after an exhibition game this week. “But also you can’t simulate someone that just cares that much about defense.”
2. Who will step up alongside Hidalgo at Notre Dame?
After advancing to the Elite Eight last season for the first time under Ivey, the Irish lost their top six scorers behind Hidalgo, all but one to exhausted eligibility or professional basketball.
Notre Dame rebooted with transfer guard Madison St. Rose (Princeton) and forward Anaya Hardy (Louisville) and a highly regarded freshman class led by guard Jenica Lewis and guard/forward Jacy Abii. Macy, a 6-foot-2 forward who was a McDonald’s All-American in 2025, also returns after sitting out her freshman season while recovering from a knee injury.
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The Irish will count on young players to step up, and Lewis and Abii looked the part of contributors in the preseason. Ivey praised Abii’s size, athleticism and physicality. She’s excited about Lewis’ court vision, versatility and “fantastic” 3-point shooting, and Hidalgo thinks Lewis’ skills can complement her game.
“Just having her on the team, it makes the game so much easier because she opens the floor,” Hidalgo said. “She’s able to pull defenders out, which I’m able to either drive, or if they collapse on me, I’m able to hit her.
“And knowing that she’s going to make these shots, and also her ability to handle the ball, takes pressure off me too. She’s already very comfortable as a freshman, and that’s going to help a lot in the long run.”
With a mostly new starting lineup, Ivey said she saw her players be intentional about building chemistry from the moment they all stepped on campus together. Hidalgo, who believes the group can be “so dominant,” was at the center of that — and will need to be moving forward.
“When Hannah steps on the court or in the weight room, she competes and she practices at such a high level, and they’re all sponges,” Ivey said. “They’re watching her mannerisms. They’re watching how she approaches everything.
“She’s done a great job of being that vocal leader for us, pushing them when they need to be pushed, making sure they understand what the standard is for Notre Dame women’s basketball. And I’ve been really proud of that.”
3. Will experience help Illinois continue to rise under coach Shauna Green?
In the 12 years before Green arrived in Champaign in 2022, the Illini had only one winning season. Under Green, Illinois has won 22 games three times while making the NCAA Tournament in each of those seasons.
The Illini have all of the major pieces back from last season, and that has created big expectations as they enter the season ranked No. 23 in the preseason Associated Press poll. They’re embracing that challenge, given all they learned on the way to the NCAA Tournament’s second round for the second straight season.
“They learned the preparation,” Green said. “They learned the intensity of it. They learned what it’s like to play an NCAA Tournament game on your home court … and how you want to get to host.
“With the youngest team in the NCAA Tournament last year, the youngest team in the Big Ten, that year taught us so much. … Is it going to win you games? No, everything else matters too, but it may get us a little bit closer in some of those tight games that we lost. We can take that experience and put it into action in another tight-game environment.”
Preseason All-Big Ten forward Berry Wallace, a 6-1 junior, leads the charge after averaging 18.4 points and 6.2 rebounds. Cearah Parchment, a 6-3 forward, had a standout freshman season in which she averaged 13.6 points and 8.4 rebounds, and Green said a full offseason to build strength has helped Parchment be more physical in the post, finish better and have better endurance.
“The confidence that she got from last year is going to really propel her to explode this year,” Green said. “She understands now what it’s like to guard five. She understands how people guard her. The versatility with her is so, so fun to coach because you can put her in so many different positions.”
Sophomore Destiny Jackson is another whose growth bears watching after the point guard from Young averaged 9.9 points, 4.3 rebounds and 5.2 assists.
4. What will Northwestern look like under new coach Carla Berube?
Joe McKeown won 785 games over 40 seasons as a head coach with the Wildcats, George Washington and New Mexico State. But Northwestern struggled in his final few seasons, finishing with nine wins or fewer in each of the last four years.
So Berube, who arrived in Evanston in March after going 147-29 in six seasons at Princeton, has a turnaround project at her new job. During Big Ten media days in early October, she said she still was figuring out exactly what her team would be capable of this season. But she knew what she wanted its identity to be.
“That teams don’t want to come and play us,” Berube said. “That there’s a toughness, there’s a togetherness, there’s an unselfishness, there’s incredible communication and great energy that you’re feeling every single day. That every day we’re getting better in practice, and then it’s translating to the next game as well.”
Grace Sullivan, who averaged 21.4 points and 6.4 rebounds last season, has graduated. But senior guard Casey Harter and junior guard Xamiya Walton, who will be joined by younger sister Xyanna, are returning starters. Harter and transfer guards Lexi Blue (Kentucky) and Lily Carmody (Boston College) were named team captains.
Harter said “it’s definitely been a transition” as a leader under a new coaching staff. But she has tried to help make it a smooth one by reiterating Berube’s standards.
“I would say there’s a lot of new energy within the team, coming from the coaches, and it’s being spread around the team,” Harter said. “I feel like we’re held accountable and we have a high standard for each other. And then we have great leadership starting from the coaches to everybody on the team.”
5. Will any of the area’s other newer coaches make an impact?
Berube isn’t the only coach trying to turn around a local program. The Northwestern coach hired former Loyola head coach Allison Guth to be her chief of staff after Guth resigned at Loyola.
Meanwhile, Loyola hired former Kansas associate head coach Morgan Paige for her first head coaching job. Paige coached at Kansas for five seasons and takes over a Ramblers program that went 16-18 last season.
DePaul’s Jill Pizzotti and Northern Illinois’ Jacey Brooks enter their second seasons as head coaches after winning eight and seven games, respectively, in 2025-26.
Chicago State’s Corry Irvin, the former St. Xavier and Young coach, enters her third season with the Cougars with a 16-49 record.
UIC is coming off a 14-18 campaign in coach Ashleen Bracey’s fourth season.
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