No. 13 Notre Dame travels to White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, on Saturday to face DePaul in the 2026 SoFi Shamrock Classic, a neutral-site meeting that pairs a 3-0 team with an unbeaten 4-0 opponent. Tipoff is set for 1 p.m. ET on NBC.
The game has extra pull because Hannah Hidalgo is coming off one of her strongest all-around performances of the young season. She scored 23 points and grabbed 10 rebounds in Notre Dame's 108-60 win over Detroit Mercy on Tuesday, recorded her second double-double of the season and went 8-for-8 from the free throw line to break the school's career mark of 566 makes, a record that had belonged to Skylar Diggins.
That lopsided win also showed why Notre Dame enters this matchup with momentum. Jacy Abii added 12 points, nine rebounds and seven assists, along with three blocks that lifted her season total to 10. Madison St. Rose scored 19 points and grabbed seven rebounds, Leah Macy had 17 points and five steals, and Jenica Lewis added 12 points off the bench. Abii leads the ACC in blocks per game and defensive rebounds per game, and she is also among the top freshmen nationally with 12 steals, 10 blocks and 25 defensive rebounds.
DePaul arrives with its own clean record after an 85-65 win over Northern Illinois on Wednesday. Mikaia Litza leads the Blue Demons with 14.8 points per game, while Louis Volker leads the Big East in blocks with six. The matchup renews a Big East rivalry that has not been played since December 2021, and Notre Dame leads the series 27-20 all time.
That is what gives Saturday's game its edge: Notre Dame has been scoring at a pace that has already pushed it past 100 points once this week, but DePaul has not lost yet and has enough rim protection to make the Irish work for every possession. Sloane Martin, LaChina Robinson and Ice Young will call the game, and the winner will leave West Virginia with an early-season result that says more than an unbeaten record ever could.
