Hannah Hidalgo and Olivia Miles Cover SLAM 245

Miles is a true basketball savant, someone who admits she doesn’t have a specific approach when it comes to her style of play, but instead sees the court as her canvas. “I see basketball as art,” she says. “I think I have a canvas, and I’m able to be the artist and use my creativity in ways that you don’t really see very often. Hannah does a little bit of the same. We have such great, great players on our team that also have great vision. So, it’s just fun to play with people who can find you and be creative with the game, instead of just, like, pass, shoot, layup. We like to make it fun instead of so fundamental all the time.”

Hannah describes Miles’ game as “clutch and flashy,” but it’s fair to say we haven’t seen Miles at her most creative just yet. She reveals that she doesn’t even feel fully back, which is to be expected from someone who was on the sidelines for a year. How exactly will she know when she’s her full self again on the court? “Not being sore mid-game or, like, wanting to die in the fourth quarter. That’s definitely a start,” she says. “I think making it through a full game is very difficult, and anyone coming back from an injury knows that. I think there are levels to this, and I’m barely even halfway through the season yet, so I’m just giving myself grace. I’m trusting I’ll be back in due time.”

The year Miles was out was the same year Hidalgo arrived. To hold your own as a freshman is one thing, but to be tasked with leading the team and bringing energy back to the program with its star out? That takes someone on an entirely different wavelength.

The good news for the Irish is that Hannah is an entity. As a force of nature, Hidalgo wasn’t afraid of the moment. She owned it. “I think coming into college, I [knew] it was gonna be a lot, especially with Liv going down,” she says. “It was gonna be a lot of taking on such a dominant team, such a strong team and just leading that team as a freshman. Coach Ivey, she had instilled a lot of trust in me before I even got here. She had told me she was giving me the keys and it was going to be a lot, but she knew what it was and knew who I was, and she had trusted me a lot.”

During training and workouts in the summer leading up to this season, Liv took on the role of mentor with Hidalgo. She’d bring Hannah to their 6:00 a.m. team workouts and lifts and, most notably, helped her prepare her for what was ahead. “Being a freshman, not knowing anybody, having Liv there to say, You can’t get this person the ball when they’re running here, they’re not gonna be able to catch it. Or, Sonia likes the ball in this spot. This is what this player likes. This is how you should look for this player. It was really helpful.”

All the while, Miles knew that in many ways, Hidalgo also had to just go out there and figure things out. “I definitely let Hannah kind of figure it out, learn on her own,” Miles tells us, adding: “I’ve been in her shoes before she was here, but it was just incredible to kind of see what she did in that rookie year—leading such a powerful team, as she said, and figuring it out along the way.”

And she definitely did. With unmatched speed and versatility on both ends of the floor, Hidalgo put the college basketball world on notice with her all-around game. She packed the stat sheet with numbers no one had ever seen before: from numerous 30-pieces, including against UConn and Georgia Tech, to program single-season records of 22.6 points and 4.6 steals per game (the latter of which also led the nation). That season, she totaled 160 steals, which broke a program record previously set by none other than Diggins-Smith. Speaking of which: “She just got it here [pointing to her heart],” Sky said recently about Hannah while on Angel Reese’s podcast, Unapologetically Angel. “Just fearless, can play both sides of the basketball, cares about both sides of the basketball. That’s not always the case.”

Reese clearly agreed: “A killer.”

Miles has used—and tweeted—the word “menace” to describe Hidalgo’s game. She plays in a way that is so unafraid, it really doesn’t matter who she’s guarding or who is guarding her. HH is going to get a bucket (or a steal) every single time.

“It’s just the most insane energy plays,” Miles says. “In that tweet, I said, I just be laughing. I’m at half-court—like, check the videos. I just laugh, because it’s just funny what she does to people and just in her cute little, like, uppity self, she just runs around and then gets back on defense right away. Just so unassuming. That’s just such a menace to me. You get fired up.”

While everyone sees greatness in her, what matters most is that Hidalgo sees it in herself. She’s taken her game to a completely different level in her sophomore season, currently averaging 25.7 points on 50.4 percent shooting from the field. She ranks second in the country in points per game. “I think the most lethal part [of my game] is my ability to score over bigger defenders, and my defense, of course,” she says.

“Duh,” Liv chimes in.

“Defense is like a lost art in and of itself. Not a lot of people want to play both sides of the ball,” Hidalgo continues.

They’re both artists in their own ways, unique and creative. But what happens on the court when they’re together is the result of pure collaboration. Their reads to each other seem to be connected by an invisible string, like when Olivia sent a full-court hail mary pass to Hidalgo against Wake Forest, or the time Hidalgo dished out a behind-her-head pass to Miles for a fastbreak layup. It’s crazy to think that this is only their first year playing together.

“It’s hard to describe,” Miles says, when asked about their style of play together. “It just happens.” To which Hidalgo adds: “I think it’s just two top guards reading each other. When you’re playing with another great guard, it’s something that you would do also. You’re ready for it. You’re expecting it, compared to, like, a big who might not have played with another top guard.”

As for what happens next, only time will tell. Miles has yet to announce whether she’ll declare for the 2025 WNBA Draft or return to Notre Dame next year, but that’s neither here nor there. What the Irish are focused on right now is winning it all.

“The job is just starting, it’s not finished yet,” Miles says. “Consistency is the biggest statement we can make. We’ve struggled with that in years prior, going out early in the tournament, not when we should have, losing to teams that we probably shouldn’t have as well. Just being consistent and bringing our same identity every day is a statement for us.”

Adds Hannah: “This year is the time to take it all the way and win it all.”