While the backcourt is a huge reason why Notre Dame has been one of the nation’s elite teams this season, forward Liatu King has quietly proven she could be the X-factor as March Madness approaches.

The Irish have the No. 4 scoring offense in Division I, which isn’t surprising because of how Hannah Hidalgo and Olivia Miles run the offense. However, Notre Dame is also No. 5 in rebounds per game and No. 3 in defensive boards.

“I didn’t even know that,” said King, Notre Dame’s leading rebounder.

King completed her undergrad at Pittsburgh, but she could be putting her name in the Notre Dame history books as a grad student. The program rebounding records for a single season are 10.3 per game and 390 total. King has 255 rebounds so far while averaging 10.6 per contest.

The 6-foot forward isn’t not one-dimensional either. She is currently one of three players in the nation averaging at least 11 points, 10 rebounds and two steals per game.

King is a strong midrange shooter that ranks 26th nationally in field goal percentage at 55.7%. Not a bad place to be, but she is trying to expand her range for when she gets to the next level.

“Like a foot or two inside the 3-point line,” King said. “Just being conscious of where I am on the floor and just extending my range. I can shoot it, I work on it in practice. My coaches trust me to do it — it’s more so actually doing it during game time.”

Those are aspects that show up on the box score, but King contributes a lot more than that.

“I think my role honestly is to do a lot of the things that don’t come up on the stat sheet,” King said. “And I’m OK with that … I take pride in that.”

King’s efforts definitely don’t go unnoticed by her teammates. Hidalgo describes her as a “dog.”

“But it’s a calm dog,” Hidalgo said. “She’s very chill, she’s very relaxed. It’s a personality that nobody else has on our team. She just brings this calming presence about her. Also that leader kind of mindset, she leads in her own way.”

Hidalgo herself has gotten the “dog” compliment from elite athletes such as Dwayne Wade, so she knows what she is talking about. The word is not taken lightly in the basketball world, but King has earned it.

Dwyane Wade praises Notre Dame’s Hannah Hidalgo after watching her duel with Paige Bueckers, UConn
Isabel Gonzalez
Dwyane Wade praises Notre Dame’s Hannah Hidalgo after watching her duel with Paige Bueckers, UConn
“It means you got that chip on your shoulder and you’re playing harder,” Hidalgo said. “… I think it’s doing the dirty work — diving on the floor, taking charges, getting them to turn the ball over, stuff like that. Hustle plays. That’s what really makes somebody a dog.

“Tu, she’s undersized, so when she is going there and she’s jumping over girls that are over 6-foot 4, 6-foot-3, it really is a testament of that dog she has in her.”

Although King does the dirty work for Notre Dame, she does have highlight-worthy plays as well.

“Ask (coach Niele Ivey) about the tip, the alley-oop that Tu got in the Louisville game,” Hidalgo said.

The play she is referring to happened late in the first quarter against the Cardinals on Feb. 2. Notre Dame had gone almost four minutes without a field goal, but King ended the drought by catching an inbound pass from Miles midair and converting a one-handed bucket as the clock was running out.

“Tu is just so solid. She is so poised and she has incredible athleticism,” Ivey said. “… Never too high, never too low. She has experience, but also poise and composure. At any point, she can just get a huge defensive rebound or a huge offensive rebound. She adds a lot of value to our team because of her athleticism and her versatility, we lean a lot on that.”

This season the Irish have embraced the motto “pick your poison” because there are several players who can hurt opponents in different ways, King included. Hidalgo is second in the nation in scoring and steals with 24.9 points and 4.04 steals per contest. Miles averages 16.7 points while being sixth in the country in assists with 6.2 per game.

Sonia Citron is usually the third player who gets talked about because she scores in double figures while defending some of the top players in the nation, including USC’s JuJu Watkins. Meanwhile, freshman Kate Koval is in the top 40 nationally in blocks.

The contributions of those players and others on the roster helped the team rise to No. 1 in the AP Top 25 poll for the first time since 2019. The Irish are currently riding an 18-game winning streak, and with just four regular-season games remaining, Ivey is feeling good about her squad.

“We have arguably the best backcourt in the nation, but I feel like we have so much balance on this team,” Ivey said. “Everybody is so locked in, everybody is committed to the goal. Thats what I appreciate the most out of everybody.”