Sonia Citron was down to the final frantic seconds, her top-ranked Notre Dame team down three and on the verge of its first loss since November. There was just enough time to launch a contested 3-pointer over N.

Given how much I respect my colleague Sabreena Merchant’s knowledge of women’s basketball, even I had to take a step back this weekend and wonder if it were truly happenstance that she handed off the power rankings to me (a person who has acknowledged that my respect for the ACC was potentially not strong enough early on this season,