The Next Generation: Pivoting helped Sonia Citron embrace who she’s meant to be

Sonia Citron has emerged as a star for Notre Dame thanks to her willingness to pivot and fill any role her team needs at any time.

When the Notre Dame Fighting Irish went into the visitors’ locker room at the KFC Yum! Center in Louisville, Kentucky during halftime on Feb. 26, luck wasn’t on their side.

In a hostile environment on the road, they were trailing the Louisville Cardinals by nine in the game that would help decide the regular season ACC champion. But the Irish weren’t just down nine points at the half, they’d also be down their most exciting player and most reliable playmaker, sophomore Olivia Miles. With around two and a half minutes left in the first half, Miles fell on her right knee awkwardly while handling the ball on a fastbreak opportunity. She was in a lot of pain and struggled to walk on her own.

To make it through the final moments of the half, head coach Niele Ivey put Graduate student guard Jenna Brown in the starting lineup to run the point. Brown struggled to navigate the unrelenting ball pressure of Louisville’s Mykasa Robinson, and the Irish only scored two more points before halftime.

Something had to change. Someone had to pivot. But, who? Sophomore wing Sonia Citron approached Ivey and assistant Michaela Mabrey ready to take that step. With the game and the ACC regular season title on the line, Citron was ready. “I’m ready for this,” she told her coaches. Whatever you need me to do I’m going to do.”

What the Irish needed was someone who could score at will and run the team, two attributes that define Miles. But could these be two qualifiers of Citron, a player who had been hesitant to look for her shot during her freshman year and had only been a tertiary or secondary ball handler and facilitator during her two seasons at Notre Dame?

Citron scored 17 points in the second half, putting up a 27 piece in total to lead the Irish to a 68-65 win against their conference rival while also winning the regular season ACC title, a feat that the program hadn’t accomplished since 2019, the year they won the national championship.

The sophomore was forced into the fire by an unforeseen circumstance. She ran the point for the first time in her collegiate career and led her team to a win the Irish were yearning for. It was the type of performance that put her on notice nationally, impressed WNBA talent evaluators and allowed Citron herself to understand that this is the type of player she’s destined to be.

“It’s kind of forced her to be who she normally is, to be herself,” Ivey told FanSided. “To be the queen that she is. It’s almost like she’s been forced in this fire and she’s handled herself so well. She’s basically doing whatever we need.”

When assistant coach Mabrey first saw Citron play on the AAU circuit, she stood out. What was conspicuous about Citron wasn’t a flash or pizazz, but rather how quiet she was. She wasn’t super vocal on the court but rather played hard and played to win. When she was named the New York State Gatorade Player of the year during both her junior and senior years of high school, that wasn’t what she cared most about. Instead, an accomplishment that she valued much more was that she helped her high school team win its first section title in 17 years.

Miles met Citron when they were teenagers waiting in line to sign-up to play in a New York tournament. The duo met again at USA Basketball tryouts and then they played together on the 2019 USA Basketball U16 team. There was a moment on that team when Miles realized that she wanted to play with Citron not just on the National team, but also in college. She realized how much of a natural athlete Citron is, with her long arms and legs and 6-foot-1 frame. But also, Miles characterized Citron as someone who makes a point guard’s job easier and a player she developed an immediate chemistry with. “That connection is something that you don’t come by often,” Miles said.

Evolving is just what Sonia Citron does

When Citron was about to arrive at Notre Dame, she wanted the Fighting Irish’s passionate fanbase to know that she’d give this team all of her attention and energy. But when she was a teenager, she didn’t expect that she’d be a player with a ceiling of the 50-40-90 club.

“I didn’t realize my potential when I was younger,” she told FanSided. “I was just playing because I loved it, and I still do, but I don’t know, I was kind of just playing for fun to see where it would take me. I knew that I loved it. It was my passion and I was thankful that I got to do it. And I guess now I mean, I’ve seen how far it’s taken me and how far it can continue to take me.”

While she’s not at that elite shooting metric yet, she’s incredibly close. Prior to the NCAA Tournament which begins for Notre Dame on Friday, March 17, Citron is shooting 49.5 percent from the field, 43.9 from 3-point range and 78.2 percent from the stripe.

According to Mabrey, she’s within striking distance of being in that elite 50-40-90 club because of the work she’s put in between her freshman year to her sophomore year. Citron’s effective field goal percentage has increased from 50 percent to 56.9 percent over her first two seasons at Notre Dame.

This 13.8 percent increase over just a year didn’t happen out of thin air and without a lot of work. Mabrey described Citron’s transformation as not just a reflection of her work ethic, but due to a complete change in how she approaches her pull-up jumper. The two worked during the summer between her freshman and sophomore year on trying to stop using a jump stop when she drove both left and right and into her pull-up. Sometimes she’d use the quicker and more pro-conducive one-two step, but it wasn’t consistent. Mabrey pushed Citron to only implement the one-two step so that she could make a secondary move and fake out defenders even more.

What’s unique about Citron is she doesn’t over work, but rather she has grasped the concept of quality over quantity at the mere age of 19. “Honestly, it happened super super fast,” Mabrey said. “But she works. She’s in the gym. She works on her game and she’s very, very efficient at what she’s doing. She’s not there for hours and hours.”

But another transformation had to also happen in Citron’s approach to leadership and embracing that she’s not just a glue player, not just a starter but a go-to player. Mabrey and Ivey both noted that Citron was hesitant to shoot the ball at points during her first season because of her more differential and selfless nature. Citron had to learn that taking her shots with unwavering confidence had nothing to do with self-righteousness, but rather would be the only way that she could insure the best possible outcome for Notre Dame, a winning outcome.

Before Miles went down, graduate student Dara Mabrey (the sister of both assistant coach Micheala and WNBA star Marina) suffered a season-ending ACL injury on Jan. 22. Mabrey was the most vocal leader on the court and in the locker room, and Ivey implored not only Miles but also Citron to take on more vocally, and to grow into a leadership role still as a member of the underclass.

Miles, who describes Citron as a “silent killer” type, experienced her teammate’s evolving leadership style up close and personally. After the Irish’s 69-65 loss to NC State in just the second game following Dara’s injury, Miles was down about her performance in a game where she turned the ball over five times.

She remembers vividly Citron approaching her in the locker room and giving her a long speech of encouragement and providing Miles with the outside perspective that she desperately needed. “I didn’t realize she was capable of calming a teammate down,” Miles said. “I just never seen that from her before. So just seeing her not usually do that and say so many things to me and so confidently believe in me. Say that everything was going to be okay. It just reassured me.”

So now with both Dara and now Miles down, who would be there to reassure Citron, who not only had to pivot once, but twice?

She shifted from primarily playing the small forward, to then playing the shooting guard and now running the point. Citron is undertaking a challenge that some of the best pros in the WNBA have tried and haven’t quite landed. Citron’s approach isn’t to do too much, but rather make the most logical pass she can. She moves the ball quickly, albeit not with the same swagger as Miles. But that doesn’t matter. Winning is what matters.

So back to reassurance: in a word or two, that reassurance has come internally. Citron has an extraordinary ability to harness mental reliance and compartmentalize. She uses positive self-talk to calm her down in the most anxiety-provoking situations.

“You’re all good,” she says to herself. “Everything is fine. It’s basketball. I can do this. I know what it takes. Just be calm.” Those are the phrases she repeats to herself when faced with each challenge and pivot she’s had to make this season.

Following an exit in the ACC Tournament in a 64-38 beatdown loss to Louisville in the semifinal, Michaela explained that Citron’s approach following a game where she had three turnovers, three assists and eight points on 3-of-7 shooting while running the point wasn’t all doom and gloom. But instead, she returned to Michaela wanting to make adjustments and learn more about facilitating in time for the NCAA Tournament. Notre Dame’s assistant coach explained to FanSided that this is the type of experience that Citron won’t see tangible results until later, and this is an experience that her younger sister Marina went through during her final years also playing for the Fighting Irish.

Marina has served as Citron’s outside consultant, someone who isn’t working with the team officially but has been through the same situation. “I hope to be as good as her one day,” Citron said about the current Chicago Sky guard. And that’s very much in the cards for the sophomore. Marina herself has praised her publicly, explaining how WNBA-ready she believes Citron is, noting how much she would want to play with the now 19-year-old someday.

“In my opinion, she’s going to be a great pro,” Marina said last month during a USA Basketball camp in Minneapolis. “She has a pro body and she’s ready. She’s athletic. She makes plays. She makes detailed plays. She’s got her hands in so many plays that Notre Dame comes up with when they’re successful.”

Citron made what Marina referred to as a “detailed play” with 35.1 seconds left back at the Yum! Center on Feb. 26. It was a three-point game and the Cardinals were pressing with Robinson lurking around Citron’s handle. Robinson slapped the ball out of Citron’s hand for a split second, but the Notre Dame guard used her long arms to reach for the ball. She fell to her knees while being hounded by Robinson and junior Merissah Russell. And as she fell, she had her head up enough to see junior forward Kylee Watson standing all alone at the free-throw line. That pass was the most important play she made all game, including each of her 27 points.

By the end of the second half, the Irish had a bit more luck on their side. But, head coach Ivey doesn’t attribute Citron’s career-defining performance on the road in a hostile environment as an anomaly or as a result of any luck. But rather it’s just the beginning. “That’s the performance that Soni’s capable of every night,” she said.

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