If you read last week’s edition, I’ll catch you up: Hannah Hidalgo as the only notable returnee on this year’s Irish roster doesn’t phase me because she alone elevates the floor of the program to the Sweet 16. I’m high on the newcomers for the Irish, especially those who haven’t had any collegiate experience. Recruiting seems in a good place and although we would have liked to throw together a superteam for what is in all likelihood Hidalgo’s final campaign, I’ll accept the concept of the Hannah experience being a bridge from a program clawing its way back to one that once again lives near the top on a more permanent basis.

The alumnae piece is always among the more philosophical aspects of a thorough State of the Program evaluation and that’s what today’s all about. A few months ago I discussed the massive contracts many of today’s Irish in the WNBA signed after the new collective bargaining agreement, so we can cut to the good stuff. But first, former Irish come in all shapes and sizes, and today we’re going to start at the collegiate level.

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Who’s Still In College?

Notre Dame transfers have had varying success over the years, mostly achieving some degree of personal or team success but without necessarily taking that next step. Players like Jordan Nixon, Alli Patberg, and Erin Boley had great tournament runs that didn’t translate to much, if anything, at the next level. Danielle Patterson and Nat Marshall may speak to the opposite experience in their final college years. Until Olivia Miles did it last year, there was never a time when a Notre Dame star transferred out and maintained her level of notoriety elsewhere. But we’ll get to her later.

This year, the Former Irish Roundup portion of the weekly recaps will feature just three players: Kate Koval at LSU, Emma Risch at Florida State, and KK Bransford fresh out of the portal at UCLA. Koval had an interesting year for LSU, where she started more games than she did for the Irish as a freshman and shot better, rebounded better, turned the ball over less, and got to the line more. But, her playing time decreased a touch and her usage rate didn’t increase enough to make up for it. She got better, maybe more used to the speed of the collegiate game, but Kim Mulkey kept rotating her out of the starting lineup because there were games she was less ready for. LSU lost to Duke in the Sweet 16.

Risch, on the other hand, started just five games for Florida State, though she did see time in 27 games up from 13 the year before at Notre Dame. The Seminoles were atrocious—probably not a Top 100 team in the country—and Risch was one of the players who was on paper supposed to help with that. But her shooting percentage dipped from both the floor and the three-point line without her usage increasing by enough to justify that. In fact, she only attempted less than a shot more per game in seven more minutes on the floor. If she can stay healthy this year (big if, apparently), FSU could really use her playing at the level we saw glimpses of in South Bend during cleanup time.

Finally, there’s Bransford. A personal favorite of mine, I thought it was a shame to see her go after Ivey and the staff had so strategically positioned her absence and subsequent return as a pivotal driver in Notre Dame’s midseason woes and late-season success. The reports all indicated that it was a money thing and I can’t blame or shame her for seeking an opportunity that someone was clearly willing to provide. Still, it stings that the team positioned her as a glue piece and then let her get away, and you would think that Notre Dame could scrounge up enough money to pay her what she was asking.

That said, she may have felt a bit of roster pressure from the acquisition of Princeton’s Madison St. Rose. Bransford hasn’t shown a propensity to put up the kind of offensive numbers Notre Dame would have needed on a consistent basis, and while her defense is a huge asset it is not leaps and bounds better than the St. Rose’s. I’m just speculating, but the overlapping skillsets and the financial considerations make it hard to envision a roster ever working with both players, especially when we can assume Hannah Hidalgo is taking up a lot of what the team has to offer on the money front.

Now, KK will join the defending national champions on a roster that consists of Sienna Betts, Timea Gardiner, super transfers Donovyn Hunter and Addy Brown, and boomerang transfer Elina Aarnisalo, among others. Objectively it does not seem like a roster with as high a ceiling as last year’s superteam, but Bransford should get playing time (though maybe not a starting spot) and I’m interested to see just how far they go.

There’s a lot of threads to pull on here to wrap up this section. (1) It may be just a symptom of last year’s roster composition, but the fact that Bransford was the only outgoing transfer still bodes well for Coach Ivey’s optics. (1a) Especially because it seems like Notre Dame’s strategy going forward will be to emphasize high school recruiting and roster retention, it’s nice that this new group will be fully handed the keys, and that they have the promise of their good friend Eve Long coming in a year from now. (2) Still, it’s hard to know what kind of finances Notre Dame is working with and why they may not be able to spend more aggressively in the portal. Rosters like Oklahoma State (!) got a lot better with multiple big pickups and even apparently increased what they were paying their existing leaders so they would remain on the team. Is Hidalgo getting so much money that Notre Dame couldn’t even entertain anyone worth more than some unknown $X? And should that be a problem a school and program like Notre Dame ever faces? (3) Even with the new Five-for-Five eligibility rule, is the transfer portal just unrestricted free agency now? How long will it take for us to get a sense of what sort of loyalty we should expect in the sport and what would even be a fair expectation? How ought we as fans to react to the varying levels of commitment we see play out?

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More questions than answers, obviously, but I do want to expand on that last question a little with…

The Olivia Miles Discussion

Listen. Olivia Miles is such a unique case in the history of Notre Dame outgoing transfers that I feel it’s necessary to discuss her in the context of what came before and what is still to come. If you haven’t been paying attention, Olivia Miles is having a stellar season in the WNBA, well on her way to Rookie of the Year and fresh off a start in the All-Star Game. I understand if you have conflicting feelings about all this, so let me give my own two cents on them:

Am I allowed to root for Olivia Miles? Yes, of course, not that you need my permission. You can root for whomever you want for whatever reason you want. She’s an undeniably fantastic player and you have a stronger reason to enjoy watching her play than most other women’s college basketball fans.

Does Miles claim Notre Dame or vice versa? Right now, no. Miles has said in interviews that she still loves Notre Dame, but she is officially listed as a TCU alum. For ND’s part, it has never once posted about her in speaking about its alumni in the WNBA. If Miles were to switch her allegiance, there is a higher likelihood that Notre Dame would start including her in posts, but (a) it would be an interesting move to broadcast a player who left the program under such a spotlight and (b) I simply don’t see her switching her official allegiance anytime soon.

Am I allowed to claim Miles is Irish even though she claims TCU? You can, but be careful. Again, in the eyes of the WNBA, Miles is from TCU. If you were to report on ND alumnae averages and that sort of thing, she should technically be excluded even though she has multiple degrees from Notre Dame. It’s not just “where you played last”, either. Temi Fagbenle ended her career with one successful season at USC and chooses to report herself as a Harvard player for the sake of the W even though she only played in twelve games for them. Yes, even the Lynx have tweets associating Miles with the Irish, but there’s a time and place and that time and place is decidedly NOT in statistics and such—it would become too messy too quickly to generalize that logic if you were trying to count every player once and only once. Even in internet comment sections it can get dicey. You sort of have to grin and bear it when a TCU fan makes a comment tying Miles to them. She has 63 more games in an Irish uniform, but that doesn’t matter. The TCU fan is right.

Does the same apply to Jessica Shepard? Yes! Well of course, in reverse. Shepard, Liatu King, and players like Dara Mabrey, Destinee Walker, and Iyana Moore if they were to find their way onto a roster would be reported as Irish until stated otherwise. You’d be able to claim them with your whole chest, but understand that Nebraska/Pitt/Virginia Tech/UNC/Vandy fans would also be valid in having some pride for their former players. To some degree, you have to share them. That degree might slide—Shepard only has one natty and it’s not at Nebraska, whereas Walker’s years were the darkest in recent NDWBB history—but a good-faith fan will be open to sharing nonetheless, even if you ultimately have the trump card. Unfortunately and painfully, the same has to apply to TCU’s pride in Miles.

Would any of these answers be different if Miles was bad in the W? No, but I don’t think we’d be having the same conversation. The only reason we’re reckoning with this is because of how high-profile Miles is as a player; I don’t think we’d care much or feel as strong a territorial instinct if Miles had been a bust. It can feel a bit sour to watch her have so much success only to remember her for a year in purple and white. But to some degree, them’s the breaks. When Taya Reimer had a training camp contract with the Sky a few seasons ago, I reported it here with what I thought at the time was an appropriate amount of deference. She belongs to Michigan State just as much or more, but we’re still allowed to reminisce and take some degree of pride in the time she spent at Notre Dame. Same goes for Miles no matter how her career pans out.

Is there anything else about Miles that makes her case exceptional? For the time being, yes. Miles is the only star player who has grad-transferred away from a traditional powerhouse (for business-savvy reasons or otherwise) and gone on to make a name for herself elsewhere in college when she could have been a lottery pick in the WNBA draft that same year. Imagine if Azzi Fudd had stayed in college this upcoming season, transferred to Virginia, and to some extent faded out of the national media picture. Would fans be blamed for linking her primarily with UConn in a year’s time? I don’t think so. Now add that Miles also had the new collective bargaining agreement to consider in 2025 and was perhaps incentivized to stay in the NCAA for that reason. A situation like that is rare enough to consider her story an exception. The conflict we feel over it is valid.

Is sharing claims to players the new normal? As far as I can tell, and for the foreseeable future, yes. We hope it won’t happen to Notre Dame again with this much visibility, but it seems the transfer portal is the way of the world and there could be many more fan bases with claims to some great players. Some cases might be way more tenuous than others; it would be a bit more off-putting for a Stanford fan to “claim” Lauren Betts than if they were to “claim” Dijonai Carrington. A Louisville fan can to some justifiable measure claim Hailey Van Lith. An unnaturally audacious South Carolina fan can claim Saniya Rivers. But remember FAQ #1: you are allowed to root for any player for any reason and you need not tie them to your collegiate fandom for it to be valid. Isn’t that liberating?

Perhaps you’re the type of person who will never forgive Olivia Miles for transferring away. Perhaps you’re the sort who will bend over backwards to forget she spent a year abroad in Fort Worth altogether. Perhaps you’re one of those people on some days and the other on the rest. You’re likely somewhere in the middle, and it doesn’t need to be black-and-white. Whatever the case may be, go ahead and root for her in the W. She transformed Notre Dame under Niele Ivey and for that reason alone, she deserves it.

Irish In the WNBA

I’ll wrap up talking about all the alumnae in the league. Whether you count Miles or not, the Irish have been off to an excellent start, with a nation-leading four All-Stars: Shepard, Jackie Young, Marina Mabrey, and Sonia Citron.

Shepard is one of the stories of the season. She is now on the Dallas Wings, teaming up with Arike Ogunbowale and UConn’s duo of Paige Bueckers and Azzi Fudd. Bueckers has been a blessing for Shepard to play with, and suddenly Shepard has a ton of room to operate. She has four triple-doubles this season. Again, she has four triple-doubles this season. This puts her second in WNBA history with five career triple-doubles, trailing Alyssa Thomas’s 20. Shepard has been a huge reason that the Wings are in fourth place in the league. She leads the league in defensive rebounds, edging out Angel Reese. Meanwhile, Ogunbowale is not an All-Star but is still having a fine season herself, especially now that she has more support around her and doesn’t have to try to do it all for the Wings anymore.

Young still plays for the Las Vegas Aces, where she’s won three WNBA championships. This season, the Aces are in third place and could still easily repeat as champions. Young is second on her team in scoring behind A’ja Wilson, and is the top rebounding guard on her team. She’s also fifth in the league in assists. Jewell Loyd, who comes off the bench for the Aces, has had a subtle season down from her MVP-type numbers a few years ago, but still gets a ton of playing time—fourth-most on the team—and does way more good than harm. Brianna Turner is also on the Aces and sees floor time in more games than not, but her minutes are among the lowest on the team and outside of grabbing some rebounds she’s not a reliable contributor. She still rocks though, and uses her platform to speak out against social injustices of all kinds whenever she sees fit. She also helped negotiate the brand new collective bargaining agreement as treasurer of the WNBPA.

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Mabrey is the big draw on the newly minted Toronto Tempo, who at 10th in the league will try to claw their way into the playoff conversation in the homestretch. Mabrey leads the league in three-pointers per game and is tied with Caitlin Clark for fourth in the league in scoring. She also tied the WNBA record with 53 points in a single game! Her career trajectory is one to be admired by journeyman players of any sport who want to look to a model of success. She and Brittany Sykes don’t have a ton of reliable help on the Tempo, but with a few lucky breaks they could sneak into the playoffs in the team’s maiden season.

Citron is still doing Citron things in her second season for the Washington Mystics. The Mystics are in the eighth and final playoff spot in the standings for now and are above .500 thanks to their young core of Citron, Kiki Iriafen, Lauren Betts, Georgia Amoore, and Cotie McMahon. Shakira Austin is in her fourth WNBA season and is a veteran on this team. Michaela Onyenwere is the actual veteran in the locker room. But, Citron is the team’s leader. In points, assists, and steals, that is. She continues to be the prototype for all basketball players everywhere. This season, she has Cass Prosper on the bench cheering her on. Prosper actually started two games and gets about 13 minutes per game, but much like the rest of the Mystics bench, she hasn’t been able to muster any numbers that really help the team. She’s also a bit foul-prone at this time, so maybe when she catches up with the speed of the game she’ll get more minutes?

The Chicago Sky are a trainwreck of an organization, but they do feature Skylar Diggins and developmental player Maddy Westbeld. Diggins is second on the team in scoring and first in assists, but they lose twice as many games as they win.

Kat Westbeld was one of the league’s fun stories on last year’s Mercury team that featured a bunch of unconventional rookies, but unfortunately she sustained a torn ACL and is not playing this season.

Finally, Kayla McBride and Liatu King are on the first-place Minnesota Lynx. Behind Olivia Miles, the Lynx have remained at the top of the standings even in the absence of Napheesa Collier. K-Mac has been Miles’s second in command, scoring a steady 18.2 points per game and holding at fourth in the league in three-pointers made per game. What a solid career she’s had, what a great player. Liatu King is a developmental player for them and has seen time in eight games as she learns to navigate being an undersized post in an even taller league.

That’s it for me for now. We’re less than a month out from the start of the school year, and the season will be here before we know it. Next you hear from me will be in the form of previews and landscapes. Until then, be well, and Go Irish!

Last year I opened my summer update with reflections on the unknown. For a program that has helped define women’s college basketball thanks to a great deal of continuity since the early 2010s, the 2025 offseason felt like treacherous territory. Heck, even in Niele Ivey’s tenure as head coach, we as fans had been treated to an offseason with no outgoing transfers just a few seasons ago. Not so much the case last year.

Now, as we once again eclipse the midpoint of a long off-season with few returnees on the roster (a generous three, a realistic one), this world of the unknown feels a bit more palatable. Not that Notre Dame should plan for this space as its perennial summer residence, but that we might understand from experience that this uncertainty need not portend mediocrity. In fact, after the alchemy that the coaches worked with last year’s roster, we might be inclined to assume the opposite: the unknown can be as exciting as ever.

Indeed, I recently shared a social media post of this year’s team with a friend who replied with Patrick Star’s “Who are you people?!” and I have to say it was a valid reaction. At first you might think it’s like playing last year over again but on hard mode—at least Hannah Hidalgo had Cass Prosper and KK Bransford to shore things up—but rest assured, this year’s team on paper feels just as prepared to make an immediate impact. As a bonus, they project to be a group around which Notre Dame can build for the future and finally exit its annual estival purgatory.

As it stands, Notre Dame projects to be a Top-15 caliber team heading into the season, which is pretty lofty given six of the ten players on the roster have zero collegiate minutes and another is a walk-on caliber player. However, it bears repeating that I believe no roster with Hannah Hidalgo will see a worst-case scenario less than a Sweet 16. I said it last year with the mass turnover, and I’m saying it again. As long as she is on the team, the floor will not descend to drop the program off the map. With the hype around this year’s group of newcomers, we can expect the theoretical ceiling to have improved from last year, too. Today’s edition will focus on those freshmen and the two other newcomers, as well as the future. Next week I’ll talk about all things former Irish.

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Before we get to the freshmen, there’s the matter of transfers. Notre Dame’s haul this offseason likely wasn’t as eye-popping as maybe we would expect for a program that’s serious about giving Hannah Hidalgo the best possible victory lap, but there were two solid additions announced who should come in prepared to play at a high level.

First is 5’10” guard Madison St. Rose, Hannah Hidalgo’s AAU teammate back in high school who elected to spend her undergraduate career at Princeton over some top programs. A 4-star recruit out of high school, she was ranked the 12th-best shooting guard in her class and 46th player overall. As a reference, KK Bransford was 7th and 29th, respectively, in that same class. Today, MSR would probably rate among the top two or three remaining guards in the class. She had a stellar career at Princeton, becoming the Ivy League rookie of the year in 2023, earning second-team all-conference in 2024, and was unanimously selected to the all-conference first team in 2026. She spent her 2025 season injured, which is how she’s allowed to play at Notre Dame this year.

On the court, MSR will probably remind us a bit of a bizarro hybrid of Anaya Peoples and Destinee Walker. It’s hard to find an exact ND comp for her since she’s a mid-sized guard with a rather subtle frame and no stellar outside jumper, but who is still a great offensive threat and can get physical on both ends of the court. She has a motor and like Hannah Hidalgo earns her keep taking things into the paint. She’ll step out and shoot quite a bit, but doesn’t hit at a great clip—just a hair under 30% for her career. She’s a reliable and experienced scoring option, which is presumably why Notre Dame brought her in. A fun wrinkle is that she’s a lefty on the court even though she’s right-handed in life. (Lefty count: 1)

St. Rose can seem a little bit understated on the court. She doesn’t outwardly demand the ball as much as it just winds up with her on the court. But Princeton is a midmajor power in women’s basketball and their offensive usage is extremely evenly distributed, so the fact that St. Rose stood out for the Tigers is a huge encouragement. A non-exhaustive list of her 15+-point performances includes games against Villanova, UCLA, Oklahoma, West Virginia, Oklahoma State, Maryland, and of course Columbia as they battled atop the Ivy League.

The other transfer is Anaya Hardy from Louisville. A late bloomer, Hardy went unrated in high school and is still probably more athlete than basketball player, even with two years under her belt. Still, her potential is through the roof and the coaches will trust her to make like Malaya Cowles and play her role to her full potential. Hardy started for the Cardinals, if only to jump center, but she was a bit foul-prone and only registered 11 minutes per game. In fact, she has only played double-digit minutes in 25 of her 46 collegiate appearances. Additionally, the only high-major opponent against whom she has scored double-digit points is Pittsburgh. She has zero jump shot to speak of, shooting 6-14 for the entire season from mid-range to go with just a 38% shooting percentage from the foul line.

Her upside? She can finish a layup with the best of them, going 66-94 without sacrificing any of that ability versus quality opponents. Her athleticism is also through the roof; she is easily the most athletic post player the Irish have had since Maya Dodson, and maybe since Brianna Turner. She’s reportedly learning to execute the pick-and-roll with ND’s guards in a way that may remind us of Turner or Natalie Achonwa, and we’ll forgive her for starting her career at Louisville if she starts dunking in games. She’ll undoubtedly be asked to carry a lot more minutes in South Bend than she ever did for Coach Walz, and I think the coaches have a good shot at coaching her up. Also, she’s a lefty! (Lefty count: 2)

Then there’s the freshmen. In case you haven’t heard, Notre Dame has FIVE freshmen coming in this season in addition to the redshirt sophomore, ultimate culture piece, and future coach and recruiting coordinator Leah Macy. This freshman class is highly rated and each of them brings something a bit special and unique to the team. I gave Macy a bit of an intro in last year’s version of this edition but I feel validated that my comparison to Kathryn Westbeld was made earlier this week by Niele Ivey herself. (She lumped in Maddy Westbeld, too.) Probably the most apparent consolidation of that comparison is how clearly devoted Macy has been to the culture of the program since arriving on campus, evidently playing pivotal roles in garnering commitments from the class of 2026 and learning to see the game as a coach during her time injured on the bench last season.

I do believe Macy will play a significant role on the team, but the true freshmen will have to play big roles as well. That starts with the crown jewel of the class, Jacy Abii. And I’ll say it: go ahead and set your expectations very high for Abii, primarily because of her basketball IQ. She plays the game extremely correctly, and her decision-making is to die for on both sides of the floor. I daresay her Notre Dame comp in that regard is Sonia Citron—just a perfect player who will do all the traditionally unsung things and have a quiet but profound impact on the game.

Not to raise the bar even higher, but skillset-wise Abii’s comp is more in line with Jackie Young in the body of a forward. Similar skills, different preferences, and Abii’s got two inches on Young to boot. She can shoot the three reasonably well, but she takes the ball inside successfully and often. Her handles are such that she could be a reliable option to bring the ball up, as she did for the entire fourth quarter of this year’s Jordan Brand Classic when she willed her team to a win. At 6’2”, her quickness and wingspan are a huge asset on defense, where she’s a deflection machine. It’s of course possible and even expected that Abii takes some time to get used to the pace of the college game. In the meantime, I recommend you watch her in the recent media availability. You’ll understand, it’s like she’s a pro already. She just gets it.

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The next instant-impact incomer for the Irish is 5’10” shooting guard Jenica Lewis. Lewis was partially enticed to come play for Notre Dame with comparisons between her game and Marina Mabrey’s, and I think she can get there. For now, I’d say her game resembles Michaela Mabrey’s a bit more—really proficient shooter from as deep as she wants, and can put the ball on the floor and get to the rim in a pinch even if she’s not the quickest off the dribble. She’s great at drawing contact which is convenient because she’s such a good foul shooter. Her court vision is quite advanced, so ideally she could give Hannah Hidalgo a spell at point guard if Madison St. Rose isn’t up to the task. Lewis’s defense is tremendous as well and went a bit underrated in her recruitment as all the Iowa fans who were clamoring for her were focused on trying to compare her to Caitlin Clark. Not to be outdone by her offense, Lewis has great hands on defense and can take a charge with the best of them. She’ll buy into Hidalgo-ball nicely.

The last truly known commodity is Amari Byles, a 6’2” forward from Texas. She’s a four-star recruit whose star was rising toward the end of her career as she won the Texas Christian Ath League 6A MVP en route to that league’s championship. (It’s worth noting that she’s Notre Dame’s fourth-ranked recruit, but she’d be the best recruit at 3 of last year’s Elite Eight teams if they had signed her. What a privileged position the Irish find themselves in this year.) Byles ought to spell Anaya Hardy as much as is needed this year; her game is a bit like Taya Reimer’s or Kat Westbeld’s in that she’s a very comfortable ball handler but fits way more naturally in the post. She has a bit of a one-dribble pull-up or fadeaway from a post move that she can utilize, but she predominantly turns her shoulder in and finishes her layups. She is just a bit undersized to come in guns blazing at the collegiate level, but if the coaches wanted to help her fill out into a Devereaux Peters-like mold, I wouldn’t be disappointed.

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But wait, there’s more! The last two freshmen are noteworthy but perhaps a bit less well-equipped to make a day-one impact. The first is Bella Ragone, sharpshooting lefty forward (Lefty Count: 3) from Mill Creek High School in Georgia and daughter of current LA Rams Quarterbacks Coach Dave Ragone. Bella is rehabbing from a knee injury sustained last November and should be set to play at some point this season, but we can’t really be sure what that will look like since she missed an entire high school basketball season. She was rated just outside the 5-star range by SportsCenter NEXT and her game might be best compared to Erin Boley among players to suit up for ND. If you’ll indulge a UConn comparison, it might be Katie Lou Samuelson.

Finally, there’s the 6’3” Canadian Isabella Sangha, a top-100 recruit who will play volleyball at Notre Dame as well. Sangha was a late bloomer when it comes to basketball, but the lefty has already represented Canada on the international stage including just last month when they came up short against the Coach Ivey-led team from the States. (Lefty Count: 4. Four!) Being a middle blocker, Sangha has the bounce to sky for plenty of rebounds and is even working on adding dunking to her repertoire, but she’s a bit rough around the edges. In one of Canada’s games last month she had two transition threes so she’s certainly not shy about playing outside if the opportunity arises. Not to belabor the point of her nationality but Natalie Achonwa could be a good player for Sangha to try and grow into during her career. If that’s not possible and her offense can’t congeal, Achonwa’s running mate Ariel Braker would be an acceptable alternative path.

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Before I go on, I also want to give an 🚨☘️Irish Alert☘️🚨 for Notre Dame’s first 2027 commit, Eve Long. Long is talked about as a transformational recruit. Seriously, there are YouTube videos from UCLA and UConn creators fawning over Eve and crashing out at her decision to commit to the Irish. She’s currently the fifth-ranked player and top-ranked forward in the SportsCenter NEXT 2027 class rankings, and her game backs it up. She recently had 52 points in a high-level AAU game and then was second in scoring for the U17 USA Team in their gold-medal run this past week. Her commitment is a great start to what could wind up being another momentous recruiting class for next year.

I wanted to end with a brief discussion on the new Five-for-Five eligibility rule that the NCAA adopted about a month ago. In case you haven’t heard, this rule streamlines athletic eligibility to just five years to play up to five seasons starting at the academic year after the athlete’s 19th birthday or the academic year they enroll in college, whichever comes first. Exceptions are rare and include things like active military duty, pregnancy, and religious missions.

What does this mean for our Irish? Well, in the wildest world, it means that Hannah Hidalgo stays for not only this season but next season as well, but we all know we shouldn’t bank on that as she is draft-eligible this year (although she hasn’t ruled out the idea of staying). What would it look like for her to get to play two seasons alongside this recruiting class and one with Eve Long? Would 2027 recruits be enticed to play with her the way this 2026 group is? Would she increase her draft stock by dodging the draft class with JuJu Watkins and Madison Booker even if it meant leaving at the same time as Sarah Strong? Or perhaps would any of those players entertain remaining in college an extra year? Things get more political here, but for now they all still seem like a fun fantasy.

In a more practical application, it gives us the freedom to ignore the song and dance of lingering injuries that we’ve so sadly sung in two of the past three seasons. No more wondering if Olivia Miles or Leah Macy will suit up until January when they announce they will not. Or at least, less of that wondering because of the redshirt conversation is moot. Take Bella Ragone, who is entering this season with an injury. There is no reason she should not play whenever she’s ready; her clock has started and it will exhaust in five years no matter what she does. Unfortunately for Leah Macy, her clock will exhaust in four years no matter what she does, and no matter that she sat all of last year out for the sake of the next four anyway.

Some farther-reaching implications are interesting to think about here. One is recruiting strategy, both from high school and in the portal. With Anaya Hardy’s combination of supreme athleticism and late development, would it really be a bad thing to pencil her into the roster for the next three years instead of just two? I’d imagine she’d like all the development she can get at the collegiate level. Development is sort of a lost art among the power players in the sport who can snag anybody they’d like in the portal, but I wonder if there’s any merit to seeking out hidden gems like we hope Hardy is and going to work.

An addendum for ND’s other transfer: does the Ivy League respond to this change by permitting its student-athletes to stay for their graduate season? If this was enacted a year ago, would Madison St. Rose even have needed a new team in the first place? Or does the League just become a hotbed of fifth-year transfers for the country to scoop up, a kind of farm system for the programs at the tippy top?

The other question I have—and I think the answer is no—is whether we’ll see the WNBA adapt to this new NCAA eligibility formula and start allowing players to declare for the league out of college at an earlier age? When their draft pool starts consisting of three classes simultaneously (age-eligible juniors, seniors, and fifth-years), would they entertain the idea of opening the floodgates to sophomores or even freshmen? Again, I don’t think so; it’s not like the WNBA hasn’t had grad transfers to work with for a while, plus the draft eligibility is more about encouraging completed collegiate degrees to fall back on because of the league’s roster scarcity. Still, with the league expanding, it’s an intriguing if frightening thought.

For now, though, if you have a way of keeping track of the roster at home, just go ahead and add a year to everyone on this team until stated otherwise. Madison St. Rose is in her fifth year already, so she’s done no matter what. Everyone else could come back, and let’s hope they do. In any case, that’s a conversation for next summer.

That’s all from me for now. Next week, I’ll talk about Former Irish of all sorts. Until then, be well, and Go Irish!

For the first time in Niele Ivey’s head coaching career, Notre Dame broke the Sweet 16 barrier and advanced to the Elite Eight. After unfortunate last-minute steals, untimely injuries, nose-ring-adjuticating refs, and a sour locker room had held the Irish back over the last four seasons, this year’s squad assembled from the clearance aisle of the transfer portal did what no Ivey-led team had done before. Now, transfers Iyana Moore, Vanessa de Jesus, Malaya Cowles, and Gisela Sanchez, only one a significant starter on a previous roster, have left the program better than they found it and solidified themselves in the Irish canon.

I want to reiterate how tough of an opponent Vanderbilt was: Mikayla Blakes was the nation’s leading scorer this year, and the fearless point guard Aubrey Galvan came out of nowhere to win the SEC Freshman of the Year award. The team had wins over Texas, Michigan, and LSU, plus one against Virginia and two against Kentucky. By comparison, Notre Dame’s only games against fellow Sweet 16 teams were a blowout loss to Michigan, a loss to Virginia, two losses to Duke, a loss to UConn, and a loss to Louisville, buoyed only by a victory over North Carolina and a redemption win against the Cardinals. This was Notre Dame’s worst team by win percentage since Niele Ivey’s first season and Vanderbilt’s best since 1993. The way this season went for these programs, Vanderbilt should have won. But as we all know, Notre Dame found its formula late in the season and rode its momentum to its realistic ceiling. Let alone where that ceiling was, that’s a great accomplishment.

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The game itself was just the way you’d expect a big ND win to go this season: blitz the Commodores in the beginning and hang on for dear life. Blakes was having an off shooting day and Notre Dame threw a handful of different defensive looks at her so she never got comfortable; it worked. Galvan was Vanderbilt’s most unstoppable weapon but she was put on her back heels early as Hannah Hidalgo had four first-quarter steals. Notre Dame took a chance camping Cowles in the paint for the third game in a row on defense, conceding the Ndjakalenga Mwenentanda three and, like Fairfield and Ohio State before them, the opposition was bewildered. The whole Vandy lineup was spooked and spent much of the day watching as Hidalgo ran for fastbreak layup after fastbreak layup.

Notre Dame built a 10-point lead in the first half and it felt like everything was coming up Irish. But Blakes and Galvan loomed. This was a familiar feeling—ND led NC State by 10 in 2022, Maryland by 8 in 2023, and TCU by 9 in the second half of last year’s Sweet 16, and each of those games was a loss. It was also reminiscent of November of this season, when the Irish led by 18 at Ole Miss only to wind up losing by 7.

But unlike all those other games, the Irish staved off all comeback attempts and kept its composure in the face of some pressure. It managed to win the first three quarters despite Blakes and Galvan finding their rhythm a bit more as the game went on and closing score gap after score gap. Galvan started hitting threes and stopped being thrown by Hidalgo’s on-ball defense. Blakes hit enough shots to keep her team afloat. But for Notre Dame, gaps were open on defense and lanes were open on offense, and try as Vanderbilt may to adjust, they were never quite able to fill them.

In the fourth quarter, Blakes and Galvan gave one last push, combining for 17 points to match the entire Irish output. The Commodores took the lead multiple times and momentum seemed on their side. But a few savvy steals, stops, and a big offensive rebound from Malaya Cowles willed the team over the finish line where it finally emerged victorious, 67-64.

As much as Hannah dominated the matchup, it was a rather complete performance from the entire squad that day. The only made one three, but Iyana Moore made up for 0-8 from three with some nifty assists and some great takes to the basket including a go-ahead bucket in the fourth. KK Bransford had just one turnover after putting up 0 against Ohio State and had some great passes of her own in addition to being a willing shooter which was great to see. Likewise, Cass Prosper had a few of her shots blocked but for the most part was strong with the ball and was rewarded with either points or trips to the free-throw line. Malaya Cowles was making herself a nice target on the inside and benefited greatly from a few of her teammates’ assists, in addition to playing foul-free basketball for the final 37 minutes. Vanessa de Jesus was quiet, but her one three-pointer in the fourth quarter stopped some mounting Vanderbilt momentum that seemed at the time rather inevitable.

And not to get all sappy, but the game couldn’t have been sealed with a more perfect play: Bransford inbounds to Hidalgo who finds Prosper for the go-ahead layup. The three players who represented the core continuity on the ND roster finally break the Sweet 16 curse together. Congrats to these three and congrats to the Irish.

It’s hard to wrap up a season with one all-encompassing grade, but I would say this season was unequivocally a success when all was said and done. Sure, we didn’t know exactly what this team could be back in January, and the Michigan and first UConn losses are days we would rather not relive, but coach Ivey proved for the third time in the last five years that she can get a team playing its best basketball at the end of the season with the right buy-in. This season, that was rewarded with a national defensive player of the year award for Hannah Hidalgo, a third straight all-American nod, a conference Most Improved Player award for Cass Prosper, and eventually an Elite Eight. We would’ve liked to have even higher expectations for this team going into the season, but it did the most with what it had. Celebrate the success, let this be the new expectation, and build.

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On the Elite Eight Game: I won’t spend as long here. Notre Dame lost to UConn for the second time this year, but it was a much more admirable showing than the matchup in January. The deficit may not have been in the single digits for any part of the fourth quarter, but it was only seven going into halftime thanks to a wild buzzer-beater from Kayleigh Heckel. Unlike the Vanderbilt game, the UConn game did very much feel like the Hannah Hidalgo show on Notre Dame’s part, although to their credit KK Bransford, Iyana Moore, and VDJ clearly understood their assignments. Even an outmatched Malaya Cowles showed a great amount of fight. I thought Prosper had a much worse game than she did in January. Gisela Sanchez only recorded a foul and a turnover in her nine minutes of play, indicative of her confidence or lack thereof.

UConn didn’t exactly wow me in the game, but they clearly had the better roster this year. We knew this. The ND coaches originally camped Cowles in the paint on defense against Serah Williams like they had done in the first three rounds, but Geno Auriemma had an easy answer with Blanca Quiñonez, and went big with Jana El Alfy just to drive the point home. ND limited Azzi Fudd to a reasonable degree and the rest of the starters (save Sarah Strong) combined for four points, but Quiñonez’s 20 points and El Alfy’s 4 offensive rebounds really tipped the scales even more toward the Huskies than they already were.

Not that I think officiating dictated the outcome of the game, and I’m not one to gripe about the refs to begin with, but there were a few moments when I thought it was clear Sarah Strong in particular was getting a friendly whistle. My only takeaways are that I wish we could see what would’ve happened had she fouled out, and that I am glad Hannah Hidalgo also gets a friendly whistle or else so many games this year could have been torturous. But, for example, even after Dee Kantner gave an explanation for one clear foul being called a backcourt violation, I don’t think there was any logic for it. Not a fun feeling when the team is already up against immensely long odds.

I turned off the game feeling the team played admirably, but I quickly found myself not in the mood to celebrate moral victories. Notre Dame women’s basketball is supposed to be the world’s antidote to UConn. Thankfully, South Carolina was able to topple the Huskies in the Final Four this year, but watching UConn make its 17th Final Four in the last 18 tournaments while Notre Dame hasn’t been to one in seven years (and counting) was a bit of a wake-up call. We know why Notre Dame lost each of the last four Sweet 16s, but we don’t need to accept it. The team was good enough to win it all last year, and potentially good enough to make the Final Four the year before. This isn’t a complaint; I’m not blaming anyone here. I am just saying I think it’s time we’re through with hoping for an Elite Eight and instead we hope to return to a time where we put an end to UConn’s season and not the other way around. This doesn’t have to be a hypothetical.

I’ll leave you with just one highlight from early in the UConn game because this Malaya Cowles shot took a ridiculously long time to fall in the hoop:

On UCLA: This year’s champion was the UCLA Bruins! They have been building towards this moment since they were getting sent home by UConn in the late 2010’s. The final three tournaments of that decade saw them make their first Elite Eight in almost 30 years, and acted as a proof-of-concept of Cori Close’s coaching. This year, they had six seniors and super-seniors. One was a transfer last off-season, and a few more transferred in previously, but there was an immense amount of continuity there nonetheless. Of the five starters, three had been on the roster at least three years.

In a world where transfers are so prevalent, continuity is my takeaway. Can UCLA ever be good again? Yes, I don’t think they were a flash in the pan. But it might take them a while to reach another Final Four if they don’t build that same kind of continuity on their roster again. Think of South Carolina. Think of UConn. Think of the Notre Dame teams of last decade. Iowa featuring Caitlin Clark. Oregon featuring Sabrina Ionescu. Yes, they all have talent. Talent is really important. But continuity and experience carry a lot of weight in postseason success. It’s why UConn will be a pick to make yet another Final Four again next year. Same with USC, who returns JuJu Watkins, Jazzy Davidson, and Kennedy Smith. I’m fine being Captain Obvious here, but my charge for Notre Dame to return to its previous heights is to emphasize roster retention in the next few offseasons to sustain a winning culture. Sure beats starting all over again every single year.

And last note on this year’s tournament: congratulations to Patrick B. for winning the bracket pool this year!

On The Transfer Portal: On the note of starting all over again every single year, we have unfortunately arrived at the most stressful part of the modern college basketball calendar, the transfer portal. This year’s window for athletes to enter ends on April 20th. So far, we’ve gotten some confirmation that Hannah Hidalgo will stay with the Irish, which is a huge first step toward any roster continuity we could hope for with four starters graduating. It also feels nice to return (for now at least) to a time when all-Americans don’t transfer away from ND.

Now, we’re waiting on KK Bransford. Eric Hansen at Blue & Gold Illustrated has intimated that Bransford clearly wants to stay with the Irish, but that finances could be a factor. Actually, Hansen’s reporting has made it clear the Irish have a stingier budget than we might expect, which extends to their recruiting new incoming transfers. The messaging has been clear all the while—ND wants a transfer post and a transfer combo guard—but Hansen has made it clear that impact posts in particular are worth more than the Irish are willing to pay.

Frankly, it really makes me double-take about Notre Dame’s financial commitment to sports outside of football. Hannah Hidalgo’s senior year is the ideal example of a time when the athletics department should want to spend aggressively in the portal to shoot for the best outcome. Even if it’s just an exception (which would be silly given the program’s pedigree), there is no better time than this offseason to go all in. Instead, it seems the Irish will seek to play moneyball a little in a portal that isn’t exactly replete with hidden gems.

It’s especially disheartening when so many of the most sought-after players have already committed to teams whose rosters are better off. Louisville, for example, retained a core group of rising juniors who together are likely worth more than Hidalgo, and added NC State’s Zam Jones, Tennessee’s Deniya Prawl, and Virginia Tech’s Carys Baker. Likewise, Michigan retained its excellent core of rising juniors and added Stanford standout Courtney Ogden. Schools like TCU and Oklahoma State didn’t really have to shell out as much money on returnees (thanks to graduate or transfer exoduses), but have already landed big names like Lara Somfai and Liv McGill.

I realize I say this before we know anything for certain. Perhaps Notre Dame will sign the best three players in the portal when all is said and done and we can all re-read this passage and laugh. We do know Notre Dame has at least entertained the idea of wooing all-Big XII Addy Brown and all-Ivy Madison St. Rose, so it could be that they’re willing to spend more than we realize. But the reporting that ND has insufficient budget, combined with the reporting that men’s basketball has among the lowest budget in the ACC, is at least enough to give pause. Does Notre Dame want to compete in non-football athletics like an Ivy League school, or like the Dukes and Vanderbilts of the world who have found a way to make academics and athletics both go deeper in the NIL era? It’s a self-made identity crisis made more tense by the university’s obvious commitment to football. I support the football team and think they deserve the commitment, but be consistent. Duke and Vanderbilt have proven it’s possible to successfully and sufficiently support multiple sports without sacrificing academics; to put a finer point on it, both their football teams competed for a playoff spot this season and both of their women’s basketball teams placed in the top two of their conferences, and they’ve both received high-level transfers already without having to dig through the trenches for hidden gems under the guise of “best fit”.

Just to repeat: I think if the lesson learned this season in the Notre Dame athletics department and larger administration is, “Wow look, the team made the Elite Eight with a low budget! We don’t need to spend more!”, that is actively harmful to the operation here. The standard of this program is more than just barely squeaking its way past the Sweet 16 once every five or six years. The real lesson ought to be, “If Niele Ivey has proven she can coach an underfunded roster to the Elite Eight, imagine what she could do with a few years at competitive rates.” Notre Dame athletics has the sixth-highest valuation of any college athletics department in the country. You do not need to take money from other sports to give it to the women’s basketball team, just increase your operating expenses across the board and fund the program so it can be where it belongs, in the nation’s upper echelon.

In any event, we could be in for a bit of a wait when it comes to transfers. Even though the window closes on April 20th for players to enter, they have all the time they need to find a destination. Iyana Moore didn’t commit to ND until May 20th last year, and the Liza Karlen/Liatu King commitment announcements came at the beginning of May. It might be frustrating to watch big names commit elsewhere but we can’t get our hopes up for every transfer we see. Patience; Notre Dame will have a good roster next year.

Future Irish Shoutouts: Lest we forget that transfers are not the only source of incoming talent for the Irish. You can get excited for wing Jacy Abii, who plays the game exactly the way Niele Ivey wants. She dazzled with steals and points in the McDonald’s All-America game and showed out again in the Nike Hoops Summit, impacting the box score even on an off shooting night. She’ll play in the Jordan Brand Classic and the Ballislife x SeaWorld All America game these next two weekends (yes that’s a thing).

Jenica Lewis was the other McDonald’s All-American for Notre Dame, and she showed her range, defense, and passing in the game, when she even got a few extra minutes after another player had a minor injury. Not to box her in, but Lewis figures to be our Mabrey facsimile this upcoming season. She’ll also suit up for the Jordan Brand classic.

ND’s lowest-rated recruit, forward Isabella Sangha was named the MVP of the Canadian U18 team selection camp game last week. She’s a bit frantic at times but you can look forward to her vertical and her soft shooting touch.

Finally, there’s Bella Ragone and Amari Byles, the first of which is coming off an injury while the second already put that ND networking to good use by spending at least one day working out with Sonia Citron. And don’t forget, Leah Macy is slated to make her debut for the Irish next season, too!

One last thing: The Irish Blue-Gold football game is a weekend to look out for NDWBB recruits. 6-3 Forward Eve Long (ESPN #5) and 5-6 PG Kaleena Smith (ESPN #1) are set to visit that weekend from the Class of 2027. Could be momentous if Ivey, Garrity, & co. play their cards right and secure a commitment.

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Former Irish Roundup: In making the Elite Eight, Notre Dame also accomplished a side quest that probably only existed in the minds of fans: making sure none of its departures made it further in the postseason. Kate Koval and LSU bowed out in the Sweet 16, and Olivia Miles and TCU made it just as far as the Irish, losing to South Carolina in the Elite Eight.

By the way, for the time being, Koval and Emma Risch are the only two former Irish who will have eligibility next season. Kylee Watson, Alli Campbell, Amirah Abdur-Rahim, and Olivia Miles all graduated. Miles was taken with the #2 pick in the WNBA draft to the Minnesota Lynx.

Speaking of the WNBA, lots of former Irish have been made (salaried) millionaires overnight thanks to the new WNBA collective bargaining agreement. Marina Mabrey was drafted to the Toronto Tempo in the expansion draft, cored, and signed to a two-year, $2.4 million contract. Jackie Young re-signed with the Las Vegas Aces at the new one-year standard max of $1.9 million. Arike Ogunbowale was cored by the Dallas Wings but opted for a multi-year, seven-figure contract so the Wings could build up. That includes adding Jessica Shepard, who signed with the Wings for a two-year, $2.05 million contract. Skylar Diggins signed with the Chicago Sky for two years at $1.86 million, and Jewell Loyd signed a three-year deal worth over $2.2 million with the Aces. Kayla McBride signed a new three-year contract extension with the Lynx at a lower value.

Of course, Brianna Turner, Lindsay Allen, the sisters Westbeld, and Sonia Citron are all in positions to vie for roster spots with varying degrees of assuredness. And, who knows? With the two new teams and two new roster spots for each team, it might not be out of the question for some other former Irish to seek spots after successful careers thus far overseas. This includes players like Dara Mabrey, who just yesterday signed a rookie-scale contract with the Toronto Tempo.

Last but not least, there’s the impending journey of Cassandre Prosper! Cass made the decision to renounce her final year of collegiate eligibility and thereby become the youngest-ever WNBA draftee out of the NCAA at just 20 years old. The decision proved wise when she was selected with the 19th overall pick in this year’s WNBA draft to the Washington Mystics, where she’ll reunite with Sonia Citron at training camp. That 19 spot isn’t too shabby; that’s the same position when Niele Ivey and Marina Mabrey were both taken, and it worked out pretty well for each of them. Good luck, Cass!

That’s all from me, for now, and probably for a bit. Next you’ll hear from me, it will be about landscape shifts / the portal / the ND roster as it stands heading into summer. As always, thank you all for reading, and Go Irish!

Ohio has been good to NDWBB through the years, and that trend continued this past weekend. The team, now “business-oriented” in coach Ivey’s words, took a business trip and came home with more than many spectators expected. A game to get the lead out, a game of near-perfection, and a ticket to Notre Dame’s fifth straight Sweet 16 were the spoils of this weekend’s victories and it was oh-so-satisfying to watch.

This team might be imperfect, but watching it blossom over the course of the season has been a needed breath of fresh air after so many recent seasons ended marred by injury or soured by chemistry issues. Regardless of what Notre Dame does now, they do it as a healed entity much more enlightened and enlivened than it once seemed possible.

If you’re here for previews only, by all means skip ahead! With the two teams opposite Notre Dame as would-be repeat opponents, I’ll spend the bulk of the previews today on Vanderbilt. If you’re on a browser, you can click to navigate to Vanderbilt, UConn, and UNC.

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An undeniable truth about this program is that it’s among the elite in the history of women’s college basketball. With the fourth-most Sweet 16 appearances, the fifth-most Final Fours, and the third-most Championship Game appearances behind only UConn and Tennessee, it’s appropriate to hold the program to an extremely high standard. It’s made the Sweet 16 in 70% of its tournament appearances. This round should be table stakes.

But I personally think the first two victories of this particular tournament deserve some celebration. For this version of this team, what should be table stakes becomes playing with house money. We’d rather that not be the case, but if you’re going to make the Sweet 16 five years in a row it’s fun to have a little variance in the vibes around the way you get there.

Notre Dame got there decisively and comprehensively over the course of its two games in Columbus. It performed the best of any 6-seed in the tournament in its opening-round romp against Fairfield, whose shooting went uncharacteristically cold. Hannah Hidalgo picked apart the Stags for eight steals, although much to the credit of Kaety L’Amoreaux most of those steals were not on-ball. To L’Amoreaux’s detriment, she was held far below her scoring average and performed worse than her average in every other stat. Meghan Andersen played great, but when a mid-major becomes a one-trick pony it’s very very hard for them to pull an upset.

By far the more impressive win—obviously—was Monday’s victory over Ohio State. Getting out of the way all the fun, records-keeping reasons first: it was ND’s first win in Columbus avenging its only-ever loss to Ohio State back when Muffet McGraw was just starting out as head coach; it’s the highest-seeded team Notre Dame has ever defeated in the NCAA Tournament under coach Ivey; it’s only the second time Notre Dame has defeated a team seeded better than it under Ivey and the first was against a not-impressive Oklahoma team whereas Ohio State had a schnazzy resume and a first-team all-American; it extends Notre Dame’s Sweet 16 streak to five years, trailing only UConn and South Carolina; Hannah Hidalgo set the Notre Dame single-season scoring record.

But Monday’s affair was so much more. It showed once again (annoyingly) that Notre Dame could respond from being put on its heels early, when they overcame an 11-0 defecit and outscored Ohio State by 27 before the Buckeyes’ final two threes in garbage time. It showed that more players than Hannah Hidalgo are capable of breaking a press (heck, even Cass Prosper was called a “one-person press break” for taking it coast-to-coast). It showed that the team can respond to a run after OSU cut the original 13-point gap to 1 towards the end of the third.

KK Bransford, back in the building where she won a high school state championship, led the team in assists and had no turnovers. Vanessa de Jesus took a ball coast to coast to give the Irish their first lead of the night. Five players scored in double-digits. Notre Dame outrebounded the Buckeyes and everyone who played grabbed at least one. Malaya Cowles managed not to commit any turnovers against a team known for their defense, and Hannah Hidalgo again notched a whopping eight steals against a team known for its guard strength.

The victory was special because it was a complete team win using a roster that we all know is probably the weakest top-to-bottom of any Notre Dame has had in the last five seasons. That’s a testament to the coaching. The core returnees on this squad only know the Sweet 16, but the other have steadily been working towards this moment. Vanessa de Jesus is the only player who has Elite Eight experience on the entire roster, after three seasons of failing to make it past the second round at Duke. Gisela Sanchez played a grand total of seven minutes in her Sweet 16 loss to USC last year on a program that hadn’t been there since 2002. Malaya Cowles made her first Sweet 16 on Monday. Iyana Moore (who has been shining from beyond the arc and confidently taking the ball to the hoop) made her first Sweet 16 on Monday. Barring Moore, these players were all playing heavy bench minutes at best at their previous schools, and now barring Sanchez they all have a moment they can be extra proud of.

This win was a testament to the vision Niele Ivey and the coaches had for this team all season long. Yes, the team played close to its ceiling on Saturday, but it’s so satisfying to see that happen in March and not November. Who knows how this team’s record looks if Moore, Cowles, Bransford, and Leah Macy don’t have various injuries, but the important thing is who’s available now, and who’s available now is a team full of players who are ready to go for one another day in and day out, even if it’s just for one more day.

As it so happens, Notre Dame has a game this Friday at 2:30 PM against the 2nd-seeded Vanderbilt Commodores. This one will have all the pomp of the last one but against a slightly tougher opponent. At this point, the Notre Dame team is playing for themselves and their coaches to see if they can defy the odds. Here’s who lies ahead in Regional 1 in Fort Worth:

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(2) Vanderbilt Commodores [SEC At-Large (2nd Place); 29-4, 13-3]

Notre Dame’s opponent on Saturday was one of the pleasant surprises of the season this year. Everyone suspected Vanderbilt could be pretty good; it returned all-American Mikayla Blakes and brought in Texas starter Ndjakalenga Mwenentanda to complement its reliable roleplayers Sacha Washington and Aiyana Mitchell. But while the Commodores were ranked in the Top 20 of the preseason poll, nobody could anticipate what was about to happen.

Blakes took a gigantic step up her Sophomore year from a third-team all-American level to a first-team all-World one and now leads the nation in scoring. Reserve Justine Pissott reclaimed her starting spot for her senior year and more than doubled her offensive production. And last, but not least, freshman point guard Aubrey Galvan came in as an unranked recruit and shocked the country, winning SEC Freshman of the Year.

Vanderbilt’s resume in their non-conference was untainted, including a season-opening win over Cal and a win over Michigan (two things Notre Dame does not have). In-conference, they got slammed by South Carolina as most teams do but otherwise only lost to Ole Miss and Georgia, both by single digits. That means they beat some really popular and well-regarded SEC teams like Texas and LSU and Oklahoma. They were so good, they elevated their ranking to Top 5 in the country and 2nd in the SEC before they lost to Ole Miss again in the SEC tournament.

The thing is, though, they’re a few plays a way from a much different season. That Michigan win was impressive, but they only won by three. Their win over Cal was by 9. LSU, 4. Mississippi State, 5. They beat Kentucky twice by a combined three points. This isn’t to call them fraudulent by any stretch, but they’re not winning by the juggernaut numbers you would expect from a 2-seed. Still, they’re finding ways to win those games and that could be more powerful.

Both Blakes and Pissott will be familiar foes to Hannah Hidalgo, all three of them having grown up in New Jersey. Aubrey Galvan will not be familiar with Hannah Hidalgo, or taller than her. These are all pluses for Notre Dame, who thrives when Hidalgo plays against her Team USA and/or high school frenemies and who thrives doubly when opposing point guards have never played her before. All three of these players were the only Vanderbilt players to score in double digits in their second-round win over Illinois, so it’ll be intriguing to see how and whether Notre Dame can neutralize them.

If I had to guess, ND will try to neutralize Galvan and Pissott the most. Against Ohio State, the Irish were content to let Jaloni Cambridge basically try and beat them by herself. Every other Buckeye was below her average, and I’d be willing to bet that’s how ND approaches Vanderbilt. Let Blakes go off, she’s bound to anyway, but make sure her teammates don’t get theirs.

That’ll be a tall order with Pissott kind of a matchup nightmare. A 6’4” guard might be a player who gets Cass Prosper’s hands full, especially one who shoots 42% from three. If Prosper does pick up Pissott, that probably shifts Bransford onto Blakes more often than not. Hidalgo could try her hand at Blakes, but then you take away the advantage you might gain putting her on Galvan over, say Vanessa de Jesus. To make matters worse, Mwenentanda and Washington are both 6’2” and highly capable. If they want to go extra-large, one of their two primary reserves is also 6’4”, and they’re capable of bringing in more height off the bench.

Shea Ralph (famously with ties to Geno Auriemma and UConn as a national-championship player and six times as an assistant) is a very good coach, and earned SEC Coach of the Year honors this year. Last year, they had Blakes, NC State’s Khamil Pierre, and Notre Dame’s Iyana Moore, and they were upset in the first round as a 7-seed against 10-seed Oregon. This year, they’re in their first Sweet 16 in 17 years and looking to advance to the Elite Eight for the first time since 2002. Torvik has them as 4.8-point favorites against the Irish. Betting odds opened at Vandy -4.5. Warren Nolan’s NET predictor has the Commodores winning by 2. Massey has Notre Dame winning 52% of the time. It’s a big ask, but if Notre Dame’s offense can bring it on Friday like it did on Monday, it should be a great game.

(1) Connecticut Huskies [Big East Champions (1st Place); 36-0, 20-0]

If you’re reading this newsletter, chances are you’re familiar with UConn’s game, and with how deep the rivalry between Notre Dame and UConn runs. If Notre Dame gets to this game, I wouldn’t expect anything all that much better than the January meeting, which was the largest margin of defeat Notre Dame has allowed to UConn of all time. A fun fact is that KK Bransford is undefeated in games she’s played against UConn, but I don’t think whatever cosmic powers have willed that into being will hold up their end of the bargain should the teams meet on Sunday.

If anyone can stop UConn this year, it’s probably UCLA or LSU with an outside chance of South Carolina or Texas. Those teams match up well against the Huskies, and almost nobody else does. Even Michigan, who lost to UConn by just three, did so more because it was the fifth game of the season and UConn played a bit sloppily than anything else. Since their 38-point rout of Notre Dame, the Huskies have played five tournament teams, winning by 30, 14, 39, 38, and most recently by 53 against Syracuse.

There are many years I would give Notre Dame a chance to beat UConn, even a healthy chance. This is sadly not one of them. To keep it close, they would have to hope for less fouling from ND’s bigs (hard when the opposing bigs are Serah Williams and Blanca Quiñonez) and better shooting from ND’s guards (de Jesus and Moore went 3-11 and 0-7 from three). I doubt this team would be as scared as they so obviously were in January, but I still don’t think the most inspired game from Notre Dame would conquer Sarah Strong, Azzi Fudd, and this year’s UConn Huskies.

(4) North Carolina Tar Heels [ACC At-Large (3rd Place); 28-7, 14-4]

It would be fantastic if Notre Dame were to beat Vanderbilt and UNC were to beat UConn. UNC lost to UCLA by 18 (fire Courtney Banghart) and Texas by 15 (fire Courtney Banghart). It has a super talented roster that should in theory compete with the best teams, but in the biggest of games they just can’t seem to win (fire Courtney Banghart).

But as obviously neutral as I am about the job UNC’s head coach Courtney Banghart has done with the immense swaths of talented players she has been able to attract to Chapel Hill, I actually and unironically have to give her credit for the job she’s done this year. They handed Duke its most recent loss, beat Virginia and Clemson handily and played Louisville to a really tight semifinal in the ACC Tournament. Their second-round win over a flashy Maryland team was similar to Notre Dame’s over Ohio State in that Maryland just would not go away but the Tar Heels fended them off with aplomb every time they surged.

But at the same time, that win over Maryland was only their second ranked win of the season. They have a 5-6 record in Quad 1 of the NET (Notre Dame’s is 7-7). I just don’t think they’re prepared for what UConn will throw at them on Sunday. Not to mention their last two March Madness losses have been hideous, with a 37-point drubbing at South Carolina two seasons ago and a 47-38 slop fest against Duke in last year’s Sweet 16.

If Notre Dame does play them, then the Irish should truly consider themselves lucky. I think ND would fare well in that game just as it did in early January. Would it be a cake walk? No. But it would be much better than the alternative.

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Former Irish Roundup: There are only two former Irish still in action this weekend, as Kate Koval and LSU will play Duke in Region 2 and Olivia Miles and TCU will play Virginia in Region 4. TCU had to squeak by upset-minded Washington in overtime on Sunday night (a very winnable game for Washington) while LSU has scored over 100 in its games. Both of their games could be close this next round! Otherwise, Alli Campbell (on Fairfield) and Kylee Watson’s careers both came to an end in the opening weekend, suffering defeats to Notre Dame and Texas Tech, respectively.

Lay of the Land Roundup: Even if only three hosts were upset before the Sweet 16 this year, it’s been a pretty great tournament to watch. The first round saw an absolutely electric game between Minnesota and Green Bay go into the fourth quarter tight before the Gophers pulled away. Colorado State gave Michigan State all it could handle but came up three points short of the upset. Fairleigh Dickinson was within 2 points of becoming the first 15-seed to win a game in the tournament with under five minutes to go at Iowa. Virginia has won both of its games in overtime periods after scraping by the First Four by just two points. USC only got by Clemson in the first round because a shot and foul both ruled late granted the game an overtime period. In the second round, Minnesota needed a game-winner to beat Ole Miss and West Virginia missed a would-be game-winner to give Kentucky the win. Louisville had to come back to win against Alabama by just one point.

It’s been a great tournament, and regardless of how Notre Dame performs the rest of the way or whether UConn cruises to yet another title it should be a great bit of entertainment for these last two weeks. Like I said last week, I’ll be back to preview the Final Four if Notre Dame is in it. If not, we’ll talk about what comes next! As always, thanks for reading, and be well. Go Irish, beat Commodores! Beat Huskies! Beat Tar Heels!

It’s finally here! 68 teams have gone through 30+ game seasons over the course of 4+ months all jockeying for position in a single-elimination tournament. This Friday, we’ll be able to turn on our televisions at 11:30 AM and watch nothing but competitive, win-or-go-home basketball. After the first round, the pressure only gets higher. There is nothing else quite like it in sports. Welcome to March.

Notre Dame will start its adventure as a 6-seed, headed to Columbus, OH where they would meet the home team Ohio State Buckeyes in the second round. Today I’ll preview ND’s first-round opponent, and the remainder of the teams in Columbus. If you’re on a browser and would like to jump past any preceding ado, you can click to navigate to previews for Fairfield, Ohio State, and Howard respectively. I also have a just-for-fun bracket pool associated with this newsletter. You can click here to access it.

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Last year I described the events leading up to March Madness as the season having skidded to a halt, and I’m happy to report that this year could not be more opposite. Yes, Notre Dame’s talent ceiling isn’t quite as high, and yes the team has its worst seeding since Niele Ivey’s first non-COVID-shortened season when it missed the tournament altogether, but setting aside the magnitude and velocity of the program as a whole, this particular season came together quite delightfully in the end.

Notre Dame had to rely on four grad-transfers to supplement its core of Hannah Hidalgo, KK Bransford, and Cassandre Prosper this year. With two of them injured early on (Iyana Moore and Malaya Cowles), it was a miracle that Notre Dame could defeat USC at home after getting absolutely dismantled against Michigan. An unfortunate collapse at Ole Miss meant the Irish fell in with the rest of the ACC this year as an underwhelming conference top to bottom. Then KK Bransford sustained an injury, and the thin roster led Notre Dame to drop out of the national rankings and drop three-ish games it shouldn’t have in January. But when Bransford returned, and with everyone else healthy, the Irish rallied to win seven of its last eight regular-season games and finish exactly where it was projected at fifth-place in the conference. That momentum carried to the ACC Tournament, where ND came up one possession short of defeating the regular-season and eventual tournament champions, Duke.

I thought maybe that ND would have earned a 5-seed in March Madness, but I’m excited about the 6-seed because it delays the time until the Irish would hypothetically meet a 1-seed, all of whom I think are probably out of reach for this year’s ND squad. In Notre Dame’s region, that team is UConn, who already handed the Irish a 38-point loss this season, the largest loss in the series of that storied rivalry. But, the rest of the region seems rather friendly if the Irish play their best.

Outside of Notre Dame’s immediate pod, North Carolina and Maryland have been quite mercurial this year, while Syracuse seems to have a low ceiling and Iowa State can’t figure out how to play together despite Addy Brown and Audi Crooks holding down their core for the third straight year. UConn will probably handle whichever of those teams is in their path, while whoever comes out of Notre Dame’s pod will likely have to contend with Vanderbilt. Vandy has been a great story this year and far exceeded expectations behind the play of all-American Mikayla Blakes and freshman breakout star Aubrey Galvan. If they fall apart, it’ll be because Illinois started playing to the ceiling that brought it wins against Michigan State and Maryland earlier in the year. Colorado has been a bit disappointing this season, but its handful of sharp wins make it capable of some helpful tomfoolery if the stars align.

Meanwhile, the Sacramento 2 region is this year’s toughest. UCLA is the one team people are most confident in preventing UConn from getting yet another national title, and it’ll likely have to face either the top-rated 2-seed or top-rated 3-seed in the Elite Eight. Duke is that 3-seed, and although I would love to see them lose in an upset to Baylor I just don’t see it happening. Baylor could lose to whoever winds up being its 11-seed between Nebraska and Richmond. Former Irish Kylee Watson is also in that region, where Villanova will hope to upset Texas Tech in round one as a 10-seed.

Regional 3 (also in Sacramento) has who I think is the strongest 11-seed in Rhode Island, but if they do upset 6-seed Maryland then they’d have a date with Jeff Walz and 3-seed Toledo in the KFC Yum! Center. James Madison is probably the strongest 12-seed in the tournament but will have a rough go of it against Kenny Brooks’s Kentucky squad. NC State and Tennessee opened the year against one another and now one of their seasons will end in the same matchup, which by the way is absolutely loaded with horrendous vibes as to say both squads have cohesion issues is an understatement. The 2-seed, Michigan, is still a very steady team and could maybe upset 1-seed Texas if Michigan itself doesn’t get upset first.

Finally, in Regional 4 (Fort Worth), South Carolina will likely coast to the Sweet 16 over whoever wins between USC (talented, on-and-off, mixed coaching) and Clemson (not as talented, on a lot, great coaching). If 4-seed Oklahoma doesn’t lay an egg against 5-seed Michigan State then it does have a win over South Carolina on its resume already this year. 11-seed South Dakota State is a March Madness mainstay and might just beat 6-seed Washington behind star forward Brooklyn Meyer. Olivia Miles and 3-seed TCU likely lurk for whoever does win, and their presumed Sweet 16 matchup would be against a sneaky good 2-seed Iowa team or 7-seed Georgia if they can manage the upset (which is a popular pick).

But, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. The first order of business for Notre Dame will be to take on the Fairfield Stags at 2 PM on Saturday with Roy Philpott and Nell Fortner on the call. Let’s dive on into a preview about the opponents and the teams ND may come across on Monday:

(11) Fairfield Stags [MAAC Champions (1st place); 28-4, 19-1]

ND will open its tournament on Saturday at 2 PM against Fairfield! It will be the second meeting between the two teams and the first since 1987 in Muffet McGraw’s first season as coach. But that doesn’t mean Fairfield is a random, no-name team that the Irish can afford to overlook. In fact, they’ve been a mid-major force in the 2020’s, and this will be their fourth NCAA tournament appearance in the last five years.

Listen. I don’t expect Fairfield to win this one, but they have the roster to do it. In an age where so many mid-majors are losing their top talent to the Transfer Portal, Fairfield has kept its talent intact. Two years ago, now-graduate student Janelle Brown was the MAAC Player of the Year and now-junior Meghan Andersen was the MAAC Freshman of the Year, and while those two have increased production (especially Andersen), their teammate Kaety L’Amoreaux has emerged as this year’s MAAC Player of the Year.

Fairfield starts three players 6’0” or taller (hey, that’s more than Notre Dame!) and they really tire teams out. A blazing 46.7% of their shot attempts are from three and their eFG% is 55%, good for fourth in the country. They are 19th in the nation in assists per game and 18th in assist:turnover ratio (for context, Notre Dame is 96th and 49th, respectively). They’re not too shabby on defense, either, but their bread-and-butter is running and gunning on offense. They even play a five-out offense full of cuts through the lane to keep the defense moving and get a player open.

A lot of that style is thanks to head coach Carly Thibault-DuDonis. She comes from an amazing coaching family (her father is Mike Thibault, three-time WNBA champion coach of the Washington Mystics, and her brother Eric succeeded him before taking a job as an assistant with the Lynx). Her husband Blake DuDonis is an assistant on her staff, and he has revolutionized the program’s perspective on non-guard positions. He calls anyone who isn’t a guard a “roadrunner” and expects his bigs to run the floor first and foremost, being everywhere all at once while his guards handle the ball and find them when they’re open. If they’re not, those guards take it to the rim themselves. Kaety L’Amoreaux is a guard herself and leads the team in scoring, assists, and steals. (She’s also 5’6”, remind you of anyone?)

That style means they ought to have some kind of depth, and they sure do. 10 Players have started a game for the Stags, and all 10 of them average more than 13 minutes per game. This includes all three star starters mentioned earlier. Brown and L’Amoreaux are guards, while Andersen is a road runner but hits from three at a higher clip than either guard. Starter Jillian Huerter, sister of Chicago Bulls player Kevin Huerter, hits from three at above 43%. The final starter, Cyanne Coe, is a road runner whose job it is to rebound and clean up, and shoots 65% from the field, almost all of those easy layups. They’ve got five bench players all ready to come in and pick up the burden; three of them are also 6’0” and above so they don’t sacrifice height. One of them is former Irish, Alli Campbell!

All that talent, style, and retention has earned the Stags their third consecutive conference tournament and regular-season title, as well as their best-ever seed in the 64+-team era of the NCAA tournament. They were also ranked #25 in the country before their conference tournament and fell from the poll without losing when Notre Dame moved in at #22. They have a win over Villanova (the second-best team in the Big East after UConn) and 14-point losses against UNC and at Iowa. This is a really fascinating opponent and the game will be one of the more intriguing round one matchups even if it winds up being lopsided.

As I said before, I wouldn’t bank on them toppling the Irish on Saturday. But, I wouldn’t say it’s out of the question! Malaya Cowles probably isn’t fast enough to stay with the shorter Cyanne Coe, and Cass Prosper will have a hard time guarding Meghan Andersen at all three levels even though Andersen is shorter. A zone won’t work because of how well Fairfield shoots the three, and a man will likely tire out the Irish because they lack depth. Kaety L’Amoreaux has never seen Hannah Hidalgo before, but she’s a smart enough player to avoid the usual pitfalls.

I will not be picking Notre Dame to lose, but I wouldn’t begrudge someone else for doing so. Fairfield’s height, pace, and their propensity for three-pointers could all pose issues for Notre Dame that a typical mid-major matchup wouldn’t.

(3) Ohio State Buckeyes [Big Ten At-Large (5th place); 26-7, 13-5]

Should the Irish prevail over Fairfield on Saturday, they would presumably face the host team, Ohio State. It’s a bit of a role reversal from last year, where 3-seed Notre Dame played host to the 5th-place Big Ten team. This time around Notre Dame is travelling to the home of the Big Ten 5th-place finisher.

The Buckeyes will be seeking their 13th trip to the Sweet 16 this year, and they can certainly imagine themselves in line for a fourth Elite Eight berth. Ohio State’s identity has long been the full court press, a tactic it employs for as much of the 40 minutes of game time as possible night in and night out, regardless of opponent. This propelled the Buckeyes to probably the biggest postseason win in program history when they beat UConn in the 2023 Sweet 16 to advance to their first Elite Eight since 1987. But the past two NCAA Tournaments haven’t been so kind, falling in a second-round upset to Tennessee last year after falling in a second-round upset to Duke the year before.

Indeed, a hosting spot has kind of been a bugaboo for the Buckeyes these past three years—it even had to escape with a two-point win over UNC before advancing to the regional when it toppled UConn—but they have great reason to believe this season will be different. For one, all-American superstar sophomore Jaloni Cambridge is a bit like the Hannah Hidalgo of her class: a tad undersized, pesky as sin on defense and nothing she can’t do on offense. Her runningmate Chance Gray has increased her production from an already impressive output last year and shoots over 40% from three.

Jaloni’s older sister Kennedy Cambridge leads that impressive full-court press in steals, and 6’6” center Ava Lemillä holds things down under the basket. The Buckeyes only go eight deep on a good day, with their bench featuring freshman Kylee Kitts, sister of South Carolina star Chloe. Kitts is kind of a matchup nightmare, a 6’4” player with true guard skills and a bigger frame than, say Cass Prosper.

This game, if it happens, will be quite tough. Like Notre Dame, Ohio State is riding the high of playing its conference’s best team close in their tournament semifinal as it lost to UCLA by “only” 10 points. (UCLA won the championship by 50.) The Buckeyes have had some clunkers at Iowa, Minnesota, and UConn this year, but its suite of wins against TCU, West Virginia, Maryland, Michigan State, and Minnesota make the Buckeyes a legitimate threat. Notably, like ND it got USC at home. Ohio State won that game by five.

We’ve seen Notre Dame when it has to rely on literally anyone else to handle the ball aside from Hannah Hidalgo. Even capable ball handler Vanessa de Jesus. It’s bad. Against Ohio State’s full-court press, I’m not sure the team is equipped to make the best decisions enough of the time. The key will be not to get rushed. I don’t know what the Irish would do about the Buckeyes’ size down low, but my guess is the Irish would have to establish the three-point shot so Hanah Hidalgo can operate in the lane. Ohio State’s stats are really nothing to write home about beyond the fact that they employ that full-court press with such aplomb that they force 21.4 turnovers per game (over one more than ND forces) and assist on a ton of their resulting shots. They are susceptible to the three-pointer, and if they are forced into a game in the halfcourt then they are beatable.

This isn’t a terrible matchup for Notre Dame, but it would obviously be among ND’s best wins of the year. Massey would give Notre Dame a 42% chance at winning this game with just a four-point spread. Those odds seem fine, but this season has taught us we can’t go into any game with expectations that ND will play to its ceiling or its floor. The Irish currently hold a 4-1 all-time advantage over Ohio State and it’d be a shame to lose the most critical game of the series. If this game happens, it’ll be Monday.

Final extraneous information: Ohio State coach Kevin McGuff’s first extended coaching position was six years as an assistant for Muffet McGraw, including during Niele Ivey’s playing tenure. Notre Dame played and beat his daughter’s team earlier this season (Akron). I have no reason to include this besides awareness for its own sake, but if you want a major dose of secondhand embarrassment, here’s the body cam footage from when coach McGuff was arrested for a DUI last summer. And here’s the full version. Don’t worry, Ohio State suspended him for two weeks and his driving privileges were reinstated just weeks after the incident.

(14) Howard Bison [MEAC Champions (1st place); 26-7, 13-1]

The final team headed to Columbus this weekend is the MEAC Champion, Howard. It would take a lot for Howard to face off against the Irish—a 14-seed has never won a game in the NCAA tournament—but it’s not impossible, so here’s a brief rundown:

The Bison are coming off their best season in four years, and their first MEAC championship since then. They actually defeated Fairfield in an early-season matchup and they’ve got a win over a high-major conference team at Cincinnati, which means even as a 14-seed, they’re no slouch. But, with losses to Purdue, Old Dominion, and VCU, Howard just isn’t quite formidable, either.

They’ve got three starters 6 foot or taller, but really the only player we need to know is Zennia Thomas. The 6’2” senior forward by way of Kentucky in the 2024 transfer portal leads the team in points, rebounds, blocks, and almost assists. Two of her fellow starters have been at Howard multiple years as well, and they’re supplemented by Zoe Stewart who is on her third school in three years.

Coach Ty Grace has taken her squad to the top of the MEAC where it has made its conference championship game every one of the last six years, but the program hasn’t taken the same steps Fairfield has in terms of scheduling aggressively so the NET allows for a better seed. That doesn’t take away from their accomplishments in-conference, but it means the Bison don’t get as many reps against top competition and that will likely come back to bite them on Saturday.

There is little reason to believe that Notre Dame will match up against Howard, but if they do I like their chances a lot. Howard isn’t quite as athletic as the Irish, and they don’t have the speed to keep up with Hannah Hidalgo. Howard’s three-point defense is excellent, but it leaves the lane wide open where Notre Dame would be able to feast.

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Whew, that was a lot, I know. But that’s all from me for this week! The vibes around NDWBB are probably at their peak for this season right now, so we just need to hope the team can ride the wave to a fifth consecutive Sweet 16.

Regardless of what happens this weekend, you’ll hear from me again next week. The off-season is sure to be stressful with the whirlwind of the transfer portal looming, plus we’ll see if any WNBA draft decisions are made by Cass Prosper. But we can’t think about any of that for now.

For now, it’s time to enjoy the postseason for all that it is. If you want to join a just-for-fun bracket pool I made, click here. I’m allowing up to two entries per person in this one in case your heart and head are leading you in different directions.

Thanks as always for reading. Until next week, be well. Go Irish, beat Stags! Beat Buckeyes! Beat Bison!

Sometimes, the eye test is enough to set the tone for an important stretch. Such is the case for the Irish, who went down to Georgia and soundly defeated two opponents before falling in a hard-fought battle to the team which swept this year’s conference titles. A Top 25 AP poll ranking and a few All-American nods for Hannah Hidalgo later, and Notre Dame will be among the teams with the best vibes in the country entering the NCAA Tournament.

This team’s ceiling is lower than the past few years and will largely depend on matchups, but the vibes feel very 2024ian when the team was riding the high of a backdoor conference title and subsequent conference tournament win, which the committee recognized with a 2-seed. While the best this current team could probably hope for is a 5-seed, the team’s prognosis looks a lot better now than it did 2, 3, or 4 weeks ago and beyond. It’ll be over before we know it, but we can reflect in the meantime on what got us to this point.

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One of the most promising signs in the off-season is when a team looks night and day better against a repeat opponent than it did the first time around. Such was the case in all three games last weekend. Miami, who never should have been up two possessions on Notre Dame in the fourth quarter in Purcell Pavilion this season, never held a lead after the first seven minutes on Thursday as the Irish ballooned the margin to 18 points and then coasted to a 15-point victory. NC State, who closed a 27-point gap to just 12 in February, closed that same gap to 18 in Notre Dame’s second consecutive rout. (Notre Dame never trailed in either meeting against the Wolfpack this season.)

Against Duke, it was a stark difference between January’s 15-point affair and Saturday’s two-point heartbreaker. The first matchup never saw Notre Dame down by less than 9 in the fourth quarter and spent most of its time with a double-digit spread; the team led in the fourth quarter on Saturday and, as we all know, had the ball with the chance to tie or take the lead in the dying seconds of the game.

I could probably write an entire edition on that last minute on Saturday. The decision to try for three. The pass to KK Bransford on the elbow being the team’s first idea in a late shot-clock situation. Gisela Sanchez not being in once it was clear the team would try for three. Niele Ivey hanging onto a timeout when Hannah Hidalgo had the ball with seven seconds left off a chaotic offensive rebound. Hidalgo’s desperation heave with too much time left, and whether Toby Fournier invaded her landing space. Cass Prosper flipping the ball rather lazily to an open Iyana Moore, rendering her not open. It was a bizarre sequence all around, but while that possession was in the moment the difference between a win and a loss, the game and the weekend taught us so much more about what this team is right now.

Thursday taught us that Notre Dame is taking this postseason seriously. In January’s contest against Miami, the Irish lost the rebounding battle by seven at home. It only had five players score. It allowed Amarachi Kimpson to go for over 20 points for just the sixth time in her career, most of which was at a mid-major school. It had 4 offensive rebounds and 18 points in the paint. On Thursday, Notre Dame won the rebounding battle. Kimpson had four points on 1-4 shooting. The Irish had 12 offensive rebounds and 20 points in the paint. It led for 81% of the game, up from 27%. By the end, Miami star Ra Shaya Kyle looked ready to be done not just with the game but with her college basketball career.

This sort of represents the growth of Malaya Cowles over the season: Kyle was Miami’s best player and while Cowles did concede a double-double to her for the second time this season, Malaya’s stat line was way more impressive the second time around. 12 rebounds, 3 assists, 2 turnovers to 4 rebounds, 1 assist, 6 turnovers is no small thing, and is just one example of Notre Dame peaking at the right time.

The other example came on Friday against NC State, when Iyana Moore tied her career high 9 rebounds. Moore went off on Saturday, with a team-second 20 points. She played great defense on the much taller Qadence Samuels and her three steals led the team (which says a lot for a team with Hannah Hidalgo on it). Cowles put up another great defensive performance on Tilda Trygger, who combined with backups Maddie Cox and Mallory Collier had three rebounds to Cowles’s 7. Bransford and Sanchez combined for ten points for the second straight day.

Even on Sunday in light of the loss, Notre Dame showed amazing improvement. Down 10-0 an earlier version of this year’s team may have crumbled, but after starting in a similar deficit in the regular-season finale to Louisville, Notre Dame consolidated the identity of a team who doesn’t give up. It lapsed in transition defense, but the team played stout defense against a much taller Duke team when the Blue Devils had to operate in the half court. Cowles and Bransford had particularly rough games, but Cowles still finished with zero turnovers and Bransford hit a key three-pointer in the third quarter to give the team its first lead of the afternoon.

I’ll repeat my point: two of Notre Dame’s seven players had dreadful games and still limited their negative impact to the point where the game was winnable, even if the result was a loss. That speaks to the level the team is currently playing at. Unlike last year, this Notre Dame team is playing to its ceiling when it matters, which combined with Hannah Hidalgo’s undeniable talent makes them very powerful.

The one player this may not apply to so well is sadly Cass Prosper. When Prosper’s offensive rating is under 80 for a game, the team is 3-5; it’s been under 80 in three of the last four games. She went 3-9 on mid-range shots over the weekend and 1-10 on threes. She had a team-second four turnovers against Duke which led the team in turnover rate by far. Her main defensive assignment on NC State, Khamil Pierre, was one of the only Wolfpack players to improve from the first meeting to the second.

Luckily, the rest of the team’s improvement more than made up for whatever Prosper is currently going through, and it should go without saying that everything runs through Hannah Hidalgo. I don’t much like how basketball fandom is sometimes about the players individually more than the teams they play on, but wow, Hannah Hidalgo is on another level. You might think her shot selection could use some work. You might think it’s annoying that she calls for an and-one every time she shoots the ball. You might, like me, wish her usage rate was a bit lower. But no matter what, you can’t deny her talent.

Hidalgo was (rightly) the focus of Beth Mowins and Debbie Antonelli’s game calls, plus the halftime crew’s analysis and even bracketologist Charlie Creme’s players to watch from around the country, and she lived up to her billing and then some. She’s now in the midst of a seven-game span wherein she is averaging 27.3 points, 7.6 rebounds, 4.7 assists, and 5.3 steals. She’s second to only Vanderbilt’s Mikayla Blakes in Points Over Replacement Per Adjusted Game At That Usage (PORPAGATU!) in that stretch and leads the country in Defensive PORPAG in that stretch. She’s also 8-19 from three over the last seven games after averaging just 25% on the season. Just doing it all to the max on both sides of the ball which is something you love to see from a player who has sort of gotten an unwarranted reputation for disappearing in March.

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Not only are all of Hidalgo’s stats up from each of her two preceding seasons as a first-team All-American, but her fellow guards are performing at career-bests as well. Cass Prosper has been volatile but was the ACC’s most improved player for a reason. Iyana Moore—a three-point specialist—is having her best season from distance and turning the ball over less than she ever has. Vanessa de Jesus more than doubled her previous highest steals per game while shooting better than she has from deep in any of the past three seasons and minimizing her turnover rate. Even KK Bransford, curtailed though her season was, has set career-highs in 2PT% and 3PT%. A lot of this is to these players’ own credit, but so much of it is the gravity that Hannah Hidalgo has on the court and the amount of attention she demands on both sides.

So yes, Notre Dame failed to win an ACC championship of any kind for the first time in four years. It failed to get a double-bye for the first time in five. Barring a national championship, it’ll be the most losses in one season of the Ivey era. Obviously this is all not good news. A retrospective on this season all up mmay reveal some bad trends.

But how fun and refreshing is it to see a Notre Dame team again playing its best basketball when it matters the most? How great is it that we get to watch and root for one of the best players in the country every game? The team we root for is one whose found their roles, is playing with confidence, and is playing with such obvious joy it’s hard not to root for. The talent ceiling may not be what we’re used to or what we expect as a program, but a team playing to its ceiling is always one worth watching.

Our task for the next however long is to enjoy whatever this team gives us. We got one season of Iyana Moore, Vanessa de Jesus, and Malaya Cowles, and their time in an Irish uniform will be over before we know it. This might very well be it for the core players as well. We can do a full retrospective once this season comes to an end, but living in the moment should be a fun mindset for now. I’ll be back next week to talk about the bracket (to be released Sunday night)! Until then, thanks for reading, be well, and Go Irish!

It’s hard to believe Notre Dame was 5-5 in the ACC just 35 days ago, staring down the barrel of an irrelevant season and all the misery it comes with. Seven wins in eight games later, and the Irish have a renewed lease on a life emboldened by all the challenges that came before. After a get-right road trip last week, Notre Dame returned to face their final challenging foes of the regular season and walked away with two resilient wins. Hannah Hidalgo made her mark once again en route to her second consecutive ACC Player of the Year and Defensive Player of the Year awards and another ACC and USBWA Player of the Week.

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Certainly among the most promising and impressive parts of this week’s two victories was their grit. Can you think of a time recently when Notre Dame led by 14 in the third quarter only to lose? What about a time when they led by 18 and still lost? If you said “Georgia Tech” and “Ole Miss” for these questions, you are painfully correct. This squad had too seldom demonstrated their signature Irish fight this season, especially if you include never quite getting over the hump against Virginia or Cal or relinquishing a second-half lead to Clemson at home!

Something in February reversed that. Wake Forest is worse than Georgia Tech but were within four of Notre Dame quite late in the first half before the Irish pulled away and never looked back. This week, Syracuse surmounted a 10-point deficit only for Notre Dame to dig its heels in and pull out the win. Louisville was down 12 at halftime and took the lead in the fourth quarter only for Notre Dame to have the last laugh. This is the result of months of growth and trust manifest before our eyes.

Even more impressive is that neither of these wins were “All Hannah.” “All Hannah” is Hidalgo scoring 31 out of the team’s 58 points in the first three quarters against a poor Stanford team and racking up just three assists on the night because her teammates could hardly muster any production. Against Syracuse and Louisville, Hidalgo had seven assists each night, and had (only) scored 20 and 21 points in the first three frames while her teammates outscored her. That shouldn’t be too much to ask, but it’s a formula that works: make sure the whole team gets involved, and watch what happens.

What happened was a hard-earned win against one of the most physical teams in the conference versus Syracuse, and Notre Dame’s best win of the season on Sunday at rival Louisville to deny them a share of the conference title.

I want to reiterate: everyone got involved this week. Sure, it might not all have been in the same game—Cass Prosper showed out for her senior night on Thursday before presenting as a net negative on Sunday—but Hidalgo had enough of a supporting cast each night to get the job done and she struck a great balance between doing it herself and finding her teammates; she never lost trust in them to make the right play.

On Thursday, this was Cass Prosper. ACC Most Improved Player Cass Prosper, whose smooth moves on Thursday reminded us of all she can contribute when her head is on straight and she has some time on the court to find the flow of the game. Her four offensive rebounds were the most by one ND player since her own five against Stanford at the beginning of January. She was also in the right place for her teammates more often than not, scoring four of her seven buckets off assists.

On Sunday, the offensive weapons were Iyana Moore and Vanessa de Jesus! The two combined for a cool 7-15 from three, which while we expect that from Moore was a very pleasant surprise from VDJ. Importantly, VDJ’s first-quarter three helped give the team some life when it looked like it was on pace for its lowest-scoring first quarter of the season, and their combined 17 points on 5-5 three-point shooting in the second helped the Irish build a lead they would need every bit of to hold off the Cardinal comeback.

And sure, why not another paragraph for these two. It was stressful to see Hannah Hidalgo have to sit out with some foul trouble late against Louisville, and even though that led to a 6-0 Louisville run over the course of 12 seconds in the third quarter, VDJ was able to deal one of the assists of the day to Malaya Cowles when Hidalgo was out again in the fourth to help Notre Dame stop the bleeding and pull within one. For Moore’s part, her lone fourth-quarter bucket was late in the shot clock to give Notre Dame the lead after Louisville tied the game with a 7-0 run. Just invaluable contributions on a night when the team got not only Bad Cass Prosper™ but had no points from KK Bransford or Gisela Sanchez.

Let’s not forget the last starter, Malaya Cowles. Just an excellent week for Cowles, who is probably the second-most indispensable player on the roster right now. Every one of her ten points against Louisville were huge, including her putback off a Gisela Sanchez miss to tie the game at 60 and erase Louisville’s final lead. She scored in double digits in both games, which is quite frankly more than you can ask for from her against the taller and quicker Elif Istanbulluoglu and Syracuse’s ACC Freshman of the Year Uche Izoje. Her five assists (!) against Syracuse really helped the offense work for the team, too. Cowles might not be as talented as Notre Dame can hope for in the post, but she has had statistically the most impactful season of her career and two of her three best games this season have come in this five-game win streak.

Offense aside, the team truly exhibited what coach Ivey has been preaching all season: defense and rebounding. Three shot clock violations forced in each game this week was a sight for sore eyes for a defense that was giving up whatever any opponent wanted in January. Uche Izoje got her double-double, but Malaya Cowles’s defense on her prevented it from being way more. Vanessa de Jesus was a great partner to Hannah Hidalgo at the top of the zone against Lousiville, leading to multiple easy fastbreak layups in the second quarter. De Jesus’s fourth-quarter steal to give the Irish an extra possession was an understated part of that game as well. On the glass, KK Bransford had an excellent play against Syracuse to close out the first quarter when she put back a missed Hidalgo free throw to give the Irish a narrow lead.

I want to shout out coach Ivey here too, for coaching to what her team was giving her. Not to drag Cass Prosper too much in this edition but she was playing horribly on Sunday and coach Ivey identified that and didn’t try to force the issue. I don’t know if it’s because Prosper is an outgoing senior and therefore not a transfer threat or what, but Ivey who values loyalty above all decided instead to play a mixture of Bransford and Sanchez during the fourth quarter while Prosper logged just that frame’s first two minutes. It was definitely the right decision for the game and Prosper should be able to understand that.

Another great move by Ivey in my opinion was pulling out Hannah Hidalgo when Jeff Walz was throwing a hissy fit in an obvious attempt to get a technical foul and motivate his team. Hidalgo had just been fouled on a jumper and Debbie Antonelli was openly campaigning for it to be reversed as an offensive foul. Walz clearly agreed with her and the whole Yum! center was fired up. Ivey took Hannah out after sinking both free throws which I thought was a great way of avoiding any makeup call the refs had on their minds. It didn’t totally work, as Hidalgo was whistled for kind of a phantom foul on the very first defensive possession after she re-entered the game, but I thought it was excellent of the coaches to recognize that as a moment that could shift the vibes in the wrong direction and do what they could to ameliorate that.

After the rollercoaster of a conference season, Notre Dame landed in fifth—exactly where the preseason voters projected them, and behind the same four teams projected to finish in front of them. But this team is different. Its ceiling is good enough to beat teams 2-4 and its floor is bad enough to lose to team 11. This weekend will reveal if we can expect the team we’ve seen the past month, where everyone does just enough to supplement Hannah Hidalgo, or whether Notre Dame will revert to it’s mid-January self and look out of sorts more often than not.

Now, a new season begins. Everyone is 0-0. I would love to see a version of this team where Iyana Moore, Vanessa de Jesus, and Cassandre Prosper are all playing their best at once but I have my doubts we’ll get that. I would love to see KK Bransford regain the bounce she had against USC and even in the beatdown against Michigan both prior to her injury. I’d love for Gisela Sanchez to come with consistent confidence on offense. I’d love Hannah Hidalgo to be able to sit out more in less-than-desperate conditions.

But one thing seems clear: the team is motivated this year. It might not have the same talent as the team that won the 2024 ACC tournament, but it has the same focus. The recommitment to defense and rebounding in these past two games demonstrated that. I can’t promise any number of wins, but I can promise this team will be fun to watch this month and I, for one, can’t wait to see if they can outperform their expectations.

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Lay of the Land Roundup: Let’s talk about NCAA Tournament seeding. Notre Dame was a 6-seed in ESPN’s Bracketology entering the week. Their play over the last five weeks has elevated them from being nearish to the bubble, to being comfortably in. Now the question is: how high can they get?

The answer is probably a 5-seed, which would likely take at least making the ACC Tournament championship game. That would mean they’ve won three games, including presumably upsetting ACC champion Duke. That and their quarterfinal game would be clear resume builders.

If they manage to win the whole tournament—unlikely as no team has won the ACC Tournament without a double bye in… ever—I don’t know that they would be anything better than a 5 seed. I know, I know, the ACC Tournament champion feels like they should always be at least a 4-seed and host the first two rounds of March Madness. That’s my opinion anyway, but I think there are just too many teams ahead of the Irish right now who would have to stumble off the hosting bubble for that to happen. If the Irish do pull off that win, I hope the committee does right by them. But the win itself is unlikely to begin with.

If Notre Dame should lose today (Thursday), I think they could easily fall back to a 7 seed. This would mean instead of places like Norman, Fort Worth, or back to Louisville, the Irish would be headed to Baton Rouge, Iowa City, or Ann Arbor. It would be a much harder draw for Notre Dame to make its fifth straight Sweet 16.

Yes, I did say Fort Worth. There’s a chance that Notre Dame plays its first two rounds at TCU, the team which very memorably defeated them last year and which features Notre Dame transfer Olivia Miles. Did I mention Fort Worth is also hosting half of the Sweet 16/Elite Eight games this year? Fun. It’d be great if Notre Dame could snag a 5 seed and head somewhere like Minneapolis, Columbus, or East Lansing instead.

Former Irish Roundup: All six former Irish play in conference tournaments this season, but Amirah Abdur-Rahim and Houston placed dead last in the Big XII and have been eliminated. Likewise Emma Risch and Florida State placed 14th in the ACC and fell to Georgia Tech in the first round of the ACC Tournament (which by the way is in Georgia this year). Kate Koval and LSU placed 4th in the SEC and will likely have to get through Oklahoma and South Carolina to make its championship game. Kylee Watson and Villanova placed 2nd in the Big East and could easily defeat or succumb to Seton Hall in the semis before whoever wins that game gets flattened by UConn. Alli Campbell and #25 Fairfield (yes, #25 Fairfield) placed second in the MAAC but will be favored to win its tournament. Olivia Miles and TCU won the same Big XII that Houston lost and it’ll be interesting to see if they can replicate that success in the conference tournament.

In professional news, Arike Ogunbowale hit a familiar-looking game-winner to advance her Unrivaled team to the championship on her birthday. Watch the fourth quarter highlights here. Her great friend Marina Mabrey led Unrivaled in scoring this season which is a fun detail for the player from that fab five who was drafted the lowest that year.

Future Irish Shoutout: It’s hard not to be excited about next year’s freshmen. Shooting guard Jenica Lewis is making history as her school Johnston completed its fourth unbeaten regular season in the last five years. Izzy Sangha, the dual-sport volleyball-basketball commit and the lowest-ranked of Notre Dame’s fab five, was one of sixteen players selected for Canada’s U18 National Team Selection Camp.

Notre Dame plays Miami on Thursday at 1:30 PM on the ACC Network. If they win, they will play NC State on Friday, again at 1:30 PM on the ACC Network. Should they play on Saturday, it will be at Noon on ESPN2 against Duke/Virginia/Clemson. Sunday’s championship game is at 1 PM Sunday on ESPN.

As always, thanks for reading! Be well, and Go Irish!

As soon as the schedule was released, we knew this week would be relatively easy going compared with the six weeks preceding it. Two tentative starts led to two second halves that were boring in the right direction, and Notre Dame showed us the same kind of teamwork and discipline against Wake Forest and SMU that it demonstrated at home against NC State in the game prior. Now, it’s up to us whether to feel relieved or encouraged that Notre Dame had two workmanlike victories in as many games this weekend to set up a critical final week of the season.

Five different players in double figures this weekend; 35 assists and 35 steals in two games; 8-18 from three in each game; Hannah Hidalgo being one rebound away from a triple-double on her birthday; Kelly Ratigan getting third-quarter minutes; Niele Ivey feeling comfortable sitting Hidalgo eight whole minutes against Wake Forest. That’s about what you’d expect to see on a checklist for a week like this, so ND fulfilling all that is at the bare minimum a “meets expectations.” Room for growth, to be sure, but the team is at least operating the way it should.

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Both games kind of had the same script this past week, and I imagine that’s how Niele Ivey envisioned grabbing most of her team’s wins this season: spend the first half not getting into too much foul trouble, and then let loose in the second half. That’s what happens when you are shorthanded, even if the seven-deep Notre Dame currently employs feels night and day different than mid-January when KK Bransford was injured and Gisela Sanchez was untrusted.

And maybe it was just because last Thursday was Malaya Cowles’s homecoming game (she played in fromt of 30+ local friends and family), or that Sunday’s game was on Hannah Hidalgo’s birthday, or that two of next year’s freshmen Jacy Abii and Amari Byles were there in person to see the SMU game, but all the extra fanfare kind of bolstered how pleasant it was to watch Notre Dame win comfortably even if they were playing subpar teams. Seeing the defense click the way Niele Ivey likes and seeing the offense share the ball is great no matter who the opponent is.

The pessimistic take on this is obvious: this year’s Notre Dame team comes up on its talent ceiling way before it comes up on its coaching ceiling so of course it looks good playing bad teams and of course it struggles against any team with a pulse. But with these two games being Notre Dame’s most comfortable road wins since December 14th at James Madison, it might be a week to focus on the positives.

Luckily, those positives aren’t hard to spot. I’ll start with Gisela Sanchez. Sanchez has been a defensive liability all season, but her offense disappeared in January and that left her without any assets. Then she broke the three-point seal during the Virginia Tech game that had plagued them the previous six quarters. It was up from there: last week’s two games were statistically her best this season. She selected her shots extremely well and was calm enough to find her teammates without making herself completely deferential. Having her as a three-point threat alongside Moore is a great thing for the team (which by the way leads the ACC in three-point shooting percentage and effective field goal percentage).

Speaking of Moore, I think she’s really rounded into form here, finally. Even during Notre Dame’s last loss at Virginia, it was clear Moore’s stroke had returned to its usual consistency. She had shot 31% in the previous five games—not bad at all—but in the most recent five games that figure’s been at 41%. Unsurprisingly, she’s been in double digits in each of the last five games. On defense, her steals are up, her rebounds are up, and on offense the NC State and Virginia games were her two highest assist tallies on the year.

Vanessa de Jesus has tapered a bit from what we thought she may become back in December, but she’s found her level after a dreadful January. Instead of playing worse than replacement level, she’s playing like the decent fifth option her team needs her to be, and it’s worth noting that she’s the player we should feel most comfortable about taking the ball up behind Hannah Hidalgo. Her six steals against Wake Forest were a season high.

Malaya Cowles, who’s often been among the top three most important Notre Dame players in any given game, said she got her “bounce” back during the NC State game and the stats back it up: that game was her best in Game Box Plus/Minus all year. The Wake Forest game was a continuation, with nearly identical non-shooting stats and three more blocks for good measure. Add in the SMU game and it’s been three straight games with three Cowles assists, another indication that the team’s ball movement is peaking at the right time.

KK Bransford’s return has been a relief for the entire team. Her 23 minutes per game in the last five have been crucial, and her game awareness has come as such a breath of fresh air after the team’s relatively stagnant January. Bransford keeping her dribble alive and taking the ball to the hole on two possessions in the first half against SMU is something this team has frankly been missing outside of Hannah Hidalgo, and Bransford’s instincts for timely cuts and fearlessness in the face of contact have not abandoned her. I trust the rest of her game will return over time, but her shot really does look more confident this year, and she went 3-5 in the midrange this weekend after not attempting a single mid-range shot since the Stanford game.

Admittedly, Cass Prosper’s been a bit more mercurial this season than maybe we expected her to be two months ago, but when she’s up she’s still capable of being way up. She was very effective in the Wake Forest game especially, tying the season high in assists that she set way back in the season’s opener. If she is learning not to drive into traffic and how to pass out of a double team right before our eyes, that’ll be a great thing. Against SMU she didn’t have her best day at the office but still had three assists and six defensive rebounds, her most since the Miami game. She had also averaged 3.4 fouls per game since the Miami game until this Sunday when she had zero for the first time since December 14th.

Last but not least, there’s Hannah Hidalgo. The USWBA Player of the Week, the ACC Player of the Week, and a finalist for the AAU Sullivan Award alongside Heisman Trophy winner Fernando Mendoza, Notre Dame’s own Jeremiyah Love, Olympic gold medalists, and more. She is obviously critical to this team’s success. She stuffed the stat sheet against SMU, but I was more impressed with her performance against Wake Forest, when she had a higher assist rate, a lower turnover rate, and played a few less minutes while her team succeeded around her. She got her eighth block of the season in that game, too.

How’s that for a laundry list of positives? I’m under no pretenses that the team is nearly as good as it has been the past few years under Ivey, and definitely not anywhere close to as good as it was under McGraw. In fact, I think it might be closer to the 2019-2020 team than we all might realize but with one truly special player to lead it. Still, I think we deserve a little break to recognize the positives in this team before the going gets rough.

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The ACC is so densely packed this year that heading into the final weekend it’s still technically possible for Notre Dame to finish anywhere from 4th to 10th in the conference. Even with a win against Syracuse, their worst possible finish increases to just ninth. Remember, the Irish were picked to finish fifth in the conference in the preseason poll, but it would take winning both its games this weekend to accomplish that.

What’s far more likely (both ESPN and Torvik think) is that Notre Dame will win one of its two games and land somewhere from 7th to 9th in the conference. Underwhelming relative to expectations, even if you grant yourself the hypothetical of a fully healthy roster to pad the disappointment a little. Even with the rosters they trotted out those days, Notre Dame found itself on the wrong side of too many coin flips or near-coin flips this season that could’ve made a difference. This is exciting because it means that Notre Dame could wind up pulling some kind of run in the conference tournament, but it’s also a bit bleak knowing that it could lose on any given day to most of the teams who will qualify for next week’s event in Duluth, Georgia.

I personally don’t see the team as humming so much as I see them having benefited from playing two of its easiest conference games in late February after catching NC State in the throes of an identity crisis. Could be that the difference is just semantic and the team has truly built momentum towards congealing into something formidable for March. Or it could be that once the competition returns to competence, we return to the reality where Notre Dame finds itself against a talent ceiling it just can’t crack.

We’ll find out more against Syracuse and especially at Louisville. The Orange just got beat bad at NC State, but freshman center Uche Izoje and the guard tandem of Laila Phelia (transfer from Texas; friends with KK Bransford), Dominique Darius (transfer from UCLA, high school teammates with Olivia Miles), and Sophie Burrows could be a handful. Louisville was recently upset by Virginia and its star Taj Roberts sustained an injury, but it’ll be prepared to face the Irish. Four of its five losses are at home (where the game is), but Notre Dame has not proven to be a great team away from home (where the game is). Then again, Hailey Van Lith once proclaimed that Louisville didn’t lose at home and didn’t lose on senior night and Notre Dame went into its house and beat them three days later, so anything could happen.

One more thing, and sorry for the tone shift: this season has had its ups and downs but this is an urgent reminder to appreciate every player of this year’s squad while we still can. The transfer portal window may have shortened this year but that doesn’t mean players won’t be entering in droves. We learned the hard way last year that Notre Dame is not exempt. While I would love for the Former Irish Roundup section to shrink to just two next year with only Risch and Koval, we can’t assume next year’s team will include all three of Prosper, Bransford, and Hidalgo, or any of them specifically. (Assuming Prosper doesn’t leave to go pro, that is.) Heck, although I don’t see it happening because of how active she was in recruiting, even Leah Macy could transfer in theory. Of course, this warning could all be for naught, but players will start announcing their intentions to enter the transfer portal as soon as their seasons are over, which for some teams is on Monday. Be prepared for the most tense part of the calendar and be sure to soak in and appreciate what time we have left with this year’s group in the regular season finales, the ACC tournament, and during March Madness.

Former Irish Roundup: From a bracketology perspective, LSU (Kate Koval) and TCU (Olivia Miles) are still sitting pretty in the hopes of hosting, and it looks like Fairfield (Alli Campbell) may even be in the tournament field with an upset loss to Quinnipiac in the MAAC final. Miles had another triple-double on Sunday when TCU came back to beat Iowa State. Then there’s Villanova (Kylee Watson), who is very likely in the tournament but may be inching closer to the bubble as teams around them accumulate better wins than anything they can scrounge in the Big East. Florida State (Emma Risch) will qualify for the ACC tournament with one win this week or, more likely, an SMU loss. What they do in that tournament is another question. Finally, Houston (Amirah Abdur-Rahim) will make the Big XII tournament only because every team in the Big XII does. They may eke out the 15th seed in the conference if they can beat UCF (currently in 15th) in their final regular-season contest.

Lay of the Land Roundup: The latest bracketology came just in time to be flipped on its head. Mainly this benefited Clemson and Virginia, who upset Duke and Louisville respectively over the weekend. The only ranked-on-ranked upsets this week were Minnesota beating Ohio State, Texas Tech beating Baylor, and Iowa beating Michigan at Carver Hawkeye in front of a ton of recruits. Tennessee, meanwhile, suffered a loss to a Texas A&M team that’s currently under .500 in the SEC and USC suffered an unforgivable loss to Penn State who was playing to avoid elimination from the B1G tournament. In the land of mid-majors, Maggie Doogan and Richmond just keep losing and Rhode Island seems the clear favorite to win the A-10 now, but Richmond dominated their H2H last night. Finally, Valparaiso is now the country’s last remaining winless team after Central Connecticut and Niagara both got their first wins just this past Saturday.

Games to Watch This Week: Notre Dame hosts Syracuse on Thursday at 7 PM on ACC Extra and then visits Louisville on Sunday at 4 PM on ESPN2. The ACC is really the conference to watch for Notre Dame’s sake this week, but here are some good national games:

• Maryland at Michigan - Saturday at 2:30 PM on Fox

• Princeton at Harvard - Saturday at 6 PM on ESPN+

• Duke at UNC - Sunday at 12 PM on ESPN

• Ohio State at Michigan State - Sunday at 12 PM on BTN

That’s all from me for now! Thanks for reading, as always. Go Irish, beat Orange, beat Cardinals!

Three games since the last edition. Two wins, one loss. Two vibrant team efforts, one listless brain fart. This is the kind of season Notre Dame is having, and although February seems to be trending in the right direction, that there’s still no telling which team will show up on any given night. Will it be the team that recorded the gutsiest win of the season against a Virginia Tech riding the momentum of a win streak on the back of its two stars? Or will it be the team that allowed Virginia star Kymora Johnson to make them look like they had never defended before? Or, better yet, will it be the team that handed a talented NC State team its worst loss of the season? We likely—hopefully—won’t find out the hard way this week as ND faces two very winnable games, but we tune in anyway for all the usual fandom reasons plus the fact that nothing is guaranteed.

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I don’t know how many times this Notre Dame squad needs to get a feel-good win before it learns how to handle that feeling well, but I hope it’s only three. From USC to Ole Miss, then from Miami to Clemson, then from Virginia Tech to Virginia should all have taught the team the same lesson about continuing to show up even after you get right. Please let the players and coaches have learned that lesson the next time a tough opponent comes shortly after another. That’s what the tournaments are, so that’s what the team needs to prepare for in short order.

In this latest case, it was in my opinion this season’s win that demonstrated the most character when Notre Dame came back from down 9 in the second quarter and 8 in the second half to topple a hot Virginia Tech team. Unlike Miami (who Notre Dame should never have been down to), Virginia Tech was a streaking team receiving serious consideration for the AP Poll in mid-February. Carleigh Wenzel and Carys Baker are two veteran leaders who understand what Megan Duffy wants from them, and the two of them were putting on a show in Purcell Pavilion. Notre Dame was coming off a California road trip that included a loss and a Hannah Hidalgo-willed win, not exactly inspiring.

But, the Irish gave us everything this game, and provided a glimpse into what they could be if they were to gel on any given night. With Malaya Cowles as a late scratch, Gisela Sanchez got her offensive green light back and with it, her groove. KK Bransford seemed back in earnest after her light reintroduction at Stanford. The team assisted on half its made field goals for just the fifth time in 2026 out of 11 games. Cass Prosper found herself in foul trouble, including a boneheaded early foul and a straight up bad call, but the life she injected into the team to start the second half was incredibly necessary. The team was giving up all kinds of offensive rebounds (they lost that battle by 16), but its defense forced the Hokies to immediately cough up a good handful of the missed ones.

But a huge pressure release came when Gisela Sanchez sank the team’s first three pointer in over 67 minutes of game time. Yes, Notre Dame—the team that leads the ACC in three-point shooting percentage during conference play—had gone more than six quarters without making one. But Sanchez’s make was the beginning of a deluge wherein they would make five more, and ten against UVA, and seven against NC State. This blew the Virginia Tech game open in the second half despite Baker’s and Wenzel’s best efforts. Try as they might, Virginia Tech has yet to beat Coach Ivey (yes, even the year they made the Final Four) and I think there’s something beautiful about that.

But as much as that win built confidence for the Irish, the team still showed it couldn’t clear the hurdle of playing well as a team on the road against anybody with a pulse when it went to play Virginia. UVA is a team that couldn’t be estimated this year thanks to its hefty transfer class and Notre Dame after the first quarter seemed completely taken out of the game. Iyana Moore’s three-pointers kept the team afloat early and then they simply stopped finding her. There was little motion on offense leaving Hidalgo to try and do it all herself again like she did at Stanford, but UVA was healthier and bigger than Stanford and Hidalgo’s shot wasn’t falling as much. The case in point for this game was that Cass Prosper had to wear jersey #40 because of a “uniform issue” (which probably means she forgot it. Or, the managers did. Either way it reflects poorly on the state of things).

The defense was truly uninspired. The Irish posts were getting bodied by Tabitha Amanze, Sa’Myah Smith & co., and UVA star Kymora Johnson (whose name comes up next to Hannah Hidalgo’s as among the best players in the conference) was driving at will and taking open shots when she had them… and yes, she had them. She was confusing the Irish, who were just a step too slow to keep up with her 9-18 shooting, plus 9 free throws and 5 assists. If they did solve Johnson, Paris Clark and Gabby White were there waiting in the wings, making the tired Irish look even more languid. The game was lazy, clueless, and uninspired.

Again, how many times does Notre Dame need to learn that lesson? Virginia was tough, but winnable. Clemson was tough, but winnable. Ole Miss was the toughest, but even that game was clearly winnable. Notre Dame is not even necessarily more talented than these three teams on paper, but to come forth with such futile showings three times all shortly after some big wins is concerning. Coach Ivey has gone on record saying their back is now against the wall, and we’d better hope she can instill that in this team. Pretty soon it will be a do-or-die situation, so they’ve got two weeks to get this out of their system. It should not be too much to ask for this team to play to its talent level. I’d rather them lose convincingly to a team clearly better than them than them lose a game they should have won, or even could have won, on paper.

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Luckily this past Sunday, they did just that. So, again, we know it’s possible. NC State’s losses this season are as follows: By 1 to USC, by 10 to #12 TCU, by 5 to Rhode Island (okay, they’re leading a strong A10), by 5 to #11 Oklahoma, by 10 to Clemson, by 8 to #8 Louisville, by 2 to #22 UNC, and now by 12 to Notre Dame. The Wolfpack’s worst loss is to #43 in the NET; Notre Dame has two worse losses than that. It was a Top 10 team to begin the season on the merits of its talent. We know how good Zoe Brooks is (watch any big game of the previous two seasons). We know how good Zam Jones is (watch the NC State loss to LSU in last year’s big dance). We know how good Tilda Trygger can be (see last year’s NC State/Notre Dame game), and Khamil Pierre was one of the country’s most coveted transfers this year (did you see the clip they showed of her dunking?) There is no denying that NC State is more talented on paper than Notre Dame, but like Notre Dame they haven’t been able to consistently put their pieces together this season. On Sunday, Notre Dame delivered the type of victory that its fans have been seeing from the other side time and again this year.

Truly, the Wolfpack was unable to get anything going beyond the first quarter. Pierre wound up with a double-double, but Cass Prosper did a great job defending her nonetheless. Vanessa De Jesus had the primary assignment on Zoe Brooks and held her to just four points in the first three quarters at which point the game was truly out of reach. Hidalgo was guarding Zam Jones, who seems to have lost discipline as a sophomore and was the sort of high-volume shooter Wes Moore has never abided. Malaya Cowles did to Tilda Trygger what Maddy Westbeld last year could not, and when Moore went big by putting in Maddie Cox alongside Trygger, Notre Dame’s defense didn’t crumble. Qadence Samuels should have been a matchup nightmare, but was very much silenced after the first quarter.

Of course, it helps that Notre Dame was playing clean, energetic defense and everyone was getting involved on the offensive end. No fouls for either team in the first quarter was a huge boon, while Hannah Hidalgo only outright led the team in scoring in one of the four quarters. The team was flashing to open space on offense and playing through the nail, much to Debbie Antonelli’s delight even though it came against her beloved alma mater. I was extremely pleased to see Iyana Moore and Vanessa De Jesus penetrate the middle of the floor to get NC State’s defense moving. It was the first time all season I thought the offense worked as it should against a zone defense and it was clear when NC State switched to man the Irish weren’t going to let that confuse them; it’s like the team was playing on easy mode.

I also don’t do this enough, so I’d like to shoutout Hannah Hidalgo. (Who by the way was named to the Wooden Award’s late-season team.) Something I’ve really enjoyed over the last five games or so is watching Hidalgo pull the chair from a driver expecting contact. She’s done it her entire career, but I think it’s gotten more noticeable. She did this in California and again versus the commonwealths, but I think my favorite was against her good friend Zoe Brooks on Sunday. Sure, this wasn’t really a chair pull because Brooks hadn’t quite established contact yet, but you can tell she was expecting it and Hidalgo’s evasion clearly caused the shot to be off:

This visualization was popular last edition when it was just about finishing out February, so I threw it together for the remainder of the season. ND sits at 16-9 right now with four games left and is favored to win its next three. But, just like the most recent three (and I guess every game ever), nothing is a guarantee. Wake Forest and SMU are 122nd and 197th in the NET entering today and while Notre Dame has beaten every team on its schedule within thirty spots of those, it also lost to Wake Forest’s quad-three comrade Georgia Tech. There’s also the fact that both games this week are away from home and ND is a putrid 3-7 in such games. Conversely, NET #38 Syracuse should be harder on paper but comes to South Bend where Notre Dame tends to play a lot better. The final game of the season is at Louisville, which is a terrible combination of (1) being away and (2) being against Louisville.

It would be easy to say let’s trust the analytics and believe ND will beat who its supposed to, but it just hasn’t been that kind of team this year, and that’s what’s so frustrating. The team’s record makes sense on paper, but if you saw only the record you might assume Notre Dame beat Clemson and Georgia Tech and lost to North Carolina and USC. That would be easier to deal with as a fan: the team would have a well-defined ceiling and floor and operate cleanly within those boundaries. But, this team instead likes to torture us by showing glimpses of cohesion on one day and looking lost at sea the next.

Luckily the fan experience is one that attracts extreme opinions and this type of season is exactly the fodder those opinions need to germinate. Notre Dame blows out UNC/NC State? They can steal an Elite Eight. Notre Dame loses to Georgia Tech and Clemson? They’re not making the NCAA tournament. These opinions are valid because, in theory, both scenarios can happen. Remember when the team had an 18-point lead on Ole Miss at their place, a team that’s contending to host the opening rounds? Yet if the Irish suffer a bad loss this week (it’s possible!), its spot in the tournament falls under scrutiny.

Just a mercurial team that’s quite unpredictable on a micro scale. Assuming they do make March Madness, they could embody it.

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Former Irish Roundup: Kate Koval’s playing time has dipped, but she is more productive this year for #7 LSU, who is fourth in the SEC and a projected 2-seed. Olivia Miles’s playing time has gone up, and she’s posting per-game career highs in everything but assists and steals (yes that includes turnovers) for #12 TCU, the leader of the Big XII and a projected 3-seed. Kylee Watson is getting some minutes against lesser competition in the Big East, but her production is just not there; Villanova is on the right side of the bubble but could drop out of the tournament field with a conference loss to someone not named UConn. Alli Campbell is enjoying a fine season at Fairfield, who will be battling with Quinnipiac for the lone bid from the MAAC and is just outside the bubble to qualify as an at-large; Campbell’s production has taken a step back from her days at Penn State. Emma Risch and Florida State will be battling for a spot in the ACC tournament, although they did themselves a favor beating Miami on Sunday; Risch’s production has increased only marginally over her time at ND (but she does play a lot more minutes). Finally, Amirah Abdur-Rahim and Houston are in dead last in the Big XII and will have to work to win another game; AAR is enjoying one of her best statistical seasons out of the six she has been in college.

Lay of the Land Roundup: At this point, it seems like major championship contenders are UConn, UCLA, and whoever in the SEC separates themselves between South Carolina, Texas, and LSU. South Carolina did beat LSU at their place this weekend, while Texas lost to a shockingly good Vanderbilt (shoutout to freshman PG Aubrey Galvan who has taken the world by storm as an unranked recruit). The Big Ten’s best hopes outside of UCLA are in Michigan or Michigan State, but Michigan probably has a higher ceiling. Louisville and Duke head up the ACC, but we’ve seen both of those teams firsthand and they were not quite as impressive as Michigan or UConn against the Irish. Duke just beat UNC this weekend by four in a game where Duke shot 21 free throws to UNC’s 0. Then the hosting bubble teams this year are all a little fickle, but talented: Ohio State, Iowa, Ole Miss, Maryland, Baylor. If Oklahoma or TCU gets hot at the right time, they could make a run at a Final Four; teams like Kentucky and West Virginia probably don’t have that kind of ceiling.

In mid-major land, Columbia beat Princeton for the second time this season and it would be really interesting to see if they’d both make the tournament should Columbia win again in Ivy Madness. Fairfield and Quinnipiac are battling for the MAAC bid as mentioned earlier. The A10 is strong enough that it should have multiple bids, but Magie Doogan and Richmond are on the outside looking in after mustering just 37 points against George Mason; Rhode Island is in pole position in the conference. The Sun Belt also has a few teams that could give a good showing in the big dance, but teams like James Madison got slow starts in conference and it’ll likely be a battle for just one spot. North Dakota State is having a historic season, but perennial Summit League contenders South Dakota State could wind up stealing a bid.

Games To Watch This Week: Notre Dame plays at Wake Forest at 6 PM on Thursday and at SMU at 6 PM on Sunday. Here are some other meaningful games this week:

• LSU at Ole Miss - Thursday at 9 PM on ESPN

• Navy at Army - Saturday at 11 AM on CBSSN

• Brown at Princeton - Saturday at 5:30 PM on ESPN+

• Michigan at Iowa - Sunday at 12 PM on Fox

• Tennessee at Oklahoma - Sunday at 2 PM on ESPN

• Kentucky at Vanderbilt - Sunday at 4 PM on ESPN2

That’s all from me for now! As always, thanks for reading. Go Irish, beat Demon Deacons, beat Mustangs.

It was a tale of two games this past weekend as Notre Dame took its first journey west as a member of the ACC. Like eight teams before them, the Irish were unable to escape their first Atlantic trip to the Bay Area without a blemish. Indeed, Notre Dame put in one of its oddest statistical performances of the season late Thursday night against Cal before finding a way to beat Stanford on Sunday in Palo Alto.

But wait, there’s more: after her 12-game absence, KK Bransford made her return to the court Sunday afternoon, playing sparingly but bringing with her a glimpse of hope. Make no mistakes, it was the Hannah Hidalgo show, but Bransford’s return (and immediate supplanting of Gisela Sanchez as the preferred reserve) could represent a significant shift in the cohesion and ceiling of this year’s team.

Now, with seven games to go in the regular season, Notre Dame will aim to be the cream that rises to the top of the large middle chunk of the ACC that clogs the space between the top two and the bottom five. February is here, and it’s as appropriate a time as ever to start playing your best basketball.

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If you watched the Cal game on Thursday night you probably came away with an awful taste in your mouth. Notre Dame had a horrible game, whether you’re a computer using numbers or a viewer using the eye test. The team’s offensive possessions were short and often fruitless and its defensive possessions were frustratingly long and consequential. Notre Dame attempted 29 more shots than Cal and still lost the game by 11. The Irish played six players and committed 25 fouls, one away from, God forbid, Niele Ivey going deeper into her bench. Notre Dame let an opposing player go nuclear—a trend for the Irish defense this year—as Mjracle Sheppard went for a career-high 18 points to go with 10 assists on 7-10 shooting. Cal as a team went 10-14 from beyond the arc. Cal had 11 bench points to Notre Dame’s 2 and 10 transition points to Notre Dame’s 8.

And those 8 transition points really brought out the problems with Notre Dame’s halfcourt offense we’ve been seeing all season. Forcing things inside, opting for bad early-clock shot selections, and missing easy bunnies (a trend I hope stays in January). No flow whatsoever. Hannah Hidalgo often having to create for herself by design. When this offense works, it’s a relief that it works; when it’s bad, watching it is painful.

Couple that with the defense on Thursday and you get a headache of a game. Cal was hot from outside in part because of Notre Dame’s zone defense, which continues to be a thorn in the team’s side this season. Late-clock fouls and late-clock gambles at steals meant Cal either got fresh clocks to work with or easy buckets for much of the second half when Notre Dame was doing its best to chip away at the deficit. The help defense broke down repeatedly, allowing Sakima Walker to get behind it, but the perimeter was left wide open as well for Gisella Maul and Lulu Twidale to do their thing. Nothing the Irish was doing worked for long enough, even though they were clearly playing with more spirit than they showed against Clemson earlier in the week. They just couldn’t close the gap.

If we have to blame anybody for the loss, I think it sort of gets dispersed. Sometimes, that’s just how losses go. Niele Ivey was asking Cass Prosper to do too much (and Prosper was not delivering). Malaya Cowles was committing too many avoidable fouls. Iyana Moore literally traveled at the top of the key with no defender within four feet of her. Hannah Hidalgo went for the steal on this possession in the fourth quarter when she could’ve played straight up defense, relinquishing the momentum of the game for good:

It was disappointing for the team to go in and not take advantage of a Cal team that was without its starting point guard. Especially because Stanford has been the better team for most of this season, it seemed that things would be really dire. The team we saw on Thursday seriously made me think of the 2019-2020 team that wound up being Muffet McGraw’s last; a bit disjointed, a bit clueless, a bit defensively challenged, and too few threats on offense to make a difference. To say half those things about a team with Hannah Hidalgo on it feels almost blasphemous, but I feel the comparison is apt and functions more as an indictment of the supporting cast, especially given how they played in January.

But, I do think that the individuals on this squad are mostly better than their 2020 counterparts, and obviously, Hidalgo raises the team’s ceiling well beyond what we saw at the end of last decade. Sunday was a perfect example of why: Hidalgo’s 37 points on 16-26 shooting was one of her best performances in an Irish uniform. Stanford was depleted in all the wrong spots and Hidalgo took advantage. Her drives to the hoop often wound up unimpeded and when there was defense, she was able to style a crafty finish more often than not. She has said repeatedly that she hates losing, and Sunday represented her desire to avoid a loss at all costs.

The other players stepped up, too, but truly not much. Iyana Moore’s 8 points all came at the right moments, and the fourth quarter gave us a healthy dose of Cowles to take on a foul-plagued Alex Eschemayer, but Prosper’s and VDJ’s contributions were quiet and none of the four of them had a game particularly unlike any they played in January. But the Stanford defense was confused and they were switching too much on screens to contain Hannah. Hence the thesis that Hidalgo raises the ceiling of this team—Sunday was her day, and there was nobody stopping her.

And then there’s KK Bransford. Her 1-for-6 performance may not have been all too inspiring, but gosh what a breath of fresh air it is to have her on the court for 13 minutes instead of Gisela Sanchez. Bransford simply has way more of a clue what to do on defense, and her size is perfect to allow everyone else to fall back into a more natural matchup. On offense, as we all expected, her only made shot was when she stood up from having been knocked over to receive a wraparound assist from Cass Prosper who herself was on her knees. A very normal play. But even though she missed her five actually normal shots, her willingness to look at the hoop, her confidence handling the ball, and her sense to assist the ball all provided the upgrades we’ve been seeking for more than a month.

And yes, unfortunately, this is a knock on Sanchez. I know I’m hard on her often so I won’t go too into it but I just miss the days when she wasn’t afraid to show us her beautiful shooting form. On Sunday she caught the ball at the top of the key in rhythm, looked wistfully at the basket for only a split second, and immediately turned her head and body to find Hannah and pass it off. A pity. Please get confident on offense again, Gisela. We can talk about your defense and rebounding again later.

Speaking of defense, I thought Sunday’s display was a much improved effort from the disaster we saw on Thursday night. Five blocks is a step up from the average for this team and is especially impressive against a Stanford team that yes was without Nunu Agara but still featured Lara Somfai and Alex Eschemayer. Likewise seven steals is pretty modest for this team but I thought represented a shift in perspective from betting the house on your transition game to a willingness to play straight up. The steals that the team did get were well-timed (including a beautiful defensive rotation from Vanessa de Jesus) and with the way Chloe Clardy and Courtney Ogden were shooting it was best not to gamble like the team did against Mjracle Sheppard and co. on Thursday.

Final notes on Stanford: it’s just a fun wrinkle that Notre Dame has now pulled even at four apiece on the all-time series during a down year between two of the game’s most storied programs. Stanford is young and they, like Notre Dame, will in all likelihood be Back™ soon enough, but if any of their young players (Swain, Somfai, Eschemayer) want a change of pace after this year I wouldn’t complain if they were Irish. Jenna Brown was at the game presumably to convince them their talents could be useful in South Bend. (I kid, but with the transfer portal a total crapshoot nowadays, you simply never know.)

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February will hopefully bring rosier outcomes than did January. The Irish are 1-0 and both ESPN and Torvik favor them in all of their remaining six games this month. It won’t be a cake walk, though. Here’s the probability of each February record according to these two projections (keep in mind the team is already 1-0 in the month):

On the one hand, it’s a comfort that in any individual game, the projections currently favor Notre Dame to win. On the other hand, it’s telling that Torvik gives the team a 15% chance (roughly 1-in-7) to finish 4-3 on the month. An optimist might say, “These projections are probably not accounting for KK Bransford’s return to significant minutes,” and a pessimist could well reply, “The projections are also probably not accounting for every player aside from Hannah Hidalgo and Iyana Moore performing worse as the season goes on.” The numbers are a tool for us to see how things will go, but if this graph makes clear one thing it’s that this season is still anybody’s guess. Leave it to the Irish to keep things interesting.

In the immediate future, Notre Dame will host Virginia Tech and then travel to Virginia. VT is currently projected as one of the last four teams in the tournament (remember when Notre Dame lost at home to the then-last team in?) and just beat Virginia, who’s one of the first four out. Tech is led by fiery guard Carleigh Wenzel and adept post Carys Baker, who had a double-double in last year’s matchup. Forward Kilah Freelon is adding a lot lately, but the team isn’t particularly tall. Meanwhile, UVA has the experience of the second-best scorer in the ACC behind Hannah Hidalgo, Kymora Johnson. Combined with a frontcourt of the two grad transfers Tabitha Amanze and Caitlin Weimar, the team can be very dangerous. The game will be in Virginia and it’s currently the February game Notre Dame has the worst chance of winning, even worse than the NC State game.

Point being: this rollercoaster ride isn’t likely to stop anytime soon. Tune in, cheer hard, and hope the team plays its best.

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Former Irish Roundup: I’ll eschew the typical transfers out recap this week to spotlight Marina Mabrey, who scored 47 points for her Unrivaled team Lunar Owls this past weekend in Unrivaled’s first trip away from Miami as a league. The 3x3 league’s ratings are down so far this year, but the Irish in it are so fun to watch, from Marina to Arike to Jackie to Skylar to Soni. Marina’s 47 points is the current Unrivaled single-game scoring record, and 27 of those points came in the first quarter! Just give the highlights a watch, you’ll likely find yourself both amazed and pining for the days when the Final Four was a foregone conclusion.

Future Irish Shoutout: I’ll do away with the lay-of-the-land roundup this week as well to shoutout Jacy Abii and Jenica Lewis, both of whom have been named to the McDonald’s All-American game rosters. Abii will play for the West and Lewis will play for the East. Based on recruiting rankings, Bella Ragone may have qualified were it not for her injury this season which has sidelined her for a few months. Notably, Amari Byles was just on the cusp of the rankings for those who were selected vs. those who were not. If she feels snubbed, may that fuel her. I actually have been liking her highlights a lot whenever I see them, I think she could easily hold her own against the rosters they ultimately selected. All this to say, ND’s got a great class coming in next year. You can catch the game on March 31st.

Games to Watch This Week: Notre Dame will play Virginia Tech at 7 PM on Thursday and Virginia at 2 PM Sunday, both on ACC Extra. Otherwise, here are some great games:

• Duke at Louisville - Thursday at 7 PM on ESPN

• LSU at Texas - Thursday at 9 PM on ESPN

• UCLA at Michigan - Sunday at 3 PM on Fox

• Tennessee at South Carolina - Sunday at 3 PM on ABC

• Oklahoma at Vanderbilt - Monday at 9 PM on ESPN2

That’s all from me for now! Thanks for reading, as always, and be well. Go Irish. Beat Hokies. Beat Cavaliers.

I don’t mean to belabor any points today, but I think the eye test from this week merits a bit more statistical scrutiny to dissect what we just watched unfold. This week, Notre Dame made a gutsy, albeit somewhat miraculous, comeback over a Miami team it should never have trailed to in the first place. Then, it crumbled and fell against a Clemson team that was too good to overlook, looking awful in the process. The team is now 1-3 in its last four, receives no votes in the AP poll, and dropped to #31 in the NET ranking with games against the #26, 36, 37, 42, and 57 coming up. Whether the team takes a tumble or rediscovers itself, we’ll want to know just why. Don’t blame me if I sound like a broken record from newsletters past.

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It’s been a painful four-game stretch since the glorious afternoon victory over UNC what now feels like a lifetime ago. Chances are, your eyes are not deceiving you. Hannah Hidalgo actually has stepped up her game. Iyana Moore actually has rounded into shape. And everyone else actually has dropped off the face of the earth.

It’s bad. There’s a fancy stat called “Points Over Replacement Per Adjusted Game At That Usage” (PORPAGATU! for short), which basically measures how much more production a player has than an average player who would be subbing in for them specifically and asked to take on their role. Hidalgo leads the nation in that stat this season. Iyana Moore and Cassandre Prosper have basically switched places in that stat from before the most recent four games to during them. Everybody else has taken a marked step back. Cowles (3.4→0.5), Sanchez (3.2→0.1), and especially de Jesus (4.1→-1.9) have been playing about the level of an average replacement player, and in VDJ’s case, significantly worse than that.

Prosper’s and de Jesus’s 2-point shooting has gone completely cold, with Prosper shooting 30% at the rim and 31.6% on all other two-point shots over the last two weeks, and de Jesus shooting 0% and 25% on those same metrics with just 10 two-point attempts in the four games. Malaya Cowles dipped under 50% on layups for the stretch, too. To make matters worse, Hannah Hidalgo’s three-point percentage went from 24.1% before the last two weeks (already bad), to 15.8% during the last two weeks (abysmal).

As a team, the defense and rebounding have been pathetic. The last three games were three of the four worst offensive rebounding games of the season (yes, even the game ND managed to win). Clemson got 50% of the rebounds on its own shots. The last three opponents have shot better than 57% from two-point range.

So no, your eyes do not deceive you. It has really been that bad. The team’s game score against Clemson was its worst on the season besides the Michigan game. Against Clemson, who is building a solid program but is not yet at the level where it should confidently take down Notre Dame behind a 25-9 run. The Miami game was won because Iyana Moore shot the Irish back in it while the Hurricanes went nearly nine minutes without a field goal. A credit to the Notre Dame defense for that quarter, but an anomaly nevertheless. Clemson walked out of Purcell thrilled about an upset that felt possible but not unlikely, while Miami probably walked out of the gym feeling like they wasted a prime oppportunity.

But why? Why is it happening? Well, it could just be that all the players entered a slump simultaneously. Missed layups should be something addressable. Or, as much as we’d all like to pretend this can simply get better with better shooting, we can’t exactly ignore the possibility that the reason these stats have all declined so drastically is because Notre Dame started playing better competition. Indeed it could well be that the team has simply hit its talent ceiling as a team and can’t perform well against the better defenses it has and will continue to face.

Still another possibility is that the team is just plain tired. Hannah Hidalgo has played 38 or more minutes in 7 of the 8 games so far in 2026, as has Cassandre Prosper. Iyana Moore has played 36 in 6. Vanessa de Jesus has played 37 in 5. We knew depth was going to be a massive issue for this roster, but fatigue seems to have hit exactly when the team needed fresh legs the most. That can take a toll on shooting as much as it can impact the effort side of things. Hidalgo has shown she has an indefatigable motor; the other players have not.

I think throwing Kelly Ratigan, Jordyn Smith, and even some of the more traditional walkons a few minutes here and there could help keep the team fresh. I don’t know if the team has this in its arsenal, but running some kind of continuity offense could help keep things flowing in the halfcourt if the team continues to operate slowly and have difficulty penetrating the paint. At the very least, the team can make the effort plays like the coaches have said since Sunday which include things like boxing out and setting stationary screens.

There is a bit of hope as well. The next five games will be tight, nobody is denying that. Bart Torvik has the lines all at 6 points or less in either direction. Sunday’s game is on The CW Network. The vibes are kooky. Still, ESPN analytics still likes Notre Dame to go 4-1 in that stretch and finish the season at 13-5 or 12-6 in-conference which could mean a double-bye after all. The sooner KK Bransford comes back, the better, if only to provide a respite for the rotation players who are currently in game shape (although we hope her contribution is more than that). Plus, the messaging around the team seems to be that they acknowledge they are still a piecemeal squad and that with time to congeal they are poised to peak in February and March. It’s good if they believe that, but we’ll just have to wait and see.

Notre Dame had/has 11 Quad 1 or Quad 2 games in January/early February. There are five to go. They are 2-4 in their first 6. It’s a real possibility the team loses its next five. It’s also possible it can win them. Cal on Thursday is the worse of the two California teams but did just upset Stanford in its last game. It relies on some crafty guard play from fierce freshman Puff Morris and do-it-all guards Mjracle Sheppard and Lulu Twidale. Sakima Walker might remind us of Ra Shaya Kyle on the inside, without the crafty passing. Meanwhile, Stanford’s inside game is excellent thanks to the devastating platoon of Nunu Agara, Courtney Ogden, and Lara Somfai. They’ve got two more capable forwards subbing in to boot. Hailee Swain, Telana Lepolo, and Chloe Clardy all play heavy minutes for their backcourt, which is capable of keeping up with ND’s. It’ll be a tough one on Sunday, and stats are suggesting the margins will be razor-thin.

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I want to also talk a bit about the farther-reaching insights this stretch can give us. It’s important to not overreact to anything, but I tihnk that this stretch alone can serve as at least a mild referendum on Niele Ivey’s offensive strategy. The Notre Dame of the 2010s had a prolific offense under Muffet McGraw because it combined elite talent with a scheme that was quite suitable for the college game (see: UConn’s offense since the dawn of time, Louisville’s offense, Stanford’s offense under Tara VanDerveer). Niele Ivey fell in love with a read-and-react heavy isolation offense presumably when she got her “Ph.D. in basketball” in her one season on staff with the Memphis Grizzlies, but she and her current staff ought to realize that offensive schemes are not one-size-fits-all. Far from it.

I would go a step further and say that some offensive schemes aren’t suitable for any team at a given level and coach Ivey’s current offense is one of them. Even last year’s team, rife with talent, had a bit of a struggle when it was forced to run offense in the halfcourt. This year’s team has considerably less talent and halfcourt offense is practically out of the question unless Hannah Hidalgo alone can make something happen.

The scheme isn’t going to change midseason, but a great and simple adjustment to make would be to take advantage of open players in the current scheme, and get more players open. Cass Prosper on the low post has a tendency to spin into a double-team and panic instead of finding her open teammate. Vanessa de Jesus and Iyana Moore tend to hold the ball in the middle third of the floor too long at the top of the key which means the defense has no work to do. Swinging the ball around more, or kicking it out from a crowded paint could allow Notre Dame to shoot the three a bit more, which it seems keen on doing. Four ND players are shooting at above a 40% clip from three this year and the team isn’t taking advantage of it.

I never thought I’d encourage more three-point shooting as someone who largely prefers an outside-in game, but it’s a wapon that this particular team should use more to its advantage. It was a three-point barrage that kept ND in the game against Miami and one that put away UNC for good a few weeks back. Sort of like a football team tries to establish a run game before taking some deep shots, this Irish team ought to establish the three in order to open the lane up for more powerful drives from Hidalgo and the guards (or, preferably, Malaya Cowles in isolation). I only suggest this because as it stands now, they seem to be looking to establish their paint presence (again, my preference) without understanding when double-teams are coming or when a teammate has an open look on the arc.

Importantly, this will also help get every teammate involved. Part of the reason they’re playing at such replacement levels right now is because the team isn’t shooting enough outside of Hidalgo. And it’s not Hannah’s fault (as it may have been on past teams). Gisela Sanchez hasn’t hunted her shot with any kind of seriousness since Duke, and she’s not the only one. Vanessa de Jesus only shot more than six times once in this four-game stretch (the game Notre Dame won). Iyana Moore shot more than six threes—her role on the team—just once in the four-game stretch (the game Notre Dame won). The offense simply cannot be Hidalgo and a prayer, and for all of Prosper’s improvement she hasn’t shown that she can show up consistently against tough competition. Malaya Cowles providing a big target can’t be the only alternative to Hidalgo.

It seems enough to conclude that this offense is a losing proposition. Notre Dame has more talent on paper than both Clemson and Miami and yet former midmajor stars Gal Raviv (Miami) and Rachael Rose (Clemson) had no problems scoring on the Irish defense with their coaches’ offenses of choice. Taylor Johnson-Matthews had a field day on Sunday for Clemson and Ra Shaya Kyle was thriving on Thursday. These offenses rewarded their teams’ strengths while allowing for some diversification, but Hannah Hidalgo’s stellar offensive outputs weren’t enough to put Notre Dame decisively over the edge in either game. I’ll say that again: Two-Time First-Team All-American Hannah Hidalgo’s 27/2/5/10 and 30/4/6/8 games were good for an 8-point win and a 7-point loss this week against middle-of-the-pack high-major teams. Either her teammates are woefully untalented, or the offense does not enable them. I choose to believe the latter.

All this to come back to: you have to wonder what will happen next season when the team is predominantly freshmen. Will the coaches insist on this same offense that even some of the most experienced players in college can’t succeed with? Will Prosper and Hidalgo have the same weaknesses in this offense as they do now, assuming they’re both still on the team? Or will there be a change that allows players to flourish with a lower barrier to entry. Of course, only time will tell.

Former Irish Roundup: Olivia Miles and TCU had a get-right game against UCF this past week, and the horned frogs sit atop the Big 12. Kylee Watson’s injury seems to be nagging, as she played just two minutes for Villanova against St. John’s and then did not play at all against Providence. Villanova is technically second in the Big East, but we all know it’s UConn and everybody else. Amirah Abdur-Rahim continues to put in heavy minutes for winless-in-conference Houston. Alli Campbell is a rotation player for undefeated-in-conference Fairfield, though she’s far from the focal point of the offense. Emma Risch and Florida State will probably finish 4-14 in the ACC, but that could be good enough to send them to the conference tourney; Risch’s numbers have declined and even her three-point shooting percentage is down. Finally, Kate Koval has come into her own a bit for LSU although she still sees the floor less than she did at ND.

Lay of the Land Roundup: So many games were moved up or postponed because of this week’s snowstorm, but not before BYU handed Texas Tech its second loss of the season. Wisconsin beat Nebraska (bad). Iowa beat Maryland and Ohio State; Tennessee and Georgia beat Kentucky (losers of three straight); USC was swept by Michigan and Michigan State (unfortunate for Notre Dame). South Carolina handed Vanderbilt its first loss of the season. In one of the best performances of the year so far, Oklahoma beat South Carolina in overtime behind a flurry of points from freshman star Aaliyah Chavez.

Games to Watch This Week: Notre Dame is in California this week and plays late on Thursday and later than usual on Sunday. Otherwise:

• Columbia at Princeton - Friday at 6 PM on ESPN+

• Tennessee at UConn - Sunday at Noon on Fox

• Alabama at LSU - Sunday at Noon on SEC Network

• Michigan at Michigan State - Sunday at Noon on FS1

• Baylor at West Virginia - Sunday at 1 PM on ESPN

• Oklahoma at Texas - Sunday at 3 PM on ABC

That’s all from me for now! Thanks for reading, be well, and keep the faith. Go Irish, Beat Bears, Beat Cardinal.

There’s no sugarcoating it: losing in a rivalry game by 38 stinks. Even if the rival in question is the best team in the country and the preeminent program in the sport, even if you know your team is in a down year and would need a big miracle to pull the upset, getting obliterated is never a fun outcome.

We don’t need to dwell on the UConn game. They have long set the standard and although Notre Dame is in many years able to compete with that stanard I don’t think anybody was under the illusion that they could this season. Sarah Strong is an amazing player, Azzi Fudd is excellent, they have a stellar supporting cast, and that team may not drop a game all year if it stays healthy. On the bright side, I suppose the worst loss in the history of the series can by definition only ever happen once and knock on wood, it may now be behind us.

An instructive takeaway could be that Notre Dame was not only outmatched, but they were also scared to compete. That game was never going to be a win, but being scared to step on the floor put the Irish in a bigger deficit than ever before, literally. I’ll contrast that with the Louisville game earlier this week - a game that was much closer even though Notre Dame was outmatched in talent and didn’t play particularly well.

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This may be a bit simplistic but in order to compete with UConn you have to either have the talent or the fearlessness, and then you have to play well. Sure playing well is informed by your confidence and your skills, but before you even think about playing well you have to be good enough and believe in yourself. It’s not exactly revolutionary, but it was the starkest difference between this year’s Notre Dame team against UConn and the teams of the past 15 years—they largely played scared. I’d classify the game like this:

This seems harsh, but I concede that it’s up for debate and this is just one interpretation of the game; feel free to put the players wherever you think appropriate, but remember this is before you consider whether they played well. In any case, you’ll get something Not Good. Ideally, everyone would be in the top right quadrant. In recent seasons, Notre Dame players have been on the top row against UConn whether they were on the right or left (for the top left think Anna DeWolfe). But to have so many bottom-row, frightened players makes most games a non-starter, and to have that against UConn where players are also in the left column only makes things worse.

In Prosper’s case, I thought that she was playing aggressively, but her decisions seemed motivated by fear anyhow. In the cases of Moore and de Jesus, they were obviously scared into making decisions they were unsure about and letting UConn be in their heads just by being UConn. With Sanchez, her rebounding efforts were much improved this week but she has lost any instinct she had to hunt for a shot on offense as her first option. And Cowles was just overwhelmed when she caught the ball at the high post and couldn’t keep up with Serah Williams and Blanca Quiñonez. That left only Hidalgo who was playing with her patented fearlessness and who could keep up with UConn. That’s not a recipe for success regardless of how well the team executed to its potential. Add a bunch of poor shooting performances and defensive lapses and you get, well… a blowout.

Contrast that with the Louisville game. Here, I think everyone on the team except Sanchez played without fear, and I think at least three players were of comparable talent to Louisville’s roster (although the Cardinals were much deeper). A recipe for a potential upset. But on Thursday, the team just didn’t play very well. Jeff Walz had a great gameplan to keep the ball away from Hannah Hidalgo’s defensive assignment and run the floor to tire out the Irish, and the team responded with lazy defense.

The Cardinals’ defense was air-tight and Notre Dame couldn’t maneuver out of it. The team had more threes than twos in the second half. They weren’t attacking and they weren’t playing through the paint. Gisela Sanchez (playing scared) was gifted a backcourt turnover and didn’t even look at attacking the basket. Hannah Hidalgo was the only player who went to the line in the entire game.

The entire Irish gameplan for both of the games in this last week was read-and-react on offense and have the starters play as close to 40 minutes as possible. This is bound to cause fatigue and tentativeness as players play to avoid foul trouble. UConn exploited that fatigue against the Notre Dame zone to blow the game open in the third quarter, and Louisville exploited the tentativeness in transition and in the paint where it made its living. Unsurprisingly, neither of the outcomes was good.

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I personally envisioned Notre Dame going 18-11 in the regular season this year, with Louisville and UConn both being losses, so the results themselves are neither all that concerning nor are they horrifically disappointing. But, this disease of thin rosters and tired players is a symptom of something greater in the state of the program. If you have more players (regardless of talent level) who could spell the starters against Louisville, or play fearlessly against UConn, maybe things don’t unfold in as ugly a way as they did. Maybe you steal the Louisville game. And we’ve seen plenty at Notre Dame what can happen with a full complement of players who are skilled enough.

In other words, the losses aren’t on the coaching staff—like Coach Ivey tactfully says in postgame loss interviews, they know what they have—but the initial conditions of the game are on the staff. Putting together a roster of five players you trust isn’t good practice. Even with injuries, there ought to be a proper bench to play. Bringing in few high school recruits and netting a negative transfer flow is a failure of the coaches. We’ve seen Ivey outcoach Walz and Geno Auriemma before, but she and her staff have to set themselves up for that opportunity.

On that note, next year should be pleasant to think about. The five incoming freshman are like a dream come true in terms of quantity, and their skill only makes it better. Hannah, Cass, and KK can all come back if it aligns with their plans, and Leah Macy will be available after sitting this entire season out. I think Pat Garrity will try to emulate the football team and pull some key transfers once the portal opens. It’s also just a 15-day portal period this year which could make things more smooth.

But in the here and now, we should be watching these next three weeks with a closer eye. Notre Dame is now #28 in the NET rankings, and it’s next seven games are against the numbers 45, 41, 35, 58, 38, 47, and 27. All bunched in together. Notre Dame has two Quad 1 wins (UNC and USC) and one Quad 3 loss (Georgia Tech). With all these opponents falling somewhere in between, this next stretch will be season-defining for the Irish. Will they quit following Monday’s drubbing, or will they bounce back? Can they sustain the level of play they strive for, or will they tire out?

We’ll get a nice conclusive data point this week. Miami and Clemson (this week’s opponents) are ESPN’s “last team out” and “first team in” in the latest Bracketology. If Notre Dame walks out of Purcell 2-0 on Sunday, that will put a little distance between the Irish from the bubble ahead of their trip to California. Neither opponent this week should be overlooked. Ra Shaya Kyle is playing great for Miami and poses a significant height mismatch. Clemson does it by committee but that might be enough to tire out the Irish. Getting KK Bransford back this week would be huge, but whether she plays or not the team needs to lock in.

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Former Irish Roundup: The Irish weren’t the only team to lose on Fox on Monday, as Olivia Miles and TCU lost to Ohio State in the opener of the Coretta Scott King Clasic. Miles played all 40 minutes and was three assists shy of her fifth triple-double of the season, but it wasn’t enough. Meanwhile, Kate Koval and LSU continued their momentum with a win at Oklahoma, wherein Koval played 25 minutes scoring 9 points and grabbing 7 rebounds. Her production had been down, so good for her. Kylee Watson played only 9 minutes in her team’s 49-point loss to UConn and then three minutes in Villanova’s win over Butler on Sunday. Emma Risch was scoreless in FSU’s four-point win at Pitt and then scored 10 points in its 27-point loss to UNC. The Seminoles are 6-13. The Houston Cougars are 6-12 and losers of their last six but Amirah Abdur-Rahim pulled down 14 rebounds against undefeated Texas Tech and played most of the game in a follow-up loss to Utah on Saturday. Allie Campbell and Fairfield continue to roll as they whacked Marist, Manhattan, and Sienna this week.

Lay of the Land Roundup: the second leg of the Coretta Scott King Classic featured Vanderbilt remaining undefeated against Michigan. Princeton (ranked) needed overtime to beat Harvard (.500). Maryland went west to be swept by USC and UCLA. Mississippi State toppled Kentucky. Louisville beat NC State in overtime while Iowa beat Michigan State in regulation. Georgia boatraced Ole Miss, and Iowa State lost its fourth in a row against Oklahoma State without the Cyclone’s star guard Addy Brown. Tennessee edged out Alabama, and Illinois eked by Northwestern. Earlier in the week, Kansas State (.500) handed Texas Tech its first loss, South Carolina evened the season series to 1-1 against Texas, Michigan got the better of Illinois and Auburn bested Alabama. Michigan State beat Nebraska and the Big Ten pecking order is becoming a little more clear.

Games to Watch This Week: Notre Dame is back to its Thursday-Sunday cadence (6 PM and 3 PM, respectively), but here’s what else to look out for:

• Iowa at Maryland (Thursday at 6 PM on NBC)

• Kentucky at Tennessee (Thursday at 6:30 PM on SECN)

• USC at Michigan State (Thursday at 8 PM on BTN)

• Texas Tech at Utah (Saturday at 7 PM on ESPN+)

• Ohio State at Iowa (Sunday at 2 PM on Peacock)

• Vanderbilt at South Carolina (Sunday at 3 PM on ESPN)

• Tennessee at Mississippi (Monday at 7 PM on ESPNU)

That’s all from me, for now. As always, thanks for reading. Go Irish, beat Hurricanes, beat Tigers.

For as much as the Ivey era has been plagued by some untimely losses, it has been marked by some resilient wins. Lose to Georgia, beat Oregon State. Lose to Maryland, turn around and beat UConn. Lose to Syracuse, go on the road and beat UConn. Lose to NC State with a paltry 43 points, go on the road and beat Duke and win your next nine for good measure. Lose two in a row in the Virgin Islands, come home and beat Texas. Get demolished by Michigan, come home and beat USC.

So I’m not sure why I’m so surprised that after a week where the team seemed unable to hold a lead over an inferior team or hold a candle to a stronger one, it was able to not only win a game it should by a lot with nary a concern but then consolidate that with a statement win over a ranked team where they blew the doors open and never looked back. Two wins in a row for the first time in the hardest month of this year’s schedule and the Irish may be able to weather the storms to come. What looked at this point last week like it might devolve into something ugly now resembles something more manageable. With two big ones coming up, it feels good to have put the Tar Heels (oh yeah, and the Eagles) away.

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I think it would be silly to watch Sunday’s game and think the team can reproduce that effort every night. The game was pristine. The defense was unfailingly stout; the foul trouble was nonexistent; Hannah Hidalgo was hitting on offense; Cassandre Prosper was hitting on offense; Notre Dame players not named Hannah Hidalgo or Cassandre Prosper were hitting on offense; the opponent’s offense was not hitting; the opponent’s defense was not disciplined. All seven criteria had to go right and all seven criteria went right and we just can’t expect that to happen often when we’ve seen this team play tough opponents and fail to achieve at least one of those things a few times already this season.

Take the Duke game, for example. About 3/7, and Notre Dame struggled to keep it in single digits for most of the game. Versus Michigan, 2/7 led to a blowout. Against Ole Miss and Georgia Tech, 4/7 meant a comeback loss. Notre Dame needs ideal conditions to pull off a win (especially over a good team) and we have to expect it won’t get that night in and night out. Still, while we can’t expect perfect 7’s from here on out, we can hope the team takes some good from what they did on Sunday and apply it more consistently going forward.

On the offensive end, that was ball movement. Hannah Hidalgo won her one-on-ones, and when her gravity attracted multiple defenders she reliably found her teammates. Cass Prosper was effective in her one-on-ones and it gave the defense a lot to worry about. That meant all Moore, de Jesus, and Cowles had to do was keep the defense honest and they did that and then some. Four of VDJ’s six made shots were assisted. Cowles was the beneficiary of an assist, and Moore is a known shooter who, although she was cold on Sunday, kept putting up shots off teammate passes. The ball was flying around the arc and into and out of the paint and it’s just so much easier to score when that happens whether your role is as an attacker or as an outside shooter. Of course, VDJ’s personal 9-point run in the third quarter really opened things up for the team after what had been a tense first half. Apparently, the team calls her “Big Shot V.”

Even on Thursday you could see this commitment to try and switch things up. Granted, BC is even worse this year than they normally are, but Georgia Tech is not great this year and look what happened there. On Thursday, though, Notre Dame didn’t just come out and go through the motions. IT tried to switch things up from how things went the previous week. Running a fair share of isolation, sure, but also trying running some Princeton actions through Prosper and trying to run some more motion sets. It broke down into isolation more than you’d hope against BC, but it seemed like there was emphasis on involving the entire team on offense over the past week and that paid dividends on Sunday.

On defense, Notre Dame on Sunday was excellent. It helped that UNC couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn, but plenty of that was thanks to the Irish defense. Vanessa de Jesus and Iyana Moore both stepped up their game on the perimeter, and Moore even had a great deflection on a post-entry in the paint following a clinical front. The bulk of the credit on interior defense should go to Malaya Cowles, though.* UNC’s Ciera Toomey had been among the most improved players in the ACC to this point and had been one of UNC’s most reliable scorers. Not Sunday. Cowles picked up one early foul and that was it until late in the fourth. She held Toomey to zero points on 0-5 shooting and made her post moves very difficult. The guards came in to help when they could, and what should have been an easy deficiency for UNC to exploit became a deficiency of their own.**

Cass Prosper gets the award for most relentless on the boards. Toomey’s 2 (!) rebounds were a season low and she was barred from the defensive glass altogether. Prosper was leaping over everybody in the gym, even the rebound extraordinaire Nyla Harris, who previously killed Notre Dame in a Louisville uniform just about every time they played. And yes… Harris did grab five o-boards on Sunday as well, but Prosper grabbed six and Cowles grabbed four and the Harris’s rebounds were a non-factor for once. When Hidalgo is locking down Reniya Kelly and Elina Aarnisalo while Moore and de Jesus are handling Lanie Grant, I will allow Nyla Harris to break free a few times while the Irish frontcourt is focused on Toomey.

*Speaking of Cowles, the Cowles-Sanchez switch seems to have reached its completion from the early season to now. With KK Bransford out, Cowles has become the team’s third-most consistent player and perhaps third-best. Her size is an asset the team desperately needs, and she has always been better on the defensive end. Sanchez, on the other hand, continues to look a bit lost on defense and has lost her confidence on offense. Five of her 11 minutes on Sunday were the last five of the game; the Irish built their lead when she was off the floor and her +/- was just 3. The final two lineup questions this season are which two guards will start when KK Bransford is healthy again, and whether Leah Macy will ever suit up.

**If you’re a longtime reader, you’ll know that I’m no fan of Courtney Banghart as an elite coach. Good? Of course. But not elite. I think UNC deserves better than her and I wouldn’t be opposed if she were on the hot seat. But she continues to recruit well in the portal and from high school, despite just two Sweet 16s in five seasons and a first-round exit mixed in. Yeah, there are plenty of schools with zero Sweet 16s in that time, but I think with the talent she’s brought in and the history of the program she should at least threaten a Sweet 16 more often, or host in the tournament more than once.

Finally regarding this past weekend, I was really impressed with the atmosphere through the TV at the UNC game. Bringing the 2001 championship team to honor their 25th anniversary was a super cool touch for a game that was without a marching band and could’ve otherwise been lifeless, not something anyone would’ve wanted for what may wind up being Notre Dame’s biggest conference home game of the season. Having 2026 commit Jenica Lewis in the crowd was a neat touch as well as it got the alma matter to comprise past, present, and future Irish arm and arm with the coaches which is at the very least nice optically. I would hope for a 2027 or beyond recruit to have been present, but I’m not aware of any. Regardless, it was great to see Purcell packed for a team that is having at the very least a mildly down season relative to recent standards and I hope it can provide the same kind of home court advantage on Thursday and beyond.

So, now, the question becomes just what does Notre Dame make of their win? Their sojourn out of the rankings for the first time in a few years lasted exactly one week—they’re the AP #23 this week and #23 in the NET as well, Hannah Hidalgo was yet again the ACC Player of the Week—but they’ve got a game against Louisville and a trip to UConn this week that could send them out of the rankings with some more permanence if they can’t steal one. I personally don’t expect the team to compete with UConn this year (nobody has), but the Louisville game at home is one that the Irish could wind up winning even though Lousiville has been dang good. If Notre Dame could steal that one on Thursday night, they’d have a much more comfortable resume to hang their hat on.

After that, the schedule gets a bit easier, but not much. Miami and especially Clemson at home shouldn’t be overlooked, and then there’s a trip out west to contend with, where this past weekend Duke was taken late into the fourth quarter by both Cal and Stanford. 5-1 to UConn would be a realistic ideal for Notre Dame over the next three weeks, but 1-5 is just as possible if Notre Dame isn’t careful. For now, the team should focus on doing what it can to repeat its efforts against UNC on defense and the boards, and hoping it can stay hot on offense. That will be a tall task this week in particular, but the Irish have some momentum now and it’d be a shame to lose it (along with your perfect home record) against your regional rival.

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Former Irish Roundup: Alli Campbell is healthy and averaging between a quarter and a half of playing time on a Fairfield team that’s among the best mid-majors in the country and now 6-0 in MAAC play. Amirah Abdur-Rahim is performing admirably in Big 12 play, averaging about 9 points and 5 rebounds in conference, but Houston is 0-5 in conference and might not win again until February, if at all. Kylee Watson is averaging 1.8 points and 2 rebounds per game in the Big East, where Villanova is 7-1 ahead of their first showdown with UConn, which should not be close. Emma Risch’s Florida State team is now 0-5 in the ACC but she is getting plenty of playing time, though the Notre Dame game was her season high in assists and one of just four double-digit scoring efforts for her this season. Olivia Miles and TCU righted the ship this past week, but will have to visit a defense-minded West Virginia on Wednesday to keep their momentum. Finally, Kate Koval’s playing time and production plummeted this week after LSU went 0-2 the week prior, and the Tigers were able to upset Texas to pull to 2-2 in the SEC with a trip to a ranked Oklahoma up next.

Lay of the Land Roundup: Part of the reason ND is ranked again this week is because of all the rest of the chaos in the Top 25. Iowa State just keeps losing without guard Addy Brown, now to West Virginia and Cincinnati. Oklahoma keeps losing too, to Ole Miss and then Kentucky. Maryland lost to Ohio State. USC lost to Minnesota. Washington lost to Purdue (!) who lost to Purdue-Fort Wayne earlier this season. Nebraska lost to UCLA, not that that’s anything to be ashamed of. Stanford lost to Duke, and NC State lost to Clemson, and there was a vacuum that only Notre Dame could fill. If you wanted, you could fill those last few spots in your ranking with Princeton, North Dakota State, or South Dakota State. Or you could try Richmond, whose triple-overtime win over Davidson this past week behind Maggie Doogan’s 48 points could be pivotal for the A-10 race.

Games to Watch This Week: ND plays Louisville on Thursday at 6 and UConn on Monday at 5

• Baylor at Utah - Wednesday at 9 PM on ESPN+

• Marshall at James Madison - Thursday at 6 PM on ESPN+

• Texas at South Carolina - Thursday at 7 PM on ESPN2

• Maryland at USC - Thursday at 9 PM on Peacock

• North Dakota State at South Dakota State - Saturday at 3 PM on Summit League Network

• Louisville at NC State - Sunday at 1 PM on ESPN2

• Michigan State at Iowa - Sunday at 8 PM on BTN

• TCU vs. Ohio State - Monday at 12 PM on FOX

• Vanderbilt vs. Michigan - Monday at 2:30 PM on FOX

Thanks as always for reading! Be well, and enjoy the three-day weekend. Go Irish. Beat Cardinals. Beat Huskies.

As Notre Dame sits at 2-2 in ACC play staring down the barrel of its toughest stretch, it seems some recalibration may be in order. Two road games, two losses for the Irish to open 2026 is not the tune we’d like to be singing but it reminds us that Notre Dame was picked to finish fifth in the conference for reasons and those reasons would necessarily become apparent during conference play. The offense looked stagnant and the defense clueless on this weekend’s roadtrip that saw the team not only travel to Atlanta and Durham but also out of the AP Top 25 for the first time since November 2021 and out of the NET Top 25 to boot.

It’s likely the case that this team is just not talented enough to keep up with the upper echelon of the ACC, but even without KK Bransford a loss to this year’s Georgia Tech is unacceptably bad and may wind up being season-defining. Meanwhile, the Duke loss was expected pre-season and expected on Sunday and could easily have been worse. For the Irish, both coaches and players, the question now becomes how well they respond. That response will happen during a homestand that includes a get-right game against Boston College (fingers crossed) and then two more real tests against UNC and Louisville. It would take a truly reformed team to go 3-0 here, but 2-1 is not impossible.

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First addressing the bad of the bad: the defense and rebounding this weekend were just atrocious. Giving up 95 points to Georgia Tech is embarrassing even in overtime, and 79 of those were not fastbreak points. Notre Dame’s help defense was quite absent on Thursday when it conceded 52 paint points to the Yellow Jackets, who going into that game had averaged less than 60 total points against high-major competition. To make matters worse, Hannah Hidalgo seemed to hunt for steals a little extra hard on Thursday, often trailing the GT guards down the court and enabling them to exploit the step-too-slow zone in what was essentially a 5-on-4. On top of all that, Cass Prosper, Vanessa de Jesus, and eventually Malaya Cowles were in foul trouble that limited what they could do. It was a total disaster.

Then there was the Duke game. Open three after open three marked the first and second quarters for the Blue Devils. Notre Dame’s transition defense was non-existent (see: the .gif at the top). Even after some solid defensive possessions, offensive rebounds and second-chance points came with ease for Duke all afternoon. Gisela Sanchez and Malaya Cowles combined for just 7 of Notre Dame’s 21 defensive rebounds. Duke was able to get easy opportunities in part because of defensive breakdowns like Georgia Tech, and in part because of Notre Dame’s 16 turnovers, many of which were on live balls. In a weird parallel to Thursday, the Irish guards were playing more tentatively from the start on Sunday which translated to Notre Dame needing to play catch-up.

The defense is just one of the ways that Notre Dame is so much worse than it was when it won the national championship in 2018. Going out on a limb there, I know, but I think about how that team was shorthanded and had to rely on a zone defense to limit its fouls and played that defense to such exact precision that the team could eke out win after win. That team was so proficient at rebounding out of the zone, and this year’s team makes it look like defensive rebounding from a zone is a modern miracle. But, this year’s team is just as shorthanded and can’t afford to play a man defense for fear of fouling. It happened against Ole Miss, and again versus Georgia Tech, that the zone was insufficient and the man was too aggressive.

By the same token, the offense looked equally miserable in both games this weekend, and I think this reveals to us something about the Ivey Era that we’ve been able to suppress since pre-Olivia Miles. That being: coach Ivey’s insistence on read-and-react isolation offense is not a well-designed strategy for the college game. Outside of a select few players (also known as professional prospects), it’s a very hard system to coach and sustain, and its success rate is extremely low. Right now, Hannah Hidalgo is the only healthy player who can execute isolation on the perimeter. Cass Prosper and maybe, rarely, Malaya Cowles, can operate in isolation on the post. That’s great for those three players, but it is simply not enough for it to be the team’s primary offensive concept. Especially when it’s so forced.

I don’t need to see Prosper tentatively projecting a pass to the low post five times before throwing a dainty lob that everybody in the arena knows is coming. I don’t need to see Hidalgo dribble for the first 23 seconds of the shot clock in a non-end-of-quarter situation. I don’t need to see Iyana Moore feel her way into the paint when she’s uncommitted to the drive. I don’t need to see Gisela Sanchez posted up against two bodies when she can’t secure the ball against one. Those isolations are not in the player’s skill sets and they won’t result in winning basketball.

You may remember the UConn game from two seasons ago when Notre Dame mixed in a healthy dose of pick-and-roll/pick-and-pop actions from Maddy Westbeld to invigorate the Irish to an unlikely win. I think that could be rather effective with Gisela Sanchez screening for Hannah Hidalgo. Alternatively, I think Malaya Cowles could be a good high-post passer if Notre Dame wanted to reintroduce some Princeton concepts. If/when KK Bransford is back, I think the team could succeed with more motion concepts. But the team is simply not constructed for isolation the way it was a season ago, or even any of the two years prior. This roster will not be able to generate enough mismatches for it to succeed.

All this is not to say I’m out on the coaches. I think when they have the talent they can certainly develop it. But, I do question whether they are putting the players in the best position to succeed on the offensive end, especially on a roster like this year’s. Coach Ivey can preach defense and transition all she wants, but if they find themselves in a game where their opponent is taking care of the ball nicely or grabbing a ton of offensive rebounds, Notre Dame will have to be able to generate something on their end of the floor that doesn’t rely on Hannah Hidalgo heroics. I just don’t see that happening in a tight spot this year unless something about the offense changes.

(To be clear: it should raise alarms of every kind that Notre Dame lost to Georgia Tech. The Duke loss in isolation is not bad. The Georgia Tech loss may be the worst loss of the Ivey era relative to Notre Dame’s and its opponent’s strength.)

(An addendum: would Kelly Ratigan really not have been playable against Georgia Tech for even a few minutes? With KK Bransford out, the more we can squeeze out of Ratigan, the better, especially against Quad 3 and 4 teams, and especially ahead of stretches of Quad 1 opponents.)

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Now to the good. You’ll notice this section is shorter. But there was some good to be spotted this week. I thought Prosper played very well on Thursday all things considered. I thought the entire team seemed very coachable both from Thursday to Sunday and within the game on Sunday, as evidenced by Hidalgo’s return to straight-up defense against Duke. I also thought it was a promising sign that Notre Dame built a large lead against Georgia Tech after a slow start in the first place, even if they wound up relinquishing it. Similarly, I thought it was noteworthy that although Duke had one of its best shooting quarters of the season, Notre Dame cut a big double-digit deficit to single digits twice on Sunday against the preseason conference favorite.

I think Iyana Moore’s three-point shooting continues to separate itself as an asset. I think Vanessa de Jesus’s ability to take care of the ball prevented things from getting so much worse on either day. I was glad to see Hannah Hidalgo find her three-point shot again. I don’t think that all these little things could really add up to Notre Dame winning the national championship or anything, but I won’t count them out of jumping up and getting an upset or two in the ACC. After the Duke game, coach Ivey said she wanted to see the team put together a full 40-minute game and I do think that Notre Dame on its best day could have beaten Duke in a close one, and it could do the same to the UNCs/Louisvilles/NC States/Stanfords of the world.

That said, I will apologize—last week I gave resolutions for each Notre Dame player to avoid going 2-10 in their next 12. With the Georgia Tech loss, it’s not out of the question the record over that stretch is 1-11. If that happens, that’s a monkey’s paw moment on my part and you can go ahead and blame me. But, that’ll all start with a game against BC on Thursday night and a Sunday matinee hosting UNC. UNC’s got some great height and athleticism to them, so don’t say I didn’t warn you if it gets ugly.

Former Irish Roundup: Luckily, Notre Dame wasn’t the only team to lose twice this week. Kate Koval and LSU lost to the first two ranked teams they’ve played. Koval is coming off the bench these days and although she is a bit more productive than last year on offense she is about the same in the block/foul/turnover department. Olivia Miles and TCU went to Utah and lost in overtime, which must have been a horrible deja vu moment for Miles and hopefully demonstrated to the rest of the Big XII that the Horned Frogs are fallible. Alli Campbell is fully playing again for a great mid-major Fairfield team, but her production isn’t quite what it was at Penn State. Amirah Abdur-Rahim is having statistically a very similar season to her other most productive season two years ago at SMU, but it’s on a Houston team that’s 6-8 (0-3 Big XII). Kylee Watson is back playing on a minutes restriction for Villanova and it shows, with just 7 points, 7 rebounds, a steal and 5 turnovers in 27 minutes over her last three games combined.

Lay of the Land Roundup: It was a heck of a week, with LSU and TCU being just two of the undefeated teams to go down. Iowa State lost at home to Baylor. UCLA soundly defeated USC. Michigan overcame Oregon in overtime before falling at Washington. Maryland lost at Illinois. Of the already-defeated teams, Nebraska lost at Iowa and UNC lost at home to Stanford in overtime. Ole Miss made a comeback against Texas before falling. USC was obliterated by UCLA. Even if the top four are separating themselves (UConn, UCLA, Texas, and South Carolina), the rest of the sport seems to be a toss-up right now. Notre Dame is no longer on the hosting bubble but it’s hard to tell exactly who is. Notre Dame is not yet on the tournament bubble but it’s hard to tell exactly who is. There will be plenty of action over the next two months to help us sort it out.

The other fun wrinkle is that teams have been signing international players over the holidays. Texas Tech brought in 7’1” Stephanie Okechuwku who will become the tallest player ever in women’s college basketball. South Carolina has signed French superstar Alicia Tournebize who will suit up this semester. This may seem a bit fishy but it’s all legit; Kansas State’s roster currently touts Nastja Claessens, a Belgian player who was selected in the 2024 WNBA draft. Man, the landscape of this sport is just so interesting in the post-NIL and transfer portal era.

Games to Watch This Week: Outside of the two ND games…

• Ole Miss at Oklahoma - Thursday at 7 PM on SECN+

• Michigan State at Washington - Thursday at 9 PM on B1G+

• Texas at LSU - Sunday at 3 PM on ESPN

• Oklahoma at Kentucky - Sunday at 4 PM on SECN

• Ohio State at Maryland - Sunday at 4 PM on Peacock

• Michigan State at Oregon - Sunday at 5 PM on B1G+

• UCLA at Nebraska - Sunday at 7 PM on BTN

That’s all from me for now. Let’s hope this season doesn’t devolve into disaster and that Notre Dame doesn’t surrender to the situation like Coach Ivey said. Until next week, be well. Go Irish, beat Eagles, beat Tar Heels.

If you’re just joining us for Notre Dame women’s basketball this season, I can’t blame you: there’s not quite as much hype as there has been in most of the past 15 years, other Notre Dame sports like football and women’s soccer had a great autumn, and you may even have seen NDWBB be absolutely embarrassed my Michigan in late November in one of the most lopsided losses of the century. But worry not, because there is still plenty of intrigue around this team. Indeed, it’s still worth climbing aboard for a season that at this point could go in any number of directions.

Reflecting on December is a bit futile; I’ve already discussed the early games of the month, and my opinion hasn’t changed. The Mississippi loss (a Quad 1 game in the NET) looks more and more like a wasted opportunity every time the Rebels take the floor: they’ve since gotten trounced by Michigan State, lost to Kansas State, and looked suspect against Alcorn. The James Madison game, on the other hand, was a good example of what Notre Dame looks like when it takes care of business, even with some in-game pressure to overcome. JMU did lose its conference opener to Marshall in overtime, but I still believe they’re a tournament team. The four remaining opponents were two low-majors and two ACC teams doing their best mid-major impression. The team looked really good against Pitt on Monday despite having a rotation of six players, but we have to remember that Pitt lost earlier this season to a Division III school.

It’s nice to be 2-0 in conference, and it’s great to see Iyana Moore, Cass Prosper, and Malaya Cowles coming along, but Notre Dame will really be tested in January unlike we’ve seen since the woeful outing in Detroit. Georgia Tech and BC will lighten a schedule that otherwise includes four Quad 1 games and three Quad 2 games. The first four games of February are all in Quads 1 and 2 as well.

So, what does Notre Dame need to do to avoid going 2-10 in its next 12 games? Today, I’ll go through the active rotation and give each player a 2026 New Year’s resolution that should help the Irish be on the right side of the record books:

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Malaya Cowles - Make Your Bunnies

Cowles has been such a pleasant surprise on offense this season. Her defensive assets fit right in with the team as expected, with great hands against dribblers and shooters alike, but her offense was never expected to be a huge asset for the Irish. However, she has been more than serviceable, providing a big target for her teammates, cleaning up on the boards at key moments, and scoring in bunches. During the Florida State game it’s like she was playing on easy mode. The first half of the Mississippi game heavily featured Cowles and the Rebels had no answer. (Even on the other end, Mississippi really took over after Cowles fouled out, which was hardly her fault.)

All that said, Cowles’s offense could be even better if she could make the easiest shots she gets in a game. Her shooting percentage is 54.9%, which for a high-major post player is less than average. From the left block, she’s markedly worse. Unfortunately, this is consistent with her play over the past four seasons. However, that percentage could go up considerably if she could make uncontested layups, which feels like something fixable. I can live with her missing contested shots; Notre Dame will be living better if she could also make the easy ones in 2026.

Vanessa de Jesus - Keep Your Head Screwed On

Luckily for all involved, de Jesus is having one of the best statistical seasons of her career. She’s posting career highs or near-career highs in free-throw percentage, assists, and steals per 40 minutes, while posting the lowest turnover rate of her career. It’s great when those per-40-minutes stats are optimized while you’re playing a lot of minutes so it’s more than just speculative. Her player efficiency rating is also the best of her career on HerHoopStats outside of the four-game season Duke played her first year in college.

Now comes the challenging part for VDJ. Her statistics thus far are almost perfectly split between Notre Dame’s mid-major and high-major opponents, and I think it comes down to decision-making. She was able to post excellent numbers in the ACC for Duke last year on a per-40-minute basis, but was playing only a third of the minutes. If she’ll be asked to spend around 30 minutes on the floor each night (which, spoiler alert, she will), she will need to take her shots as they come, take care of the ball, and continue to find her teammates. We’ve already seen her play capably against USC, Notre Dame’s best win, and again against Ole Miss when nobody else on the team seemed ready for the moment. Those games, and not her dreadful performance against Michigan, are what she must replicate more often than not in the new year.

Hannah Hidalgo - Find Your Three Point Shot

If you’ve been reading this newsletter long enough, you know that I never stop talking about Hannah Hidalgo’s usage rate. While I continue to believe that’s of the utmost importance, I’ll switch things up today and talk about Hidalgo’s long-range adventure. In case you haven’t heard, Hannah is shooting the three more than ever this year, and it’s going about as poorly as you could possibly imagine. Her freshman year she was at a respectable 34% (31% in conference), last year she increased that to 40% (36.5%) on a few more attempts, and this year it’s coming in at a lowly 21.5% (25%) on over a shot more per game than last season.

That’s bad. Hidalgo’s three-point percentage ranks 941st out of 988 Division I players who have attempted at least 3 threes a game over at least 8 games, and 47th out of 49 such players in the ACC. For a player who hopes to contend for national player of the year or at least a third straight ACC player of the year, this is an obvious weakness. Worse, if teams know they can reliably sag off Hidalgo, her quick first step won’t matter and she might face defenses even her fantastic finishing ability can’t overcome. Her three-pointer should unlock the rest of her game, but right now it’s holding it back.

Iyana Moore - Attack the Basket

For the purposes of this exercise, Moore is a bit like the anti-Hidalgo. The grad transfer has shown Irish fans what she can do from beyond the arc, and that is invaluable on a team in desperate need of a shooter. Moore is shooting 20-52 from range this season for a career-best 38%, and if you ignore her 1-11 game (a silly thing to do, I know) that balloons to 46%. But her game has to be more than that for her to be effective.

Luckily, she has proven herself before, earning second-team all-SEC honors last year. In that season, and every season before this, she attempted a couple more two-point shots per game than this year while still attempting the same number of threes. It could be that in her limited minutes this season (the lowest of her career), she is prioritizing the three. It could be that the coaches have told her they’d rather her shoot threes than drive. But to me, her 3PA:2PA ratio is just a liiiittle bit high and will pose no problems to the better defenses on the schedule.

We’ve seen Moore make some great moves and show her game is more than the three. She had two nice-looking drives against Pitt on Monday on her way to 23 points. She had a great floater against USC when she was still coming off injury. She is putting up career-best rebound and steal numbers and career-low turnover numbers on a per-40-minutes basis. Conference play is high time for her to put the pedal to the metal; she can add more to this team, and they are going to need it. Her two best games so far have been against ACC competition, so we have to hope that portends some level of greatness for the remainder of the season.

Cassandre Prosper - Lead with Careful Confidence

If Cass Prosper is being lauded as the secondary star on Notre Dame after Hannah Hidalgo, then she needs to act the part in totality. I have really enjoyed seeing Cass’s statistical growth from previous seasons, which has come as a groundswell of points, rebounds, steals, and blocks. Heck, she even had back-to-back threes against Pitt on Monday night, with the second being a stepback. She’s upped her productivity in KK Bransford’s absence, recording three double-doubles in four games. But, Prosper’s weakness has been and continues to be the meshing of her body and mind.

She’ll get a friendlier whistle against ACC-level athletes, but Prosper has been called for numerous silly offensive fouls this season. She has had moments of too much aggression on defense and too much awkward dribbling on offense. On Monday, she knocked the wind out of Iyana Moore on a rebound in a way reminiscent of when she backed into (and injured) Sonia Citron two seasons ago. Whether she is out of control or just clumsy and unaware of her positioning, it has always been the case that Prosper plays the best when she is making confident and decisive actions rather than going rogue and feeling out a new path for herself. This season, more than ever, she’ll have to keep that assertiveness turned on at all times to avoid foul trouble and avoid momentum-changing mistakes.

Kelly Ratigan - Aim To Be a Zero

If you’ve never read An Astronaut’s Guide to Life On Earth, I’ll catch you up: “being a zero” amounts to aiming for harm reduction rather than maximum benefit. In a world where everyone is either a one, zero, or negative one, those who try too hard to be ones often wind up making things worse and coming out as negative ones. If you aim to be a zero—decidedly not negative—you often wind up making more of a positive impact than you realize, and even if you don’t, you succeed at not being a detriment.

The philosophy is interesting, and certainly a fresh way of looking at the idea of being one’s best, but I think it embodies Kelly Ratigan’s role perfectly, and she has the exact personality for it. All of Ratigan’s interviews ever in a Notre Dame uniform convey that she has complete understanding of her role on the ND roster. Now that she is solidly in the rotation with the Bransford injury, she must aim to be a zero. Take threes when it makes sense. Don’t gamble on defense, and talk. Set good screens in a half-court offense and run good lanes on fastbreaks. Ratigan is not the type of player who will excel at a top program on athleticism alone, and she seems to know that. She can contribute to this team plenty if she plays her role to perfection.

Gisela Sanchez - Box. Out.

It’s no secret that I’m not especially keen on Gisela Sanchez’s defense, and if I’m honest I think making defense her resolution would be a bit too lofty. She is unfortunately not quick enough to guard the perimeter and not strong enough to guard the post. However, this one crazy wacky trick will have coaches everywhere taking her more seriously: boxing out. If she could learn to consistently put a body on someone, many of Sanchez’s problems would go away overnight. Instead, we get to witness her just standing there and watching the entire arc of the shot as though it’s a shooting star and she merely has to cast a wish in order for the rebound to fall to her. It’s really something else for a player as long as she is.

Sanchez is averaging two rebounds a game against high-major conference teams this year. Not really what you want from your tallest player. Her offensive game is valuable, but we have seen Niele Ivey prioritize defense and rebounding in every season at the helm, and I don’t think this year will be an exception. Even if Sanchez could grab five or six rebounds a night against the ACC, she would be of much greater service. Maddy Westbeld’s career low was 6.3 in seasons as a statistical qualifier. That’s the kind of rebounding ND will need from Sanchez for her to be a consistent net positive contributor in 2026.

Bonus: KK Bransford & Leah Macy - Rehab Like a Champion Today

At this point, I have my doubts whether we’ll see Leah Macy in an Irish uniform this year. It has been more than 11 months since she was injured, but to insert her in the lineup during the gauntlet of Duke/BC/UNC/Louisville/UConn would be rough, and once we get to February, I don’t know how much it makes sense for her to burn a year of eligibility. Her not playing against Pitt was disappointing. But, I hope she proves me wrong and that she can come into the lineup this season and contribute right away. That would be a tall task for someone who hasn’t played a minute of college ball, but she had five stars in high school for a reason.

As for Bransford, I am encouraged by Niele Ivey saying her injury wasn’t season-ending. That communicates to me both that she is serious about ending her collegiate career after next season and that she intends to end her collegiate career at Notre Dame. It seems like she is no longer on crutches but has a heavy brace around her leg. I don’t know when I would expect her back, but she was Notre Dame’s leading rebounder before her injury, and her defense is irreplaceable on this roster as a tall guard with some muscle on her.

For both, the keyword in the resolution is “TODAY”—as long as they’re physically ready, the sooner either can provide meaningful minutes, the better. Notre Dame simply can’t sustain the level of play it wants to with its current rotation of seven players, one of whom may not be able to handle minutes against the better teams in the conference. Increasing that to nine or even just eight would give the entire operation some breathing room if someone is in foul trouble, having an off day, or matches up poorly against any given opponent. To health in 2026!

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Notre Dame will play at Georgia Tech tomorrow (January 1st) and then a big test at Duke on Sunday. Duke has a bad record, but they were picked to win the ACC this year and they’ve had a gauntlet of a schedule. I wouldn’t look too much at their losses to USF and West Virginia as an indicator of their talent, and losing to South Carolina, UCLA, and LSU does not mean they are trash. The opening-day Baylor loss was winnable for them. Sunday’s game in Durham would be their second straight Quad 1 win and their first win over a ranked team. ND is going for its second Quad 1 win as well and their first on the road.

Here’s what else to keep an eye on this week:

• Nebraska at Iowa - Thursday at 2 PM on BTN

• Michigan at Washington - Thursday at 6 PM on BTN

• Kentucky at LSU - Thursday at 8 PM on SECN+

• USC at UCLA - Saturday at 8 PM on Peacock

• Ole Miss at Texas - Sunday at 3 PM on ESPN2

• Baylor at Iowa State - Sunday at 3 PM on ESPN

• LSU at Vanderbilt - Sunday at 5 PM on ESPN

I’ll pick up my regular cadence next Tuesday. Until then, Go Irish, beat Blue Devils. And Happy New Year!

It feels like the Notre Dame women’s basketball viewing experience has necessarily involved injury dating all the way back to the most recent national championship season in 2017-2018. From Brianna Turner to Abby Prohaska, Natalija Marshall to Dara Mabrey, Olivia Miles to Sonia Citron, it seems like there is always a bevy of bench onlookers who could be contributing meaningful minutes. Maddy Westbeld, Cass Prosper, Kylee Watson, Emma Risch… it’s practically a rite of passage. Even players like Jenna Brown, Mychal Johnson, and Lili Thompson who may not have been the team’s biggest stars were affected. Liza Karlen was injured in the exhibition game last season. Iyana Moore and Malaya Cowles started this year on the sidelines. Leah Macy has yet to suit up for ND after wrecking her leg as a high school senior.

So, as shocking as it was when KK Bransford went down with a non-contact right leg injury in the second quarter against Morehead State on Thursday, you couldn’t help but feel it was old hat for the Irish. Devastating. Piercing. But not altogether unpredictable that it would’ve happened at some point to somebody on the team.

For Bransford herself, it just feels unfair. Luckily, it’s not season-ending, but you can’t help but feel bad for her when she sat out all of last season thanks to a previous injury. She was getting back to playing her best, cashing in on the promise we saw from her the second half of her freshman season three years ago. She was extremely well-conditioned and played her best against two of the team’s toughest opponents so far this season in Michigan and USC. Rebecca Lobo even spent tie discussing her as a WNBA prospect during the broadcast against the Trojans. Just so unfortunate that her playing career will have another setback of undefined length on a roster that needs her so much and one where she is set up to shine. She likely will not be needed the rest of December, but I can bet we’ll be clamoring for her come January.

The other aspect of this is the continued lamentation of this season’s roster construction. ND of all teams should be prepared for the worst when it comes to injury luck. While high-profile players have injuries everywhere, ND’s injury bug is just a bit more nagging and consistent. So I won’t blame you if the immediate compassion you felt for Bransford’s injury gave way to frustration over the thin rotation that at this point is a perennial hallmark of the Ivey era, bar last season. Hopefully next year marks a shift in roster philosophy, but this next stretch will highlight just how worrisome things can be with a rotation of six.

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We (sort of) saw how worrisome things could be this Sunday against James Madison when Malaya Cowles and Vanessa de Jesus picked up two fouls in the first quarter and finished with three, while Hannah Hidalgo and Iyana Moore committed their second in the second and finished with four. James Madison was almost a good enough team to do something about that; they slashed the Notre Dame lead to single digits in the fourth quarter and had all the momentum. If that level of foul trouble happens again, which is likely as it wasn’t even an extreme amount of foul trouble, then Notre Dame could be cooked. God forbid someone fouls out against the Dukes, UNCs, and Louisvilles of the world… I do not comfortably believe this team has what it takes to beat those teams at full strength and would shudder to think of how herculean an effort it would need with just five rotation players.

Still, the team responded with admirable resilience this Sunday in a venue known for being rowdy against a team known for being excellent in its conference and capable of competing with high-major teams. James Madison lost at Texas by 39, but beat BC, Virginia Tech, and Wisconsin, and may very well run the table in the Sun Belt. That Notre Dame not only weathered their storm but never trailed is alone demonstration of its ability. That’s Notre Dame’s second-best win on the season and JMU is currently rated better than 8 ACC teams. If all goes well, ND will face a team of that strength or worse in the first round of the NCAA tournament.

Now for the game itself. I want to first devote a paragraph to coaching, because I thought it went through its ups and downs on Sunday. Most noteworthy Up: getting Ratigan and Smith into the game to avoid any stupid fouls and give starters a longer real-time breather at the end of the first quarter. Most noteworthy Down: holding onto timeouts a little bit longer when JMU seized the momentum and the crowd late in the third quarter and in the beginning of the fourth. (Yet, the team showing it could pass the stress test of JMUs comeback-mindedness might prove to be an up in the long run.) Up: putting Cass Prosper on reigning Sun Belt player of the year Peyton McDaniel and shutting her down. Down: changing almost nothing about defensive rebounding in a zone from the Ole Miss game until now. Overall I think I’d give the coaching a B on this one, but I just wanted to make note of some things I saw that led me to that grade.

Now onto players. The ascent of Cass Prosper, Malaya Cowles, and Iyana Moore continues! Shoutout to Prosper for her third consecutive 20-point outing, not to mention her three-point shot looked smooth in both games this week which would be a huge development if she could get that going consistently. When she hasn’t been in foul trouble (Ole Miss…) she has consistently had the best game score on Statbroadcast either outright or among all players not named Hannah Hidalgo. She had a few strong moves to the basket on Sunday and she seems to be playing with such poise of late, neither taking too long to think nor acting frantically. JMU coach Sean O’Regan called her a pro after the game and noted how she made his team pay for all the attention they were paying to Hannah. That is, of course, what we want. If she can avoid charges against athletically inferior competition, her offense could be a real asset. (Thanks to coach O’Regan for this addition’s title, also regarding Cass.)

Cowles has come along quite nicely as well. She was inserted into the starting lineup for her defense, which has always been her biggest asset, but her offense has been a refreshing surprise. Her post moves are nice and she creates a beautiful seal down low that only a few teams in the ACC will be equipped to stop (all three research triangle schools come to mind). I’d like to see her pass out of a double-team a bit more quickly, and we haven’t seen her asked to do too much at the high post yet, but if she can continue outputting double-digit scoring efforts like she has in three of the first four games of December then she could both take away a lot of the pressure on the guards and open up the floor a lot for them, too.

Moore’s three-point shooting could absolutely open up the floor for the more adept drivers on the roster, as well. After a good-not-great 5-16 from distance in November, she’s shooting 9-16 in December so far. It seems like this is why she was brought to ND, and if she can keep up the pace then that will be very useful. But, she earned second-team all-SEC last year on more than the merit of her three-point shot. If she can get going inside the arc, especially in KK Bransford’s absence, that could be huge.

If the last two paragraphs tell us anything, it’s as I said last week that the Moore/Cowles-De Jesus/Sanchez swap is inevitable this season. In Cowles’s case, her offense is unique on the roster and her defense is leaps and bounds beyond Sanchez’s. Moore vs. De Jesus is an interesting problem because VDJ does provide some great defense but can disappear on offense, and you sacrifice size when you play her. Ivey values defense, which I tend to agree is the right call, so I wouldn’t be surprised if VDJ stays in the starting lineup for a long time. But if the offense is to be an ensemble rather than the Hannah Hidalgo show then I think Moore is the stronger option.

It’s a good problem to have, too, because it’s not like VDJ or Sanchez is playing poorly*. Each was active on the offensive boards on Sunday against James Madison, with VDJ leading the team in assists and Sanchez second in offensive rating on the game after Cass Prosper. Sanchez also had the highest offensive rating on the team earlier in the month against Florida State and Ole Miss, and De Jesus is consistently outputting some nice assist rates.

*In Sanchez’s case, this only applies to offense. I will probably never be pleased with Sanchez’s defense, and I will probably always be pleased with VDJ’s.

Of course, none of this would be possible without Hannah Hidalgo’s decided decrease in usage rate against teams with a pulse. In ND’s three biggest wins this season (USC, JMU, FSU), Hannah Hidalgo’s usage rate has passed 30% in exactly zero of them. It has been above 30% in every other game this season, including 35.3% against Michigan, and 47.8% against Ole Miss. Here’s my proposal: let Hannah do her thing against inferior opponents to her heart’s content, but share the ball against some better teams and watch how much the floor opens up for everybody. I have long beaten the drum for usage rate as a biomarker of team health, and I think I might be onto something this season. I am sure she realizes this too, and kudos to her for seeming to start each game with a concerted effort to get her teammates involved. Hidalgo’s points will come, but everyone else has to play an active part.

(Aside: one of my biggest pet peeves is when a commentator pronounces it HILL-dalgo, or HILL-dago. This was the case on Sunday. Sorry if I soured this for you forever now but I notice it every time and it never ceases to bother me.)

On that note, the next three games will be great chances for Hidalgo to flex as much as she wants (and knowing her, maybe even literally). Bellarmine, Pitt, and Georgia Tech will all be chances for the team to work on its weaknesses. At minimum this means a focus on defensive rebounding out of a zone and early shot clock halfcourt offense. At maximum this means Leah Macy starts getting minutes??? But there’s been no indication that will happen. I’m just saying, now’s a great time with just one game a week, Bransford being out, and competition who won’t stand up. Be on the lookout!

But regardless, I think we can rest easy knowing that Notre Dame will enter the new year 10-2, and with a much clearer picture of the kind of talent that’s on this team. Sure, they’re probably not beating UConn this season, but they’ve proven they can go toe-to-toe with some above-average teams and even beat them. The ACC race will be fascinating assuming Louisville and UNC aren’t just head and shoulders above everyone else. Only NC State has a better out-of-conference win than Notre Dame’s win over USC based on the NET rankings, and Duke has been well tested which could only help them in conference play.

Likewise, this James Madison win was a good test for the Irish. They’re down a player, but they’ve got great momentum and can bide their time these next two weeks before the conference season begins. Their floor and their ceiling seem a bit better defined now, we just have to see which one they approach in January and beyond.

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Lay of the Land Roundup: Not much happened during the week last week, but this game ended with less than a minute left in overtime because the power went out and was ruled a no contest. Ridiculous. This weekend was much more eventful, with UConn putting the hurt on USC on Saturday and Texas doing the same to Baylor on Sunday. Louisville conquered UNC in overtime on Sunday and might be good after all (sad). Iowa State vanquished Iowa in the CyHawk game (happy). Oklahoma dismantled Oklahoma State, and Arizona State is off to a program-best 12-0 in its first year under Molly Miller. The AP finally ranked Princeton yesterday after largely ignoring mid-majors this year.

Former Irish Roundup: Olivia Miles is doing Olivia Miles things with two consecutive triple-doubles and undefeated TCU will not play its first team in the current rankings until January 19th. Its first road game against a currently-ranked team is in February. Kate Koval is having a statistically exciting season at LSU, who will not play its first ranked team until January. Koval is scoring a bit more in just about a minute more of playing time per game for the Tigers and has only started 6 of their 11 games. Kylee Watson only played four games for Villanova before re-injuring herself. Alli Campbell has now played in three games for mid-major power Fairfield and seems poised to join them for MAAC play. Amirah Abdur-Rahim and Houston are not very good but her playing time and output is rivaling the best of her career. Emma Risch and Florida State followed up their loss to Notre Dame with a loss to the College of Charleston, at home.

Games to Watch This Week: Notre Dame plays Bellarmine on Sunday at 5 PM on ACC Extra. Otherwise, there’s not much, but…

• South Dakota State at Duke - Thursday at 7 PM on ACC Network

• Washington at Stanford - Friday at 10 PM on ACC Extra

• Louisville vs. Tennessee - Saturday at 11 AM on Fox

• Iowa vs. UConn - Saturday at 1:30 PM on Fox

• Navy at South Florida - Sunday at 1:00 PM on ESPN+

• Penn State vs. Richmond - Sunday at 2:30 PM on ESPN+

• Texas Tech at Baylor - Sunday at 4:00 PM on ESPN+

That about does it for me! There may not be an edition next week after the Bellarmine game, but I wouldn’t rule it out. Regardless, until next time, be well and Go Irish.

Two games, two hot starts, two cold second quarters, and two divergent second halves leave Notre Dame sitting at 6-2 and #19 in the country through its first eight games. This week came with some lessons good and bad, but the biggest of all is that the team is as unpolished an Ivey team as we’ve seen since before the Sweet 16 streak began. We’re used to knowing what we have coming in, but this season is going to be a learning process, and one that will require patience of us and the team.

A lighter schedule from here to the end of the year with one more possible challenge this week at James Madison, but the team is coming into form and has an ACC win under its belt. Take these next few weeks to figure out some key rotations and buckle up for a challenging conference slate.

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I won’t blame you if you got an extremely sour taste in your mouth watching Notre Dame fall to Ole Miss in the ACC/SEC Challenge. That’s probably because it featured the largest squandered lead in Notre Dame history (19 points), a frustratingly high usage rate for Hannah Hidalgo (47.8%), some awful rebounding (42-27), or some combination of the above. It’s hard to top a 39-point loss to Michigan as the worst of the year, but if Notre Dame continues to find record-setting ways to lose then I would rather not repeat the Ole Miss fiasco.

We can break it down a little bit more, because it really was a tale of two games. The team was humming in the first quarter and even withstood Hannah Hidalgo being subbed out. It grew its lead a bit more with Hidalgo on the bench, and wound up shooting 14-20 from the field for the first 13 minutes and change of game time, with six assists. Then Hidalgo returned, and it was almost a full quarter before the team’s next assist. ND shot 10-35 the rest of the way.

This isn’t to say “I blame Hidalgo” for the loss, but her play was certainly a factor in Notre Dame’s lead dwindling and eventually disappearing entirely. Unfortunately, it’s a bit of a chicken-and-egg situation: if the rest of the team isn’t hitting shots, what is Hidalgo supposed to do? Conversely, if Hidalgo is going full steam to the basket on every drive, how are her teammates supposed to get involved? The plain answer here is through better coaching, but Niele Ivey and co. seldom use their timeouts, and Thursday was no exception.

Notre Dame actually had a good game plan, but Ivey seemed unprepared to adjust when Coach Yo made her own adjustment to counter that plan. Punch, counterpunch, and then…? On Thursday there was no answer to the counter. Ivey’s origial configuration of zone defense (Ole Miss can’t exactly shoot the three with the best of them), trapping Latasha Lattimore (not the world’s best ball handler), doubling Christeen Iwuala with Hidalgo or de Jesus every time she touched the ball (rendering her post moves nonstarters) and going large by featuring Prosper, Sanchez, and Cowles on the floor really worked until Ole Miss switched it up.

When they did, it was bad news for ND. Driving Cotie McMahon and Sira Thienou to the basket proved disastrous for the zone, as did Ole Miss crashing the boards early and often. Feeding Iwuala with better spacing allowed her to go to work more. Packing the paint against the Irish exposed the team’s inability to shoot that day. Again, coaching could’ve helped this, but it seemed like they elected to play the final 26 minutes of the game on hard mode and were surprised when it didn’t work. After 10 days idle, it’s not a great look to be so woefully unprepared for a good opposing coach to adapt to game condtions.

The game exposed a lot about Notre Dame’s depth this season. Malaya Cowles actually had one of the better games of her Notre Dame career (topped only by Sunday’s outing at FSU) but she couldn’t handle Iwuala alone and Gisela Sanchez continues to be a liability defending the post. Vanessa de Jesus was the most willing shooter not named Hannah Hidalgo and her shot wasn’t falling on Thursday. When Prosper and Bransford picked up four fouls apiece and Cowles fouled out, there was no recourse; the game was decided then and there. (Of course you don’t want to blame the refs, but on that last point I really do think the officiating made some bad pivotal calls. Prosper’s third foul was a jump ball, and Bransford’s was a swipe at air.)

It also exposed that Hannah Hidalgo has a bit of growing up to do. Hidalgo is one of the best players in the country (she was the ACC player of the week again this week), but in her junior season she has to be more of a leader in and out of the game. Earning two technical fouls on one play for chirping in the dying seconds when the game was out of reach was just the icing on the cake of a game where she hardly looked for her teammates on offense, got a little too eager for steals on defense, drove into traffic on more than one occasion on a fastbreak instead of setting something up, and shot just 4-15 after her minutes on the bench. Again, there’s only so much she could do when her teammates were playing less than their best, but in my opinion she lost her way and never quite found it.

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Of course, it’s good to end on a positive, and discussing the Ole Miss game will end on the positive of Malaya Cowles. Her defense wasn’t perfect enough to avoid fouls, but she provided some great size down low against the formidable Iwuala. As if that’s not enough, Cowles’s offensive rating was the highest on the team and her five rebounds were much needed when nobody else could muster much. Her great play continued on Sunday when she recorded a double-double against Florida State, including the beautiful steal and fast break from the .gif at the start of this edition. Coming in, I was excited to get Cowles’s deceptively quick hands and sturdy body on defense, but if she can continue to be in the right spot on pick and rolls then that will be a huge asset for Notre Dame on offense.

And there was a lot more to be happy about on Sunday. Iyana Moore finally found her footing and if she can shoot like that more consistently then it will open up the floor for ND in a big way. And if she’s trying to be a repeat all-conference team member then showing out in the first ACC game is a great place to start. (The Moore/Cowles-Sanchez/de Jesus swap seems to be ramping up, with the former duo getting more minutes for the first time on Sunday. I don’t know if I expect them to start soon but I wouldn’t be surprised if Moore and Cowles see the floor more than their fellow transfers basically from here on out.)

Moore wasn’t the only one with a return to form, though. Cass Prosper’s team-leading 21 points and KK Bransford’s six (up from zero vs. Ole Miss) were a great sign that they’re still capable of chipping in. Gisela Sanchez was finding spots and went 6-7 from the field. The only player whose stats on paper didn’t improve was Vanessa de Jesus, but her game improved because she no longer bore the burden of having to attempt the second-most shots on the team. Yes, all this was against a bare bones Florida State team and not a physical ranked team like Ole Miss, but it was good to see that the team came out with some fight on Sunday despite the loss.

Hannah Hidalgo performed better, too. She started the Ole Miss game looking to score and that motivation only increased - she finished with 28 points, but only two assists. On Sunday she came out of the gate looking to distribute and recorded nine assists on the day to go with her 17 points. Her highest scoring quarter, the second, was also her only quarter without an assist and the only quarter Notre Dame didn’t win on the day. But (again unlike Thursday) she and the team found their footing after Florida State narrowed its 20-point deficit to single digits and Hidalgo finished with a music-to-my-ears season low usage rate of 20.3%.

I’ll credit the coaching staff with a positive change from Thursday to Sunday as well. Although they didn’t take a timeout of their own when Florida State was clearly outplaying Notre Dame, there was a marked shift in the team’s play from before the under-5 timeout in the second quarter to afterwards. A 12-4 FSU run to open the quarter was mitigated by a 12-4 run of Notre Dame’s own to close it out. The team mostly stopped committing dumb fouls on our old friend Emma Risch in the act of shooting three pointers. Hannah Hidalgo stopped jumping at the chance to steal the ball from Sole Williams and Williams in turn stopped absolutely cooking her. Unlike Thursday, the game settled down again.

So, now what? Well, it’s hard to say. There’s a world where the shooting performance against Florida State isn’t replicable in the ACC, Hannah Hidalgo feels pressure to do it herself, and Notre Dame crashes and burns behind her high usage rates and the rest of the team’s futility. There’s another world where Iyana Moore, Malaya Cowles, and Cass Prosper ease into reliable scoring roles and the team shares the ball with aplomb on its way to a third straight ACC title. The truth, as always, is probably somewhere in the middle.

But if we only let the season be about its final game, we take away so much of the joy that makes the team rootable and the sport fun. Last year’s team could afford to be about the destination and it didn’t turn out very well. This year’s team is forced to be a bit more about the journey, and it could prove to be a really fruitful one. I doubt Notre Dame will build 20-point leads to begin every game. I doubt all its rebounding problems were fixed over the weekend. I would bet on there being another game where foul trouble prohibits the Irish from putting their best foot forward and I would bet on there being another game when the shooting just isn’t there for more than one player. Either way, we’ll get to watch it all unfold, and that will be beautiful.

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Lay of the Land Roundup: Notre Dame’s loss on Thursday was just one of the 13 casualties suffered by the ACC versus the SEC in the conference challenge. Texas beat UNC, LSU beat Duke, and South Carolina beat Louisville despite being taken to the wire. Ole Miss, after beating ND, went on to lose to Kansas State, and the it will be a question just how good the Rebels are (lending further credence to the idea that Notre Dame’s loss wasn’t just ugly, it was bad). USC beat Washington on Sunday night and hopefully that win remains a good anchor for the Irish. Meanwhile, Michigan State was upset at Wisconsin and Illinois destroyed Indiana. Maryland scored 8 points in 9 seconds to defeat Minnesota in double overtime. In midmajor land, Fairfield demolished Richmond shooting 19 of 30 from three. Princeton continues its impressive season and ma not be tested again until it faces Columbia on January 30th.

Notre Dame is up to #22 in the NET rankings, which are important for tournament seeding. That won’t increase with its game against Morehead State on Thursday, but a trip to James Madison with a win would add a nice Quad 2 victory to its team sheet that could help in March.

Former Irish Roundup: I’m not entirely ready to declare this the year that bucks the trend of every transfer out of Notre Dame in the Ivey Era coming up short of greener pastures, but it’s sure looking that way. Olivia Miles is the nation’s leader in win share per HerHoopStats and had a triple double last week. Kate Koval lost her starting spot at LSU but still plays just as much as she did at ND and is shooting and rebounding a lot better too. Kylee Watson’s minutes are down at Villanova, but her stats are the same and she’s even improved her free throws. Emma Risch we saw on Sunday and although her team is not very good she’s seeing a lot more floor time and a lot more production. Amirah Abdur-Rahim has a starting spot at Houston and will likely compile the second-best season of her career. Finally, Alli Campbell is just coming back from injury at Fairfield so I’ll give that one an incomplte.

Games to Watch This Week: I’ll tell you what, the schedule is bleak in December, but there are still some gems to watch this week in addition to watching the Irish on Thursday and Sunday:

• Iowa at Iowa State - Wednesday at 7 PM ET on ESPN

• Oklahoma at Oklahoma State - Saturday at 4 PM ET on ESPNU

• UConn at USC - Saturday at 5:30 PM ET on Fox

• Baylor at Texas - Sunday at 1 PM ET on ABC

Sunday’s game is the biggest until January! The two weeks following are a huge lull. I’ll be back next Tuesday to discuss what I hope will be a win over the Dukes of James Madison. Thanks for reading, be well, and Go Irish.

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If you want to be the worst kind of casual, this conversation can start and end with UConn. There will undoubtedly be some fans out there who assume the UConn era of dominance in the 2010s never came to an end. In some ways, they’d be right; they’re riding a streak of 31 straight Sweet 16s with 28 Elite Eight appearances in those years, including 23 trips to the Final Four and 12 National Championships. Assuming UConn is good at basketball is not a crime or even a mistake. The defending champs are number one behind stars Sarah Strong and Azzi Fudd and the only time they’ve looked even remotely tested was when Michigan came back from an 18-point halftime deficit to make things interesting in the closing minutes. Michigan never took the lead; UConn won.

But, although UConn is the odds-on favorite to repeat, they are far from the only team capable of winning it all this season. For my money, Texas has the most impressive resume out there through November. This past weekend, they defeated fellow Top 5 teams UCLA and South Carolina to win the Players Era championship behind point guard Rori Harmon, do-it-all wing Madison Booker, steady center Kyla Oldacre, and an electric group of freshmen including Aaliyah Crump.

Texas will be challenged in the SEC, where they’ll have to rematch Joyce Edwards and South Carolina; Flau’jae Johnson, MiLaysia Fulwiley, and Mikaylah Williams at LSU; an Oklahoma team who looks very complete with top freshman Aliyah Chavez joining the likes of Raegan Beers, Sahara Williams and Peyton Verhulst; A Tennessee team still running Kim Caldwell’s breakneck substitution scheme anchored by Talaysia Cooper and a stellar freshman class; and Kenny Brooks’s Kentucky team still specializing in the same offense that took him to the final four at Virginia Tech, only this time with Tonie Morgan and Clara Strack playing the role of Georgia Amoore and Liz Kitley, respectively. Vanderbilt’s star Mikayla Blakes now has freshman Aubrey Galvan to distribute to her. Notre Dame’s next opponent, Ole Miss, has a new star in Cotie McMahon but needed overtime to defeat a not-great Memphis team.

I listed so many SEC teams because, sadly, they’ve taken the honor of the nation’s elite conference. The ACC and Pac-12 (yes) held that distinction for much of the 21st century, but the SEC has blown open a lead in the age of NIL and the transfer portal. Their results reflect this. South Carolina beat the same USC team by 17 that Notre Dame beat by 2. Kentucky went to Louisville and beat them by 10. The aforementioned Texas win over UCLA was never particularly close. I expect that this week’s ACC/SEC challenge will wind up very lopsided in the wrong direction in aggregate.

Then there’s the Big Ten, where UCLA and Michigan seem to be tops in the early going. Lauren Betts is back at UCLA with much of her Final Four squad plus coveted transfers Gianna Kneepkens and Charlise Leger-Walker, and we bore witness to the ugliest Notre Dame loss in awhile against Michigan led by Syla Swords and Olivia Olson. There’s another great Maryland team this year, who with a win over Kentucky asserted themselves behind Kaylene Smikle and Duke transfer Oluchi Okananwa. USC lurks, we’ve seen them and what Jazzy Davidson can do. Iowa has a nice little team this year behind sophomore Ava Heiden, senior Hannah Stuelke and Georgia Tech transfer PG Chit-Chat Wright. Michigan State is blowing the doors off people against a middling schedule. Same with Washington. Ohio State is a bit down to start but never count out Jaloni Cambridge.

In the Big 12, TCU is looking to be scary good (annoyingly) thanks to transfers (surprise surprise) Olivia Miles and Marta Suarez, even beating NC State in Raleigh. Iowa State still has Audi Crooks, one of the best in the country. Oklahoms State is still a question mark but Stailee Heard is currently doing for them all they can ask for. Baylor and Darianna Littlepage-Buggs are joined by Taliah Scott (on her third school in as many years) and Yuting Deng to have a nice little squad currently anchored by an opening-day win over Duke. West Virginia also defeated Duke in one of the most embarrassing games of the year—there was a mass ejection at halftime that whittled WVU down to just five players for the entire second half. It was not their five starters. They still beat Duke.

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That leads me nicely into the lowly ACC. A comfortable fourth in NET rating, the conference is currently buoyed by NC State’s early win over Tennessee and, yes, Notre Dame’s win over USC. In the first NET rankings reveal of the year yesterday, those were the only two Quad 1 wins that the ACC had in 25 tries.

What seemed like it would be a conference with plenty of barriers to success may actually be navigable for Notre Dame this season, or it could be that every team is sort of just figuring it out. Duke, the preseason favorite, has looked just awful, losing to Baylor, South Carolina, West Virginia, UCLA, and even a bad South Florida team. NC State, after their win versus Tennessee, has lost to USC, TCU, and then Rhode Island, all three of those losses coming in North Carolina. That leaves UNC as the current beacon of hope for the conference to go toe-to-toe with the elites, but their early 18-point loss to UCLA isn’t promising. Still, they have wins over a solid South Dakota State and Columbia to hang their hat on.

Louisville and Notre Dame are sort of in the same boat of trying to congeal a squad that can prove itself later on. The Cardinals’ loss to UConn by just 13 was promising enough, but their loss to Kentucky at home signaled maybe they’re not ready yet. They beat a decent Colorado and a Clemson team with a pulse, so I believe they can get it together. On the other hand, a Stanford squad bolstered by some phenomenal freshmen Lara Somfai and Hailee Swain looked to be on the ascent until they lost to FGCU. Cal, also with one of the nation’s best newcomers Puff Morris, still has a ways to go before it will truly compete. Still, I fear for the Irish’s ability to sweep those teams on their trip out west.

Other than those teams, Virginia, Miami, and Clemson are showing some talent early, but Virginia also has a loss to UMBC (albeit undermanned) and Clemson only put up 37 points against South Carolina, so I’m not ready just yet to say they could get the double-bye in the ACC tournament. Just some squads to look out for. Special shoutout to Wake Forest for starting 9-0. Against pretty much nobodies, but still. It’s Wake Forest.

Then there’s the likes of Pitt, BC, and SMU. Pitt’s loss to D3 Scranton is so bad it’s not even listed in their Quad 4 record on the NET. BC’s four wins currently have three combined wins themselves. SMU lost to Grand Canyon, who’s 1-6. We know who the 1 was.

So unless UNC is for real or Duke and NC State get their act together (none of which is out of the question), the ACC is there for the taking. Notre Dame’s early game against Florida State next week will be a good indicator of how prepared they are to take on the conference. It stinks that the conference is down and it’s obvious that the high school recruiting efforts will have the ACC back in business in no time, but why not take advantage of the down year and compete for this thing again? Could be an unexpected surprise.

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Notre Dame’s ranking may be propped up by a win against USC, but performance in the NET leaves a lot to be desired. December, after the first few games, is equally weak. We might not know just what level Notre Dame is at until January when things really ramp up. Here is a breakdown of its schedule versus the different NET quads in each month, as of yesterday:

So, the charge for the Irish is to get through Ole Miss, Florida State, and James Madison relatively unscathed, and then regroup for January. If we see Leah Macy this season, a late-December or early-January introduction may be ideal.

Speaking of James Madison, I’d be remiss if I left out some of the best mid-major teams. The Dukes already have wins over Virginia Tech, Boston College, and Wisconsin this season. Not the best teams, but still high-major conference teams. Elsewhere, Princeton carries the torch as the best mid-major, defeating Georgia Tech, Penn State, and Rhode Island, and playing Maryland tight. I count the Big East as a mid-major conference in women’s basketball and Villanova is one to watch here, with a win over West Virginia. Fairfield, who beat Villanova, also beat South Florida, and played Iowa and UNC tight enough. Maggie Doogan and Rachel Ullstrom have Richmond flirting with the Top 25 again, with a nice win over Columbia. Columbia has beaten South Dakota State. South Dakota State has beaten Kansas State. Davidson took Baylor to overtime.

Lots of fun stuff happening around the country, but Notre Dame can only play the teams on its schedule. That starts with a game on Thursday night at 9 PM Eastern at Ole Miss. Coach Yo (a great sports Twitter follow) has been promoting the game like crazy on Twitter, and the students will be enticed to attend with $2.50 beer, popcorn, and water just for Thursday’s game. It should be a great, messy, raucous atmosphere and it’ll be a blast to see who comes out of the mud with the W. From there, Notre Dame will head to Tallahassee to play on Sunday.

I’ll be back next week to talk about the games as always. Wherever you’re watching, be safe, and Go Irish.

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What’s more important, the journey or the destination? The way I see it, if the destination is good then it merits taking a deeper look at the journey. 5-1 in November is a great destination for this year’s Notre Dame relative to preseason expectations, and with a heroic 61-59 win over a team with rivalry potential to get them there, the journey becomes all the more special.

Just six days separated a tough shellacking at the hands of Syla Swords and the Michigan Wolverines from a sloppy masterpiece to take down Jazzy Davidson and the USC Trojans. What was at times a struggle featured some really pleasant narratives, including a shooting showcase from Vanessa de Jesus, some timely ebbs and flows from KK Bransford, and of course, an all-time Hannah Hidalgo buzzer beater.

The vignette of the last 10 days is a fantastic reminder of some of the greatest aspects of college basketball: resilience, adaptability, and stardom. A great season is a masterpiece, regardless of record, and each game provides its colors and strokes. Although the team is still a ways away from the nation’s elite, Friday’s addition to the canvas was one that could adjust the outlook of the season. Last night’s game was a bit of a cherry on top.

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Last week I noted that you could play 100 games between Notre Dame and Michigan and although the Irish probably lose most of them, the 39-point embarrassment was likely an aberration. I think in a perfect world, that game looked more like Friday night’s: a scrappy defensive slop fest where every player chips in just enough on offense to will the win. Michigan’s length and depth broke them out of that trap before it could fully be set, but the way the Trojans and Irish match up this season made the Trojans the perfect victim. The team lost many statistical battles and was a Jazzy Davidson missed layup away from coming up short, but pulled the win out of thin air thanks to its commitment to the game plan.

The most obvious improvement on defense was in transition, where Notre Dame allowed only 14 points on 17 turnovers (down from 18 on 18 against the Wolverines). The second most obvious was on the glass, where Notre Dame gave up just 4 second-chance points on 4 offensive rebounds, down from 19 on 16 against USC. Just a really strong demonstration of the dedication to controlling what you can control that Coach Ivey and KK Bransford spoke about after the Michigan game. The split-second decision by Vanessa de Jesus to save a possession by throwing the ball off a trailing Davidson was one of the best moments of the young season and exemplified the Irish effort; of course, the play of the game may have been Cass Prosper’s game-sealing deflection to end it all when USC dreamed of a buzzer beater of its own.

The mismatches in the half court were obvious on Friday—Kara Dunn, Kennedy Smith, and Jazzy Davidson were all extremely effective over the smaller de Jesus and Hidalgo, while USC’s size down low made it hard for Notre Dame to defend aggressively down there. But, the scrappiness of the Irish perimeter really mitigated any cohesive attack that USC could muster and led to plenty of transition opportunities for Cass Prosper, Vanessa de Jesus, and Hannah Hidalgo. KK Bransford’s three blocks and four steals harkened back to the defensive efforts of her freshman season, and Malaya Cowles provided some really needed size down low, especially in the second half.

I think the coaches have decided that the zone defense is so effective that they’ll be fine losing the three-point battle every night if it means they generate steals and easy opportunities on the other end. You do risk a Syla Swords/Olivia Olson onslaught if the gamble goes wrong, but with enough disruption like in this week’s two games you live with some shots from range and you ore than make up for it with your hustle. I thought the zone looked really good over the last two games, and everyone from Hannah Hidalgo to Malaya Cowles was deflecting the ball up top. Kelly Ratigan’s minutes last night showed that the defensive identity of the team bleeds through to the bench which you love to see.

I still have my concerns about Gisela Sanchez on defense (she’s too soft in the post and couldn’t really handle even Central Michigan’s forwards last night, but too slow for the perimeter) but the Sanchez/Cowles platoon showed what it could do in aggregate. Adding Leah Macy would work wonders for the frontcourt (at some point this season God willing).

On offense, the team came out of its slump slowly but surely. Sure, 61 points isn’t the most dazzling performance (the football team scored more on Saturday), but the USC game was a better indicator to me of Notre Dame’s potential than, say, Hannah Hidalgo’s records-breaking game against Akron. Hidalgo’s season-low usage rate of 27.8% on HerHoopStats is music to my ears, and she went ahead and followed that up with a second-low mark of 31.4% last night. I’m choosing to see her 2 assists versus USC as a positive as well because it means her teammates weren’t too over-reliant on her. Of course she’s a star and every bit of her game-high 22 points and 5 steals was needed, but I thought the bit of time she spent off the floor at the start of the fourth quarter was truly a keynote for the rest of the team’s attitude toward offensive success on Friday. How gutsy is it to sub out your main offensive threat in the midst of a 12-1 when your team had been down 11? But the whole team effort was delightful to watch and KK Bransford wound up being the only player to score consecutive baskets for the Irish in the entire second half.

In the first half, the offensive effort started with Vanessa de Jesus, whose 11 points on 4 of 6 shooting really helped the Irish keep pace in the first 20 minutes. VDJ has become the emotional center of the team and that really showed when nobody else save Hannah Hidalgo was really a willing or effective shooter through two quarters. Her three-point shot was falling (unlike against Michigan) and she varied things up plenty with drives to the paint. Her three assists led the team at the half as well. Following that up with 6 assists to just 1 turnover against CMU and I’m beginning to think we have a very nice point guard on our hands.

In the fourth quarter, it was all KK Bransford, whose 9 points were the most by any Irish player in any frame. She grabbed 5 of her team-high 8 rebounds and had a team-best 2 steals in that quarter as well. Bransford, along with Prosper, has become such an effective cutter this season and the more time they spend looking for Hidalgo and de Jesus to facilitate to them, the more they’ll flourish. They each had game-tying buckets late for the team; I thought Prosper’s confident drive through the paint was terrific, she protected the ball so well and used her length beautifully. Bransford’s willingness to continue shooting even after a miss is a critical part of her development that could up her play from two seasons ago.

For their part, Sanchez and Moore both had solid enough outings against USC. I still await the Moore who graduated from Vanderbilt to show up in an Irish uniform, but her driving floater in the third quarter showed a bit of the pop she showcased as a Commodore. Her four threes against CMU are super encouraging and you just hope she can put it all together again by January. Sanchez’s corner three on Friday was very calm and her driving layup from the corner in the third quarter was also extremely composed. For Sanchez (like Cass Prosper), the more control on offense, the better. Still, kudos to Coach Ivey and staff for inserting Cowles into the game more heavily in the second and fourth quarters when defense was an absolute necessity; some combination of Sanchez’s offense and Cowles’s defense would amount to a really potent player.

I also liked that Notre Dame featured its Princeton concepts a bit more in these matchups. Coach Ivey had professed a four-out offense would be the dominant one for the Irish this season and through the Michigan game, it was, but they have found ways to return to their roots as a program whether that be by sticking Bransford or Prosper on the elbow, or hopefully against some teams getting Cowles and Sanchez to share the floor for a long time. When Cowles is in the game, the low post really opens up as an option and it allows the offense to operate a little more fluidly, even if Cowles isn’t where the team looks to first.

Let’s face it, neither of these games were the most beautiful from the get-go, but the team did really well to lean into its strengths both nights. On Friday, despite shooting 36% from the floor in the first half and 24% from three overall, they still pulled out a win. KK Bransford missed three foul shots and Hannah Hidalgo missed one, but the Irish still stuck to their agenda of getting into the paint and making something happen. It led the paint point battle 30-22, had 7 second-chance points to USC’s 4, and owned the advantage in layups and free throws as well. That’s the basis of the Irish identity, and it’s from there that the Irish game will have to grow this season.

Miscellaneous: 1. The energy was palpable through the TV on Friday, with Ryan Ruocco doing an impeccable job on the call as always (even though he is a bit of a shouter). His praise for Vanessa de Jesus is the title of this edition. 2. The student section was clearly a big part of the energy for the Irish Wear Green game, and although it was pre-orchestrated and would’ve been really awkward if Notre Dame didn’t win, I thought it was a nice way to get with the times that Hidalgo, Bransford, and Prosper ran straight to celebrate with the students and record for social media after the final buzzer. 3. The green-on-red matchup was so beautiful to watch, in my opinion way better than when UConn wore their home whites to the green game last season. More color-on-color games whenever possible! 4. In a first (I think?), the Notre Dame video board honored the five signees of next year’s incoming class during the USC game. Shows you just how special that class will be. 5. Notre Dame’s next game isn’t until a visit to #13 Ole Miss on December fourth (which means no holiday tournament horrors this year), so next week I will do a proper lay-of-the-land as the entire newsletter.

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Former Irish Roundup: For this week I want to talk about Emma Risch and Kylee Watson, two such painful transfers that would’ve filled a need on this year’s roster had they stayed. Well, although we wish them both the best those wishes may not be enough as Villanova and Florida State have both gotten off to underwhelming starts.

Watson was injured again preseason and was on a minutes restriction for Villanova’s first game, then averaged 17.8 minutes through her first four games as a Wildcat (she never averaged below 23 at ND). She did not appear in either of Villanova’s most recent two games, presumably nursing that injury. She’s matching her career high in points per game at 6.8, to go with 1.5 rebounds and 1.5 assists. She also has a three-point attempt on the year, which she missed. Villanova is not a bad team, and they beat James Madison (who recently beat Virginia Tech), but they’ve lost to mid-major powers Princeton and Fairfield and still have to play West Virginia before a Big East schedule that will test how serious they are. I’ll note that Kylee Watson has been an Irish fan on social media, joining a handful of other recent Irish alumna in posting about the big ND win and Hannah Hidalgo’s big night against Akron.

Emma Risch, meanwhile, is averaging 25 minutes a game for a not good Florida State team. Her 40.6% from three is enviable. The team’s 3-4 record is not. They haven’t beaten a high-major team in four tries and still have to play a capable Georgia team before meeting Notre Dame on December 7th. I can’t say whether Risch’s 8/2/1 per game would have helped ND definitively, but I do hope she’s happy playing closer to home and getting meaningful minutes on a roster that can help showcase her a bit more.

Games to Watch This Week: Notre Dame doesn’t play until the fourth! Watch these games instead:

• Texas vs. UCLA - Wednesday at 2 PM on TruTV

• Fairfield at Iowa - Sunday at 1 PM on BTN

• Tennessee at UCLA - Sunday at 4:30 PM on FS1

All the other great games this week are through Thanksgiving tournament streaming deals on FloHoops, which I cannot recommend less. I’ll talk about their results if they’re worthwhile during next week’s lay of the land edition! Until then, be well and Go Irish.

Long-standing records were broken in two games this week, against two drastically different opponents, with two drastically different outcomes. Some players’ performances obviously regressed. Others were steady. Still others were mercurial from game to game or even within the course of an afternoon. New faces graced the Irish lineup for the first time as the team worked its way to a 27-point win and followed it up with an absolute clunker of a loss. We entered this season, and even this week, with a long list of question marks; I do not think many questions have been answered just yet.

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The offense section of this edition may wind up being overly focused on Hannah Hidalgo and what her role ought to be for Notre Dame to become the most successful version of itself. Hidalgo’s talent has never been a question, and at no time has that been more evident against an outmatched team than it was against Akron last Wednesday night. During that game, she broke the program single-game scoring record with 44 points and broke the NCAA record with 16 steals. She grabbed 9 rebounds and 4 assists, and shot 64% from the field on 25 shots including making 3 of her 6 three-point attempts. She has performed well against the best teams before (see: South Carolina, USC, Texas, UConn x2), but the game against a weaker foe provided the opportunity for a masterclass.

Contrast that with her stat line against Michigan: Just 12 points on 19% shooting (4-for-21), not a three-pointer made in 8 tries, and 7 turnovers to boot. An unimaginably difficult outing for someone who’s used to so much more. In the past, this may not have been an issue—last year, she played horribly at Pittsburgh and the team was more than talented enough to compensate. Her freshman year, she had an off game in November against Tennessee but KK Bransford, Natalija Marshall, and Anna DeWolfe stepped up to will Notre Dame to a win. If there’s one thing we can be sure of this November, it’s that Hidalgo’s success is a necessary condition for a win.

To restate the problem: Notre Dame’s offense didn’t go more than three deep this week. Take that same KK Bransford who was so heroic against Tennessee. Add a Cassandre Prosper who has come into her own as a driver and rim runner. They were the two most effective players on Saturday and they couldn’t buoy the team without Hidalgo’s help. If Hidalgo scores like she does most nights, the team still comes up well short of taking down the Wolverines. Vanessa De Jesus and Gisela Sanchez have all but disappeared on offense, while Malaya Cowles and Iyana Moore are apparently not yet in game shape. The result is a complete mess.

The solution is hard to get at. Hidalgo was breaking records on Wednesday because her teammates were doing very little (the rest of the team was 15-for-39 on the night), and she was forcing her shots on Saturday for the same reason (her teammates were 13-for-39). Her usage rate was a disgusting career high 53.7% against Akron and was a more like-her 35.3% against Michigan. Should she have been finding Prosper and Bransford more on Saturday and focusing on facilitating to them rather than driving into triple teams and becoming rushed? I think so. But it’s hard to argue that the shooting volume Hidalgo puts up isn’t a net benefit to the team when the rest of the team can’t hit the broadside of a barn, which was the case this week. Perhaps the solution is that the team and by extension all of us simply hope for Hidalgo to be shooting well on any given night, but that doesn’t sound like a very foolproof plan to me. As the season goes on, we can likely expect some positive regression on offense for the current role players (even those in the starting five), and the negative feedback loop of bad team shooting → Hidalgo being increasingly more ball-dominant → overreliance on Hidalgo’s individual performance will ease up enough for the team to thrive.

Of course, it didn’t help the game pressure on offense that Notre Dame’s defense was abominable against Michigan on Saturday. The 39-point loss was the worst since 2002, and a large part of that was Notre Dame’s rebounding and transition defense. Frankly, just like the offense, the defense wasn’t good against Akron either. ND finished with 20 turnovers against Akron and 18 turnovers against Michigan which led to 13 and 22 transition points, respectively. Michigan pounded the paint to the tune of 50 paint points just three days after Akron logged 32.

There was very little discipline in either of these games, but that was masked Wednesday by the talent discrepancy and exacerbated Saturday by Michigan’s height and speed. Both opponents were carving up the lane and ready to exploit possessions where Notre Dame sold out for a steal and failed. Both opponents were ready to run the ball if given the opportunity and Michigan was given plenty. Even when for a moment it looked like Notre Dame would be in it (the Irish pulled to 11-10 with under two minutes remaining in the first quarter), Michigan was relentless with its game plan and the Wolverines kept on coming; Notre Dame had no answer.

The Irish rebounding was paltry in both games as well, edging out Akron by a too-small 32-28 margin before getting embarrassed by Michigan 50-28. Just atrocious awareness on the glass, with poor boxing out and a poor display of effort on 50/50 balls. Gisela Sanchez and Malaya Cowles combined for 3 rebounds on Saturday against a much taller Michigan team. Even when Notre Dame was lucky enough to get Michigan in the halfcourt and put together a solid defensive possession, an offensive rebound often destroyed a stop they had earned. If Notre Dame does shore up its defensive miscues, this may remain an issue against the handful of other gigantic teams on its schedule.

So, is everything just… bleak? Well, surprisingly I do not think so. I wouldn’t bet that Notre Dame is going to turn around and defeat USC on Friday, but I also tend to believe the Michigan game was a perfect concoction of negative forces. If ND and Michigan were to play 100 times, I think Notre Dame almost certainly loses most of them, but I think the particular version we got of that game on Saturday was an outlier. It featured the team’s first road trip, with two players still not 100%, two players seemingly in bad and perhaps uncharacteristic slumps, and the star having one of the worst games of her career. Not all of those things will happen in every big game this season, but Notre Dame still has a lot of figuring out to do if it hopes to be competitive in any of them.

There’s no reason to believe that other top teams won’t just replicate Kim Barnes Arico’s gameplan. Luckily, there’s precedent to suggest the team will bounce back: the last game I remember watching with the same doomed feeling was the opener in Paris two seasons ago against South Carolina. Hannah Hidalgo played spectacularly that game, but the transition defense and height disadvantage was so blatant that the 29-point loss felt like mercy. Similar conditions surrounded the game, with pregame fanfare in Paris mirroring a gameday eve trip to the Detroit Pistons game this past Friday. Notre Dame still won the ACC tournament that year and made the Sweet 16 after finishing fourth in the conference. There were a lot of growing pains that season, and there will be this time around, but basketball seasons are long for a reason. We have to believe in the team’s capacity to grow. Address any exposed weaknesses early, make adjustments, and focus on the next opponent.

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Former Irish Roundup: I was planning on starting this season’s “lay of the land” roundups this week, but I’m going to wait until after the Thanksgiving tournaments at the very least when we have a better picture of what’s happening. As for the former Irish out there, two are playing for Top 10 teams: Kate Koval on LSU and Olivia Miles on TCU. In all likelihood these will become the first two transfers of the Ivey era to wind up on better teams than Notre Dame, and at least in Miles’s case it will be in no small part because of her. Olivia is averaging a cool 17.5 points, 7.8 assists and 2.8 steals per game for the Horned Frogs, who downed NC State at their place on Sunday where Miles finished with 15 points and 14 rebounds.

Kate Koval, for her part, is at least a starter on an LSU team who has played pretty much nobody. She leads the team in rebounds (9.8) and blocks (1.2) per game while adding 11.3 points per game in 16.5 minutes. It’ll be interesting to see how Kim Mulkey uses her against stiffer competition: will her minutes go up, or down even lower than the 18.3 she averaged last season? Will her production stay high? She had two points and two rebounds against the Tigers’ best opponent to date on Sunday, but they simply didn’t go to her much then. Their only high-major non-conference opponent is Duke on December 4th, and I’ll be interested to see how she is used then. Based on how she played against the heavy hitters on last year’s Notre Dame schedule, I have no reason to believe she won’t shine, I’m just intrigued to see her do it for the Bayou Bengals.

Games to Watch This Week: Notre Dame (now #24) hosts #11 USC on Friday at 6:00 PM on ESPN and then a late-night game against Central Michigan on Monday at 9:00 PM on the ACC Network. Here are some more games to circle:

• Iowa at Baylor - Thursday at 9 PM on ESPN2

• Syracuse vs. Utah - Friday at 5 PM on FS2

• Michigan vs. UConn - Friday at 8 PM on Fox

• Kentucky at Louisville - Saturday at 2 PM

• Virginia Tech at James Madison - Sunday at 2 PM on ESPN+

• Navy at Richmond - Sunday at 2 PM on ESPN+

It’s a big one this Friday, and I believe Notre Dame at least has it in them to prove it can compete. I’ll be back to talk about it and the Monday night game a week from today. Until then, be well and Go Irish.