Blue and Gold Illustrated

May 2013 Issue

Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football

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ProgramChanger Skylar Diggins established herself as a Notre Dame icon T By Lou Somogyi here was nothing seriously wrong with the Notre Dame women's basketball program when hometown product Skylar Diggins — from South Bend Washington High School and the 2009 Gatorade National Player of the Year — arrived on the scene. Head coach Muffet McGraw's Fighting Irish had won a national title in 2001 and had become respected nationally with consistent top-25 rankings and advancement to the NCAA Tournament's Sweet 16. Nevertheless, in the four-year period from 2005-09, the program began a spinning-of-the-wheels phase. It finished outside the top 25 in both 2006 and 2007, losing in the first round of the NCAA Tournament one year and in the second the next. Then in 2008 it returned to the Sweet 16 before being eliminated by usual nemesis Tennessee, a program it could never vanquish. However, the Irish slid back to becoming a bubble top-25 team during the 2008-09 campaign, culminating with a surprising 79-71 loss at home to Minnesota in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. McGraw's program wasn't reeling, but it appeared to be in a fog. It took the "Sky" to help it see the sun again. Notre Dame assistant coach Niele Ivey, the point guard for the 2001 national champions, was hired by McGraw in 2007 with one specific assignment: "Get Skylar!" The basketball prodigy from South Bend's hard-nosed, blue-collar west side of town had already begun making local news as a 9-year-old stalwart in three-on-three tournaments against boys. Just before starting high school she sat in McGraw's office and was flattered — but remained poised — when the Irish head coach first offered her a scholarship. How often does the nation's No.  1 prospect reside in your own backyard and also possesses the academic standing to be admitted into Stanford? Lose Diggins to another school and the program remains a quality wellrespected outfit, but maybe Sweet 16 remains as good as it gets thereafter. It also might lose a bit of credibility

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