Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1534445
38 MAY 2025 BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED BY TYLER HORKA N otre Dame women's basketball leaned into two slogans this season — "Pick your poison" and "Doubt us." Both of them backfired. The first was a play on the Fight- ing Irish having so many weapons. So many ways to attack opponents. Key in on Hannah Hidalgo? Olivia Miles time. Somehow make an effort to subdue both of them? There's Sonia Citron waiting on the wing. Eliminate Liatu King from doing damage in the frontcourt? Maddy West- beld and Liza Karlen had both previ- ously been the best player on a roster. They can make you pay if they're not accounted for. That's all before getting to a five-star freshman center in 6-foot-5 Kate Koval and a Team Canada Olympian in Cas- sandre Prosper. Eight deep, was there any collection of players better than those of Notre Dame? Probably not. But the game's not played on paper. It's played on a 94-by-50-foot hardwood rectangle. And for whatever reason(s), the Irish did not consistently perform on that surface over the course of 34 games to the level at which many thought they would. Expected they would. Hardly doubted they would. By the end, there was plenty of doubt. From the NCAA Tournament selection committee, who gave the Irish a No. 3 seed. From spectators far and wide, who weren't surprised by the Irish's 71-62 Sweet 16 loss to TCU March 29. Even from within. "I think we just had so much talent," Citron said. "Sometimes too much tal- ent that we didn't even know what to do with." That's how the 2024-25 Notre Dame women's basketball season will be re- membered — underachievement rel- ative to names on the stat sheet. The Irish, with two national championship teams in their storied history and five more squads that have played for it all, may have never had a better roster on paper than what head coach Niele Ivey put together in her fifth season at the helm of her alma mater. But for the fourth consecutive year, Notre Dame crashed out in the Sweet 16. Notre Dame did not play for a regional championship, let alone a national championship. And this time, it wasn't because of injuries. Sure, some players were on the shelf — senior center Kylee Watson, junior guard KK Bransford and sophomore guard Emma Risch. But all of Ivey's best players were available for this tournament run, and the ceiling was still the same. The "not much to work with" ex- cuses were valid in 2022 and 2023 when multiple counted-upon players were stuck on the sideline in March. Ivey had plenty to work with this time around, including a first-team All-American in Hidalgo, a second-team All-American in Miles and an honorable mention All- American in Citron. Her team still did not get the job done. And within a couple days of the defeat to the Horned Frogs in the Birmingham 3 Regional Semifinal, that team was all but completely disbanded. Five players exhausted their eligibil- ity (Citron, Westbeld, King, Karlen and former walk-on Sarah Cernugel), while four players entered the transfer por- tal within four days of the season end- ing (Miles, Risch, Koval and Watson). That's eight scholarship players on the way out, leaving just five on the 2025-26 roster as of April 1; Hidalgo, Bransford, Watson, Prosper and incoming true freshman Leah Macy. Bransford and Notre Dame's Season Ends In Familiar Fashion WOMEN'S B A S K E T B A L L Head coach Niele Ivey's Fighting Irish program lost in the Sweet 16 for the fourth straight season. PHOTO BY MICHAEL MILLER