Blue and Gold Illustrated

48 NOV. 1, 2025 BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED BY TYLER HORKA F irst things first. Niele Ivey isn't shying away from the meltdown her team had last season — the fall from grace of the 2024‑25 Fighting Irish, once the No. 1 team in the nation and owners of a 19‑game winning streak, only to become the fourth straight Notre Dame team to have its season end in the Sweet 16. The Irish were a popular midseason national title pick. They ended up being no better than the injury‑riddled teams that came before them. That meltdown? It's Ivey's. "I'm taking ownership of everything," Ivey said at Notre Dame's local media day Oct. 15. "The highs and lows, I'm responsible for it." She's also responsible for the roster she's put together for the 2025‑26 sea‑ son. She's excited by it, but it's not any‑ where near as laden with talent across the board as the previous year's collec‑ tion of superstars. Notre Dame lost three players to the WNBA Draft in Sonia Citron, Maddy Westbeld and Liatu King. The Irish bid farewell to four more players via the transfer portal in Olivia Miles, Kate Koval, Emma Risch and Kylee Watson. Of that quartet, Miles is a surefire next‑ level prospect. Maybe even the No. 1 over‑ all pick in her draft class. Koval could be a pro player by the time she's ready to enter the draft as well. If she is, Notre Dame will have had five WNBA players on the 2024‑25 roster who did not carry over to 2025‑26. And that isn't including current junior Hannah Hidalgo, a two‑time All‑ American, the reigning ACC Player of the Year and the favorite to earn that accolade for a second consecutive season. Make no mistake, this is Hidalgo's team. She's not sharing the face of the program honor with anyone else. Who's she sharing the basketball with, though? Who's going to help her win games because, as good as she is, she can't win them all on her own? There are plenty of new faces eager to try their hands. And with them, new expectations. Lower expectations, perhaps. Ivey is OK with that. "This year, we're probably going to be under the radar from what people's ex‑ pectations are of us, and that doesn't matter to us," Ivey said. "It never matters outside of who we are in our locker room. Just focusing on getting better, focusing on this group, and focusing on what this group can do is what we all are in for." What this group can do remains to be seen. Outside of Hidalgo and seniors Cass Prosper and KK Bransford, the lat‑ ter of whom sat out last season to take a medical redshirt, every other scholarship player on Notre Dame's roster is new. The Irish will need production from Kansas State transfer Gisela Sanchez and Wake Forest transfer Malaya Cowles in the post on both ends of the court. Likewise from guards Vanessa de Jesus, formerly of Duke, and Iyana Moore, who previously played at Vanderbilt. Those are the core four transfers Ivey's sixth season in South Bend will largely hinge on. Get their best ball in addition to what Hidalgo, Prosper and Bransford bring, and Notre Dame has seven solid players to rely on nightly. Loyola Maryland trans‑ fer Kelly Ratigan, whose father, Brian Ratigan, is a Fighting Irish athletics or‑ thopedic surgeon, is a wild card. She'll need to round out Ivey's rotation of eight. The play of the transfers from the power programs will make or break Notre Dame's season, though. They all had varying degrees of success at their former institutions. Their best ball to date is required for Notre Dame to acquire optimum levels of achievement this winter and into the spring. They're well aware. And they've bought into Ivey's under‑the‑radar narrative. "I feel like we don't have anything to prove to the outside world," Moore said. "We have enough belief in our locker room. We don't need to prove it to everyone else that's not practicing with us. We know that we can go out there and do it. If people don't believe in us, it doesn't really matter because they're not here with us every single day as we're going through the tough times." "We're a really new team, but one thing that's undeniable is our chemistry on and off the court," de Jesus added. "We spent a lot of time since the sum‑ mer getting to know one another off the court and then our style of play together on the court, having that knowledge of one another. And just that love — I think that's something you can't teach." A seamless patchwork of putting pieces together against all odds is ex‑ actly what Ivey aimed for when her pre‑ vious roster went to shambles. So long as Notre Dame keeps winning, it really doesn't matter what the names on the back of the jerseys say. The Irish always play for the one on the front. "The expectation never changes," Ivey said. "The standard never changes." ✦ Notre Dame Relishes Bringing An 'Under-The-Radar' Roster Into 2025-26 Season WOMEN'S B A S K E T B A L L Head coach Niele Ivey's roster looks a lot different in her sixth sea- son than it did in her fifth, but she's confident in continued success. PHOTO BY MICHAEL MILLER

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