Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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WOMEN'S BASKETBALL tional Tournament. It will be the heavy favorite in the 23rd annual tournament to be held in mid-November, with first- round pairings, as well as game locations, dates and times still to be determined. Notre Dame is among 11 teams in the field that advanced to postsea- son play in 2015-16, including NCAA Final Four participant Washington, second-round qualifier Missouri, reigning Mountain West Conference champion Colorado State and peren- nial Horizon League power Green Bay. Notre Dame won the Preseason WNIT in 2004 and last competed in it in 2011, when it advanced to the championship game in Waco, Texas, for a No. 1 versus No. 2 matchup against top-ranked Baylor, coming up on the short end of a 94-81 de- cision. They would also lose to the Brittney Griner-led and unbeaten Bears in the NCAA Tournament title game five months later. TAYA REIMER TO MICHIGAN STATE Former Notre Dame forward Taya Reimer is transferring to Michigan State next season and plans to com- pete immediately for the Spartans while spending her last two eligible seasons there. Selected as a team captain in 2015-16, Reimer battled an Achilles injury and played sparingly in five games before leaving the program in December. She remained enrolled for the spring semester and, accord- ing to The Lansing State Journal, took a whopping 22 credit hours in the spring and planned to take 12 more in the summer to complete her dou- ble major in the College of Arts & Letters at Notre Dame. An undergrad degree would make her eligible to compete in 2016-17 with the Spartans, who finished 25-9 last year but lose three starters. Reimer temporarily left the pro- gram as a sophomore, too, before returning and averaging 10.2 points and 6.1 rebounds per game to help the Irish to the NCAA championship game, where it lost to UConn. ✦ Head coach Muffet McGraw and the Irish will play in the Preseason WNIT for the fifth time in program history in November. Notre Dame last played in the event in 2011 and last won it in 2004. PHOTO BY JOE RAYMOND