Notre Dame remains No. 5 seed in most latest bracketologies

Sure feels like the Irish are stuck right now.

Notre Dame beat No. 5 Virginia Tech on Thursday, but most bracketologists remain unmoved. A couple of new bracketologies were released Friday, and the Irish remain where they’ve been in those particular ones. ESPN, CBS Sports and NCAA.com all have the Irish as a No. 5 seed, joining Her Hoop Stats from the day before. Only College Sports Madness currently has the Irish as a fourth seed.

Perhaps the biggest warning yet that the Irish might not get to host the first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament came from the Division I Women’s Basketball Committee. In the top 16 it released before Thursday’s game, the Irish were nowhere to be found. The way things are going, that probably wouldn’t have changed even if the rankings had been released after the game.

One now has to wonder if an Irish win over Louisville would be enough to bump them up in the seedings. Are they going to have to win the ACC Tournament to even have a shot at being a tournament host? It sure feels like it right now. We’ll see if they rise to that challenge.

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Notre Dame’s Hannah Hidalgo both ACC Player and Freshman of the Week

This young lady is going places.

To say Notre Dame freshman [autotag]Hannah Hidalgo[/autotag] is off to a fantastic start would be a huge understatement. She looked phenomenal in the Irish’s first game of the season and hasn’t looked back. Now, the ACC has rewarded her with both ACC Player and Freshman of the Week honors for her stellar play against Northwestern and Illinois over the past week.

[autotag]Brianna Turner[/autotag] is the only other Irish player to sweep both awards, doing so in January 2015. Hidalgo already is on her way to joining Turner among the plethora of Irish legends. She’s the ACC’s top scorer at 25.5 points a game, and she leads the nation in steals at 6.8 a game. The 27 steals she has accumulated through her first four games are the most in that span for any Division I player over the past 25 years.

While it is very early in her collegiate career, all signs point to Hidalgo keeping this incredible pace going. The Irish will be worth watching for her alone.

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Notre Dame legend Muffet McGraw to have statue outside Joyce Center

Congrats, Coach!

[autotag]Muffet McGraw[/autotag] coached herself to two national championships with Notre Dame and the Basketball Hall of Fame. Now, her likeness will live forever outside the Joyce Center. Joining the many Notre Dame coaching legends with statues on the school’s athletic complex, McGraw will have her own statue unveiled before the Irish’s Dec. 17 game against Purdue.

McGraw earned 848 of her 936 career victories at Notre Dame, where she coached the women’s basketball program from 1987 to 2020, finish below .500 only twice during that time. Only six coaches are ahead of her on the all-time Division I wins list. She was named the consensus national coach of the year three times.

McGraw coached 20 WNBA players, five Olympians and 22 All-Americans. Among her most notable players at Notre Dame were [autotag]Ruth Riley[/autotag], [autotag]Skylar Diggins[/autotag], [autotag]Brianna Turner[/autotag], [autotag]Jewell Loyd[/autotag], [autotag]Kayla McBride[/autotag] and [autotag]Arike Ogunbowale[/autotag].

Join us in congratulating this Irish coaching legend. May she serve as an inspiration for Notre Dame women’s basketball players and coaches in the generations to come.

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Photos from Notre Dame’s exhibition win over Purdue Northwest

The Irish are back!

Notre Dame finally was able to get back on the Purcell Pavilion court and compete. Purdue Northwest had the rare honor of being this year’s exhibition opponent for a Division I powerhouse.

It’s unlikely the Pride had any expectations of winning, which they realistically shouldn’t have. If anything, it was an honor to have the chance to lose to the Irish, 110-48.

[autotag]Hannah Hidalgo[/autotag], this year’s freshman phenom, led everybody with 23 points and seven assists. [autotag]Sonia Citron[/autotag] was just behind Hidalgo in the scoring column with 22 points and came within a rebound of a double-double.

[autotag]Becky Obinma[/autotag] completed the double-double with a line of 12 points and 12 rebounds. Also reaching double figures in scoring for the Irish were [autotag]Maddy Westbeld[/autotag] (17), [autotag]Cassandre Prosper[/autotag] (15) and [autotag]Natalija Marshall[/autotag] (11).

[autotag]Olivia Miles[/autotag] was on the bench as she continues to recover from the knee injury she suffered late last season. The timeline for her return remains unclear, but hopefully, it won’t be too long of a wait.

Here are photos from the exhibition contest in South Bend:

What the experts are predicting: Notre Dame vs. Tennessee State

What’s your prediction?

Notre Dame and Tennessee State have not met before, but they will Saturday in the first 2023 game at Notre Dame Stadium. Some Irish fans might not be happy about the Football Championship Subdivision level coming to South Bend, but there’s nothing that can be done about that right now. The only thing fans should be focused on is the Irish improving to 2-0.

Let’s look at what some college football experts are predicting for this game:

Notre Dame will face Xavier in secret scrimmage before season

Here’s something for the Irish to look forward to.

Secret scrimmages in college basketball always are interesting affairs. Two Division I schools play each other before the season begins, but no fans or media are allowed. We now know Notre Dame will be taking part in at least one of these ahead of the 2023-24 season. Rick Broering of 247Sports is reporting that multiple sources have confirmed a secret scrimmage between the Irish and Xavier.

Even if the scrimmage doesn’t officially count for anything, it will be a good test for the Irish to see how far they have to go. At the same time, while the Musketeers made the Sweet 16 in last year’s NCAA Tournament, their roster also is facing some turnover, albeit not as much as the Irish’s. The scrimmage likely will take place at the end of October.

Although this figures not to be a season to remember except for the debut of [autotag]Micah Shrewsberry[/autotag]’s Irish tenure, one at least has to be excited about college basketball making its return before we know it. We just have to wait a little bit.

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Notre Dame lands 2023 forward recruit Carey Booth

Finally, some size.

Notre Dame desperately has been searching for size with very little of it returning in 2023-24. [autotag]Braeden Shrewsberry[/autotag], son of coach [autotag]Micah Shrewsberry[/autotag], committed to the Irish, but he merely was the latest entry on a long list of guards they’ve had lately. Finally, the program has a new forward in [autotag]Carey Booth[/autotag], who announced his own commitment to the Irish less than 24 hours after Shrewsberry.

Booth is a four-star recruit and fourth on the list of 2023 recruits in New Hampshire. At 6-foot-10, he fills the height left by [autotag]Nate Laszewski[/autotag] and likely the young forward role left by the transferred Ven-Allen Lubin. Depending on how the rest of the roster shapes up, he could be thrust into the spotlight immediately.

Like Braeden Shrewsberry, Booth appeared headed to Penn State. Instead, he also is taking his talents to South Bend so that he’ll play for Micah Shrewsberry after all. He also previously visited Marquette and California and received offers from 13 other Division I schools.

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Running clock on first down among college football rule changes

One rule is being drastically changed.

One of the features that has distinguished college football games from NFL games mow mostly is a thing of the past. The Football Rules Committee has announced that for all NCAA Division I and Division II games, the clock will continue to run after a first down is picked up except in the final two minutes of a half. The clock had stopped after every first down since 1968.

The committee also introduced two other rule changes. If a penalty is accepted at the end of the first or third quarter, it will be enforced at the start of the next quarter instead of on an untimed down. Also, back-to-back timeouts no longer can be called during the same dead ball.

Many college football fans probably won’t like the new first-down rule. But with the pitch clock doing its job of cutting out dead time in MLB, speeding things up is becoming a trend in sports. Besides, are you really a fan of three-and-a-half hour games? Think about it.

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Legendary coach Jim Boeheim done at Syracuse after 47 seasons

Another coaching legend is out the door.

Jim Boeheim, the second-winningest coach in Division I basketball history, has coached his last game for Syracuse. Only a few hours after the Orange were eliminated by Wake Forest in the ACC Tournament, the university announced that Boeheim’s 47th season at the helm was his final one. He will be succeeded by Orange assistant Adrian Autry, who played for Boeheim from 1990 to 1994.

Notre Dame’s first game against Boeheim’s Orange was a 65-62 loss Feb. 9, 1985 at Purcell Pavilion. Most recently, the Orange had a come-from-behind 78-73 victory Jan. 14 in Syracuse. Overall, the Irish went 16-31 in the rivalry during that time. The programs have battled every year as conference rivals since 1996 first in the Big East with the Irish losing two of three meetings in that conference’s tournament, and then, in the ACC.

Fighting Irish Wire was lucky to be in South Bend for what turned out to be Boeheim’s final trip there. After his team’s 62-61 victory, we were able to sit in on his postgame news conference. We couldn’t pass up the opportunity to snap a photo of the Hall of Famer, which is what you’re seeing at the top of this story.

Much like [autotag]Mike Brey[/autotag], who coached his own final game for an ACC program he has become synonymous with less than 24 hours earlier, Boeheim will be missed, and we wish him well.

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Division I women’s college golf is adopting the .500 rule, a change many coaches have wanted for years

“Some programs may need to rethink their scheduling.”

It’s a change that has been discussed for years, and it’s finally coming to Division I women’s college golf.

The NCAA competitions oversight committee approved the .500 rule, and the NCAA notified coaches last week that the changes would go into effect for the 2024-25 season. The .500 rule requires a team to finish the regular season with a .500 or better winning percentage head-to-head against other Div. I opponents to be eligible for regionals. The lone exception is if a team wins its conference title. Div. I men’s college golf has had the .500 rule since 2007-08.

Mark Bedics, the NCAA’s associate director of championships for Div. I women’s golf, said the COC recently asked the women’s golf committee to revisit the .500 rule, which didn’t pass a vote in 2016. The committee sent a survey to head coaches and assistants from all 269 D-I programs in early January. About 75 percent of coaches responded. Of that number, more than 70 percent of that number voted in favor.

“The COC came back and said to women’s golf that they were the only sport that didn’t have a .500 rule and asked them to explain why not,” Bedics told Golfweek. “We asked why women’s golf needed to be different from every other sport, and there was no compelling reason why. Therefore, they passed it.”

Campbell women’s coach John Crooks was one of the coaches pushing most for the rule change. He said the rankings will be more accurate now with more teams getting the recognition they deserve instead of those with losing records being invited to regionals.

“Adopting the .500 rule is great news for women’s golf,” Crooks said. “Finally, the NCAA Committee addressed the issue with fresh new eyes. I would personally like to thank the committee members for doing the right thing.”

Courtney Gunter is the head women’s coach at Western Carolina, a mid-major, and she played collegiately at North Carolina. She has a unique perspective from both sides. Gunter said the .500 rule could keep her team in a strange middle area, but she’s a proponent of the rule.

“I believe the .500 (rule) has been long overdue in our sport,” she said. “Year after year we see at least one team, many times more, getting an at-large bid to regionals based on their schedule and not how they actually performed.

“Spots at regionals shouldn’t be taken by teams that don’t have a .500 record. It’s not fair to teams just outside that magic number that have shown they are worthy and have a great chance at making a run in post season.”

One of the most significant changes will be how teams make their schedules. It means there’s likely to be more mixing between Power-5 opponents and mid-majors.

“I think we all recognize that there will be some changes to scheduling, and it will be interesting to see how everyone manages it,” Wisconsin coach Todd Oerhlein said. “More head-to-head connections between teams should only improve the accuracy of the rankings.”

Added James Madison coach Tommy Baker: “The .500 rule being passed will undoubtedly allow for more of an equal playing field as it pertains to qualifying as an ‘at-large’ selection for postseason play. I am not aware of any other sport that allows teams with under .500 win/loss record to play in postseason, so it’s a no brainer on that front alone. It gets tougher every season trying to bolster our strength of schedule, and this should allow for more flexibility and opportunities moving forward. I understand and respect the concerns voiced by my colleagues at Power 5 institutions but feel this creates more opportunities than it does deny them.”

Pepperdine coach Laurie Gibbs, who is in her 30th season at the helm and has guided the Waves to 12 NCAA Championship appearances, said the change shouldn’t affect teams ranked in the top 30, nor will it impact the NCAA Championship field.

“There are some excellent tournaments that will begin to rotate a few invitations each year and provide more opportunities for mid-major teams and student-athletes to play,” Gibbs said.

Of the top-50 teams in the Golfweek/Sagarin rankings, five have a winning percentage below .500 as of Feb. 24: Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, California and Alabama.

UCLA coach Carrie Forsyth said arguments made against the .500 rule by top programs sound like coaches trying to protect themselves and their tournament schedules.

“Most top programs don’t want to have to compete in weaker fields just to ensure they can make it to postseason, but that’s what is likely to happen,” Forsyth said. “Ultimately, women’s golf was the last NCAA sport that did not have a .500 rule in place, and we could not justify that position any longer in the current climate. We already play a mixed bag of super-strong field events and mid-range events. I don’t see us making any changes to what we do because of this new rule. But some programs may need to rethink their scheduling.”

Mid-major programs have long clamored for more opportunities, and this will undoubtedly give them those. East Tennessee State coach Stefanie Shelton said similar to increasing the amount of teams at the NCAA Championships to 30, this is a step forward for women’s college golf.

“I believe the depth of competitive teams in NCAA women’s golf is deeper than ever, and I am pro-opportunities for the ladies,” Shelton said. “I believe this move will open a lot of doors for mid-majors.”

Teams won’t have to reshape their entire schedules. It’s likely only two or three tournaments, if even, will be switched up. And in some cases, none.

However, come 2024-25, the .500 rule will finally be in women’s college golf.

“Hopefully this opens up opportunities for teams and student-athletes to experience more courses and visit areas of the country they haven’t been, as well,” Bedics said.

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