Tag: Niele Ivey

Notre Dame gets Pepperdine center Becky Obinma from transfer portal

The Irish have someone for the middle.

Last season, Notre Dame had transfer center in [autotag]Lauren Ebo[/autotag], and she played a key role en route to the ACC regular-season championship. [autotag]Niele Ivey[/autotag] has opted to play that card again for the 2023-24 season, looking to the transfer portal for a center again. This time, she has landed [autotag]Becky Obinma[/autotag] from Pepperdine.

For the past two seasons with the Waves and one season at TCU, Obinma has averaged 5.0 points, 4.8 rebounds and 0.9 blocks a game. She has yet to face an ACC opponent in her collegiate career, so this will be completely new territory for her. It will be new for the Irish, too, as she’s the only true center currently on the roster.

Ivey said the following about Obinma:

“I’m thrilled to officially welcome Becky to our Notre Dame family! Becky brings experience, athleticism and depth to the post position. She has a great motor and contagious energy on and off the court that will fit perfectly with our team. I’m looking forward to adding her post presence and speed in the open court to enhance our offensive capabilities.”

Here’s hoping this arrangement works out well for both her and the Irish.

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Notre Dame gives out team awards for 2022-23 season

Congratulations to the honorees.

For the second straight season, Notre Dame made noise that forced the women’s basketball world to pay attention to it. The impact this past year was even greater than the year before though. The Irish upset UConn during nonconference play, won the outright ACC regular-season championship and made their second straight Sweet 16. That’s a year almost any program would take.

The book on the 2022-23 season officially closed Wednesday when the Irish held their awards banquet. It had to have been tough for ACC Coach of the Year [autotag]Niele Ivey[/autotag] and her staff to select the winners of these awards. Then again, when you look at who won, you probably won’t be surprised. These winners embodied the very things they were honored for, and if the awards had to be voted on again, it’s likely the same results would have come out.

Here are the players who shined the most for the Irish this season:

Top 10 Notre Dame women’s basketball players according to ChatGPT

Does the bot know women’s basketball?

I asked AI information bot ChatGPT to list what it believes are Notre Dame’s top 10 men’s basketball players. It only makes sense for me to give the women equal treatment. Plus the women have both a better recent past and future than the men. You know people want to know who’s made the program so special.

Please note that ChatGPT’s knowledge cuts off at September 2021, so you won’t find [autotag]Olivia Miles[/autotag] on this list. Heck, she probably wouldn’t have made it anyway since she just completed her sophomore season. She still has a legacy to complete.

Here is ChatGPT’s disclaimer regarding the list:

“As a language model, I do not have personal opinions or beliefs, and my responses are generated based on data and information available to me. However, I can provide you with a list of some of the most notable Notre Dame women’s basketball players, based on their achievements, accolades, and impact on the program.”

It also says this:

“Please note that this list is not exhaustive and is subject to personal opinions and interpretations. There have been many talented and accomplished players in Notre Dame women’s basketball history, and different people may have different criteria for their top 10 selections.”

With that out of the way, let’s see who the information bot has deemed worthy of making this list and what it had to say about each player:

Notre Dame, South Carolina will begin 2023-24 season in Paris

Brush up on your French before November.

When Notre Dame was eliminated in the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament, it lost the chance to play South Carolina in the Elite Eight. The Irish won’t have to wait long to learn what might have happened. To tip off the 2023-24 season, they will meet the Gamecocks on Nov. 6 in Paris. It will be the first college basketball game played there for either men or women, and it will mark the Irish’s first game outside North America.

As you can imagine, [autotag]Niele Ivey[/autotag] is absolutely thrilled with this news:

This will be the second straight season in which the Irish are part of a historic first. When they met California in St. Louis last season, it was the first women’s college basketball game to be broadcast on NBC. Now, they’ll showcase their skills aboard at a time when women’s basketball is soaring in popularity. Whatever the outcome of this game is, everyone already is a winner.

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Chantel Jennings: Notre Dame will be No. 1 ahead of ’24 NCAA tourney

Think the Irish can achieve this next season?

Naturally, it’s way too early to predict how the 2023-24 season will go, but that’s not stopping people from doing it anyway. The most recent episode of the podcast “Sports Media with Richard Deitsch” wrapped up with predictions of which team will be the top ranked heading into the 2024 NCAA Tournament. Deitsch is picking UConn, a popular answer for such a question in any year. But Chantel Jennings, the senior women’s basketball writer for The Athletic, went out on a different limb.

In her attempt to win a coffee bet, Jennings predicted that Notre Dame would be the country’s top-ranked team right before the next edition of March Madness. She cited her belief that [autotag]Niele Ivey[/autotag] will acquire a lot of talent in the transfer portal. However, she also pointed out that it might not happen because of Notre Dame’s academic standards. Either way, it’s nice to know hopes for next season’s Irish are high for at least one prominent writer.

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Niele Ivey, Sonia Citron, Maddy Westbeld speak after Notre Dame loss

Here’s what was said in the final postgame news conference of the season.

For the second straight season, Notre Dame has gone out in the Sweet 16 during the NCAA Tournament. With the Irish’s bigs in foul trouble during the third quarter, it only was a matter of time before Maryland took advantage of a team that had no real remaining strength. That’s exactly what happened in a 76-59 Terrapins victory. All [autotag]Niele Ivey[/autotag] can do now is build a better team for next year and hope it will stay healthy – something this year’s team couldn’t do.

Ivey spoke after the Irish’s final game of the season alongside [autotag]Sonia Citron[/autotag] (14 points, seven rebounds) and [autotag]Maddy Westbeld[/autotag] (nine points, five rebounds). Had All-American point guard [autotag]Olivia Miles[/autotag] been able to play, there is little doubt that she would have taken part in the season’s last postgame news conference. Alas, she will have to hope that she’s able to do it next year, hopefully just after winning a national championship.

Here is some of what Ivey, Citron and Westbeld had to say:

Foul trouble dooms Notre Dame against Maryland in NCAA Tournament

The road has ended for the 2022-23 Irish.

With no [autotag]Olivia Miles[/autotag] or [autotag]Dara Mabrey[/autotag], Notre Dame relied heavily on its frontcourt for the NCAA Tournament. The problem with that is you only can succeed that way when the frontcourt is able to play.

When [autotag]Kylee Watson[/autotag] and [autotag]Lauren Ebo[/autotag] both picked up their fourth fouls during the third quarter of the Irish’s Sweet 16 game against Maryland, the bottom fell out of what had been a competitive contest. With [autotag]Niele Ivey[/autotag] forced to preserve Watson and Ebo for when they really might be needed, the Terrapins ended the quarter on a 13-1 run and never looked back in a 76-59 win, ending the Irish’s season.

The Irish (27-6) scored 13 unanswered points in the second quarter to take their biggest lead at eight. They remained in front by one at halftime but didn’t lead after that. While they tied the score five times in the third quarter, the smaller lineup they were forced to go to with their bigs in foul trouble ultimately caught up with them.

Diamond Miller and Shyanne Sellers combined to lead the guard-heavy Terrapins (28-6) with 30 of their 45 second-half points. They led by as much as 22 late in the fourth quarter as they punched their ticket to the Elite Eight.

After slow first halves, Miller and Sellers with 18 points apiece, and Sellers also had a game-high eight assists. Lavender Briggs scored 12 points in 25 minutes off the bench. Abby Meyers had 11 points and tied Miller for the team lead in steals with four. That gave Meyers and Miller eight of the Terrapins’ 15 steals.

[autotag]Sonia Citron[/autotag] lived up to her reputation as the Irish’s all-purpose player with 14 points and seven rebounds, but she also committed four turnovers. [autotag]KK Bransford[/autotag] led the Irish with seven assists but had four turnovers of her own. [autotag]Maddy Westbeld[/autotag] scored nine points but tied [autotag]Cassandre Prosper[/autotag] with a team-high five turnovers before fouling out. Ebo fouled out with seven points in her final college game.

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Tale of the Tape: Individual Leaders – Notre Dame vs. Maryland

The Irish are missing a key cog in this matchup. Try and guess who.

During the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament, [autotag]Niele Ivey[/autotag] described [autotag]Sonia Citron[/autotag] as Notre Dame’s all-purpose player. Ivey surely would have said that even before [autotag]Olivia Miles[/autotag] went down. If you need any evidence of that, look no further than the below chart. With Miles unavailable, Citron has assumed the leader title for a few prominent statistical categories, and there is no doubt that whether the Irish beat Maryland in the Sweet 16 will depend largely on her.

The Terrapins have their own all-purpose player in Diamond Miller. She dealt the Irish their first loss of the season when she beat the buzzer at Purcell Pavilion. There is no doubt that everything the Terrapins do runs through the Second Team All-American, and the Irish will have to battle her without Miles, also a Second Team All-American. That automatically puts the Irish at a disadvantage, but as March Madness has proved time and again, anything can happen.

Contact/Follow us @IrishWireND on Twitter, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Notre Dame news, notes, and opinions.

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Niele Ivey, Lauren Ebo, Maddy Westbeld speak after Notre Dame win

There was a lot to say after the victory.

SOUTH BEND – Although Notre Dame found itself in a battle with Mississippi State, it gladly will take a 53-48 win. The second-round victory means a trip to the Sweet 16, specifically Greenville Regional 1. One more win, and the Irish could face top-ranked and undefeated South Carolina in the Elite Eight. But for now, it’s all about the happy things.

[autotag]Niele Ivey[/autotag] is glad that her team was able to get this far after many had doubts because a roster shortened by injuries. [autotag]Lauren Ebo[/autotag] is basking in the aftermath of 10 points, five blocks and an Irish-tournament record 18 rebounds. [autotag]Maddy Westbeld[/autotag] likely doesn’t care that she didn’t score as much as in her last game, but her own 15 rebounds should allow her to be at peace with her performance.

All three appeared before the assembled media after the emotional Mississippi State contingent did. The Irish aren’t ready to shed tears for the end of the season yet because they still have at least one more game. Here are what Ivey, Ebo and Westbeld said before preparing for the NCAA Tournament’s second weekend:

Niele Ivey speaks ahead of Notre Dame’s second-round NCAA tourney game

How do you feel after reading these quotes from the coach?

SOUTH BEND – As a player, [autotag]Niele Ivey[/autotag] experienced what Purcell Pavilion is like when it hosts the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament. Now as the coach at Notre Dame, she knows what it’s like from the sidelines. The Irish’s first-round win over Southern Utah confirmed what she knew about the warm atmosphere the program’s fans provide. She’ll get to experience it again in the second round against Mississippi State.

While she still was reveling about the win over the Thunderbirds, she has another tournament game to prepare for. She knows what the Bulldogs will bring, and it’s her responsibility to relay that information to her team. She did that during practice the day before the Irish’s next test, and she then relayed her thoughts to assembled media during a news conference afterwards. While she obviously wouldn’t give away her exact strategy, she showed she’s been paying attention to the Bulldogs’ game.

Here is what she said during her post-practice news conference: