Tag: Sweet 16

Notre Dame makes top five for Zach Randolph’s daughter Mackenly

Hope they get her.

Notre Dame is looking forward to an exciting season. Almost all of last season’s Sweet 16 team will be back, and highly touted freshman [autotag]Hannah Hidalgo[/autotag] has been added to the mix.

But that doesn’t mean the future can’t be just as exciting as the present. The Irish have reason to be even more hopeful after Mackenly Randolph, daughter of former NBA All-Star Zach Randolph, listed the Irish as one of her final five choices:

Randolph has a five-star rating and a 96 grade on ESPNW. She made the MaxPreps California All-State Girls Basketball Second Team, and the following was said about her:

“Named to the all-area teams by the Los Angeles Times and the Los Angeles Daily News and also a CIF Southern Section All-Open Division team, Randolph averaged 16.9 points and 10.1 rebounds per game.”

The Irish will up against South Carolina, Duke, Louisville and Michigan State for Randolph’s services. That’s some pretty stiff competition, but it’s one the Irish can win. Best of luck to [autotag]Niele Ivey[/autotag] and her staff.

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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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Watch: Notre Dame’s Sonia Citron makes a bunch of shots in practice

This is worth getting excited about.

In the immortal words of Allen Iverson, we’re talking about practice. After its second straight Sweet 16 run, Notre Dame is back to working out as a team. Nothing can be taken for granted if the Irish plan on getting at least that far for the third consecutive season. That includes shooting, and [autotag]Sonia Citron[/autotag] shows off how good she is at it in this workout clip released by the Irish:

In this clip, we see her make nine of the 10 shots she attempts. Based on the voice we hear off screen, it sounds like she made 42 shots before the buzzer sounded. Assuming that’s true, she fully deserves the congratulations she receives from her teammates near the end of the clip.

This past season, Citron led the Irish with 14.7 points a game and 48 3-pointers while shooting 47.6% from the field, including 40.0% from beyond the arc. If this clip is any indication, she’ll be just as lethal in the upcoming season, if not more. It will be exciting to watch.

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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 men’s basketball players according to ChatGPT

Let’s see what AI knows about Irish men’s hoops.

For the past few months, I’ve heard quite a bit about the AI information bot known as ChatGPT. It was the subject of an episode during this past season of “South Park”. More importantly, I’ve heard how it’s such a game-changer that writing jobs are done for. We’ll see about that as I’m not too worried about it, but then again, I’m sure newspaper employees said the same thing about the internet in the mid-1990s.

When our editor Nick Shepkowski decided to ask ChatGPT what it thought Notre Dame’s 10 best football players were, I decided to follow suit and ask the same question but for the 10 best men’s basketball players instead. Keep in mind that even the bot knows this list is subjective:

“Please note that there are many other outstanding players who have played for Notre Dame and could also be included on this list.”

So keep that in mind as you go over the following list, which also includes ChatGPT’s description of each player:

Thirteen Notre Dame players make ACC All-Academic Team

These players knew to hit the books before they hit the court.

Generally speaking, Notre Dame basketball is a very mixed bag right now. The women are coming off their second straight Sweet 16 appearance in the NCAA Tournament. After a historically bad season, the men have a new coach and need to somehow figure out how to fill up a roster with many gaps. The one thing both programs have in common is they have some very intelligent players.

As a reflection of Notre Dame’s high classroom standards, 13 basketball players have made their respective ACC All-Academic Teams. Specifically, seven women and six men were so honored. It’s the latest example of the university refusing to compromise its values if it means accepting student-athletes who won’t take their studies seriously. With this latest news, that stubbornness won’t change anytime soon.

Take a look at the players who are as good in the classroom as they are on the court. Maybe this can serve as an inspiration to a young person who is struggling with grades. If you are one of them, don’t give up because these men and women sure don’t. It’s the first ACC All-Academic selection for all players unless noted:

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

Follow Geoffrey on Twitter: @gfclark89

Final 2022-23 ACC women’s basketball leaders

Here’s the best the ACC had to offer in the major statistical categories this season.

With Virginia Tech’s loss in the Final Four, the 2022-23 ACC season is complete. It was quite the successful season for the conference as it boasted many of the best teams and players in the country. Notre Dame made it to the Sweet 16. Miami and Louisville got as far as the Elite Eight. And let’s not discount Duke, Florida State or North Carolina, all of whom made the NCAA Tournament. Whichever program you chose to follow, chances are you wouldn’t be disappointed the quality of basketball.

Now that we’ve paid tribute to the best teams, let’s look at the players who were the best in the major statistical categories during the season. Not every player on the list represented a top conference team, but their presence alone made even the most abysmal conference games worth watching. Next year’s conference players will have a lot to live up to following in the footsteps of these ladies. Heck, some of them could be back on this list at the end of next season:

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:

PHOTO GALLERY: Alabama’s season-ending loss to San Diego State

Check out the top images from Alabama’s final game of the 2022-2023 season.

Alabama men’s basketball’s 2022-2023 season has come to an end after suffering a disheartening 71-64 loss to San Diego State in the Sweet 16.

Fans online have raised questions regarding the officiating; but at the end of the day, the Crimson Tide only made three of the 27 attempts threes and shot 32.4% from the field.

The offseason will be an interesting one for Nate Oats as he will lose two top assistants who will both be receiving head coaching jobs elsewhere. He is also expected to lose Brandon Miller to the NBA and could see multiple other players leave for either the draft or the transfer portal.

With the Crimson Tide’s season having reached its conclusion, take a look back at the top images from Alabama’s final game of the season.