FORT WORTH, TX ― By every logical metric, the Notre Dame Fighting Irish (25-10) aren’t supposed to be in Sunday’s Elite Eight game against the UConn Huskies (37-0) at Dickies Arena.
Before this season began, Notre Dame lost four players to the transfer portal, including starter Olivia Miles. Miles, who averaged 13 points and nearly six assists a game during four seasons at Notre Dame, moved on to TCU, reconfiguring the identity of the Irish with her decision.Within weeks, Notre Dame also lost glue player Sonia Citron and two others to the WNBA, further decimating its already thin roster. Hannah Hidalgo, KK Bransford and Cassandre Prosper were lone returning players, looking to get Notre Dame back to the Women’s NCAA Tournament.
“I don’t think anybody had expectations for us this season, so I’m the type of coach that I have a bubble. I have a circle, (a) circle of network, and I stay within that bubble,” Irish head coach Niele Ivey said.
“We talked about, in the beginning of the year, no one is going to expect anything out of us. We have to expect it out of ourselves. That’s what we talked about, and we kind of (quieted) the noise, got to work, built the relationships, and I just focused on trying to get better. That’s all you can do.”
Ivey says with so many changes, she began looked for players to fill open positions. She needed another ball handler outside of Hidalgo. Ivey found Vanessa De Jesus, a Duke transfer guard, who could be the Irish’s floor general and score. The Fighting Irish needed a player who could space the floor and shoot. Enter Iyana Moore, another transfer guard, this time from Vanderbilt. Ivey also wanted more versatility and size from her post positions. She found Gisela Sanchez from Kansas State and Malaya Cowles from Wake Forrest.
Signing so many transfers wasn’t easy, but, Ivey said, they “checked the boxes” her players need to have: family-oriented, committed to academics and high character. Then came the difficult part: making sure that who she brought in meshed with Notre Dame’s core. De Jesus told USA TODAY Sports she and her teammates started building chemistry through off-court activities last summer.
“We knew that once we got a couple of practices in, played together ― had a couple of pickup games ― that we have a really special group,” De Jesus said. “It was just so easy hanging out with one another. We’d play (the game) Mafia all the time, just at the house, or go to someone’s house and just make food together. So I think seeing that bond off the court ― sometimes it’s rare in different programs ― but literally no drama.”
De Jesus says time spent together, including events like a player-led retreat to learn communication styles, helped the Fighting Irish build trust and believe in each other. According to De Jesus, the Irish leaned on Hidalgo, Bransford and Prosper’s leadership to help them get through the season, including a brutal stretch to open ACC play in January.
Notre Dame was without Bransford for the entire month, a devastating blow to the team’s growing synergy. Bransford, whom Ivey has spoken about as being essential, does the things that don’t show up on a stat sheet: sealing off her defender to keep them from rebounding a basketball, saving a possession from becoming a turnover and causing deflections.
Without Bransford, Notre Dame went 3-6 in January, casting doubt on if the team would even make the NCAA Tournament. Then, February arrived and changed the complexation of the season. Bransford returned, and so did Notre Dame’s confidence. The Fighting Irish went 7-1 over the month, adding an exclamation point to their unexpected resurgence with a top 10 upset over Louisville to end the regular season.
“A lot of people counted us out early on, didn’t think this team would be here like (Coach Ivey) said. So all we had is what we knew in this locker room,” Moore told USA TODAY. “We had faith in each other and ourselves, and our coach had faith in us, so that’s all we needed to get here.”
Moore said the team developed a “Why not us?” mindset at the beginning of the season and became a proverbial rally cry every time the Irish surpassed expectations. Finish the regular season with only nine losses? Why not us? Go down to the wire with Duke in the ACC Tournament semifinal game? Why not us? Make it to the Elite Eight, upsetting the Commodores and the top scorer in the country? Why not us?
However, another question has emerged from the chatter surrounding the team: Why did seemingly no one expect Notre Dame to have this kind of success?
“I’m not really sure, to be honest,” Bransford said bluntly to USA TODAY Sports.
“My parents are like ‘You’re delusional,’ but I kind of always had this expectation for this team, just seeing how we worked in the summer. I knew it was going to take some ups and downs just because we’re a new team. So the chemistry had to be there, but at the end of the day, I’m not sure why people doubted us. I knew eventually it was going to click.”
Bransford said she told Ivey she was proud of her after the Sweet 16 win. The Irish guard says her coach has grown since she joined the program in 2022. Brandsford complimented Ivey’s “Xs and Os” and playcalling, saying the improvement in those areas is why the team has so much belief.
On Sunday, Notre Dame will lean on Ivey again when it plays UConn in a rematch of a Jan. 19 game, where the Irish lost by 38 points, 85-47. Hidalgo told the media on site in Fort Worth that beatdown was not “Notre Dame basketball.”
She shared the team had confidence it would win that game, but being in the environment at Gampel Pavilion changed things. Many of Hidalgo’s teammates hadn’t been in that sort of atmosphere before.
“I can say last time, I think we were a little, probably star-struck, being (on) a stage like that was different. We hadn’t seen a stage like that,” Hidalgo said. “So now that we’ve seen it, we’ve been through it, I think it’ll help us a lot more.”
Hidalgo’s teammates also believe Sunday could be different.
“We’re here. We’re here in the Elite Eight. We’re here for a reason. Why not us? Because we’ve worked hard,” Bransford said. “Now I think it’s just coming all together.”
