It’s been a bit since Notre Dame women’s basketball was last at the pinnacle of the sport.

This year’s group of Fighting Irish players are working to change that.

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A seven-time participant in the national championship game and a two-time national champion, Notre Dame has seen its share of hardware over the years and has gotten past the humps of losing a Hall of Fame coach to become a truly fierce program once again heading into the 2024-25 season.

Before the Irish make their push in March for the Final Four in Tampa, however, they’ll be duking it out at the Cayman Islands Classic with other top-level power-conference squads in late November in what could end up being some early NCAA Tournament matchup previews.

There’s a loaded squad suiting up in South Bend this year, and if Notre Dame is to make noise and get back to being one of the nation’s most consistently elite programs, this is the year for it to do it.

Here’s a look ahead at all you need to know about Notre Dame women’s basketball ahead of both the 2024-25 season and the 2024 Cayman Islands Classic — the latter of which will be streamed live and exclusively on FloHoops:

Last Season

• 28-7 overall (13-5 ACC)
• Won ACC Tournament
• Lost to Oregon State in NCAA Sweet 16

Saddled with the near-impossible challenge of being the first coach to lead the Notre Dame women’s basketball program following the retirement of two-time national champion and Hall of Fame coach Muffet McGraw after the 2019-20 season, fifth-year coach Niele Ivey has gone on to build power in her own right in South Bend.

And in 2023-24, the Fighting Irish took their biggest leap yet under her direction.

Notre Dame won its most games since 2018-19 and secured a No. 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament — the program’s third straight trip and 29th all-time — off the back of an Atlantic Coast Conference Tournament championship, where the No. 4-seeded Irish survived a gauntlet of Louisville, Virginia Tech and NC State across three days to secure their first ACC title since 2019.

The one thing that’s evaded Ivey since she took over, however, is a March Madness run past the Sweet 16, and Notre Dame, after cruising through its first two tourney games against Kent State and Ole Miss in South Bend on the opening weekend, which was knocked out of the regional semifinals for the third straight tournament when No. 3 Oregon State took down the Irish in the Albany Regional. 

McGraw made Elite Eight (or better) trips routine under her direction, taking Notre Dame to the Elite Eight 10 times and the Final Four nine times, and former Irish star Ivey still needs to have a signature run of her own. But as the nation’s No. 6-ranked team in the Preseason Associated Press Top 25 Poll, don’t be shocked if Notre Dame finally gets back to the national quarterfinals — and maybe further — this time around.

Returners

• Hannah Hidalgo, G, Soph., Merchantville, N.J.
• Sonia Citron, G, Sr., Eastchester, N.Y.
• Maddy Westbeld, F, Gr., Kettering, Ohio
• Cassandre Prosper, G, Soph., Montreal
• KK Bransford, G, Jr., Cincinnati
• Kylee Watson, F, Sr., Linwood, N.J.
• Emma Risch, G, Soph., Melbourne, Fla.
• Sarah Cernugel, G, Gr., Westmont, Ill. 
• Olivia Miles, G, Gr., Phillipsburg, N.J.

Nine returners are back for the Fighting Irish for 2024-25, yet arguably the team’s most important player might be someone who didn’t play a single minute of basketball last season.

Miles is already a two-time First Team All-ACC selection in her career, being the league’s Player of the Year runner-up as a sophomore in 2022-23, but she suffered a knee injury in the regular-season finale of that season and missed both the rest of that year and the year that followed nursing it back to full health.

Now back in action and ready to go, Miles will be an instant injection of production for an Irish team that was already pretty good without her, but now gets even better with a player who has All-American potential. Her return is even more crucial considering that Westbeld — the team’s third-leading scorer and top rebounder from a year ago who could be one of multiple Notre Dame players selected in next year’s WNBA Draft — will miss the beginning of the season with a foot injury, per a statement on her social media pages.

Oh, and we haven’t even discussed that Notre Dame also has a returning AP First-Team All-American.

Hidalgo entered Notre Dame as a blue-chip recruit and immediately made a monster impact in her first college season, winning the Dawn Staley Award as the top guard in the country — and taking it from three-time defending winner/Iowa superstar Caitlin Clark — as she averaged 22.6 points and 4.6 steals per game, both of which are Irish single-season records. 

As good of a pure scorer, as she is an elite-level defender, being the defending ACC Defensive Player of the Year, Hidalgo looks to be another Notre Dame backcourt star along with the likes of Skylar Diggins-Smith, Jackie Young, and many others.

Throw in the fact that Citron averaged 17.3 points per night last season and was an All-ACC Second Team selection (with Westbeld) in her own right, and you won’t find many teams across the country who have the amount of top-level talent that Notre Dame does for 2024-25.

Transfers/Freshman

• Liza Karlen, F, Gr., Saint Paul, Minn. (Marquette)
• Liatu King, F, Gr., Washington, D.C. (Pittsburgh)
• Kate Koval, F, Fr., Kyiv, Ukraine

Considering the personnel that Notre Dame had coming back for this season, the Irish didn’t need to heavily raid the transfer portal, but getting two more first-team all-conference additions onto the roster certainly doesn’t hurt.

The name most familiar to ACC women’s hoops fans is King, who went from being an occasional double-double threat at Pitt across her first three seasons to being the only player in the league not named Elizabeth Kitley in 2023-24 to average a double-double for an entire season (18.7 points, 10.3 rebounds per game). 

Named both the ACC’s Most Improved Player and a First-Team All-ACC selection, King (who played for a bad Pitt team that never won more than 11 games in any of her four seasons at the school) will now get a chance to shine with one of the most storied programs in the sport, and for as long as Westbeld is out, she’ll be especially important in terms of bringing down boards and getting the rock to Notre Dame’s high-octane guards.

Karlen, meanwhile, was a double-digit scorer across three straight seasons for the Golden Eagles, exploding in 2023-24 with a career-high 17.7 points per night on 49.7% field goal percentage in BIG EAST play, which put her fourth in the conference. 

She was named First-Team All-BIG EAST for the first time last year as she led Marquette to 23 wins and an NCAA Tournament berth, and Karlen will now have a go at adding to the Irish’s experienced frontcourt depth with Westbeld, King, and returner Kylee Watson, who is coming back from a torn ACL suffered in the ACC Tournament.

Koval could add to that depth down low as the program’s lone freshman, as well, already being Notre Dame’s tallest player at 6-foot-5 and the nation’s No. 1 post recruit in the Class of 2024, per ESPN HoopGurlz rankings. 

X-Factor

• Is Olivia Miles Back And Better Than Ever?

A lot has changed at Notre Dame since Miles last suited up for the Fighting Irish, and while having so much talent on the roster is undoubtedly a good problem for the team to have, it does beg the question of where Miles will fit into the equation upon her return.

As long as there are no injury setbacks, though, it’s hard to not see Miles being an important piece to Notre Dame’s setup this upcoming season.

This season will be the first time that Miles and Hidalgo — two All-America-caliber players who could each easily lead Notre Dame to glory on their own — will coexist in the same backcourt, giving the Irish two of the most dangerous players in the country when they’re at their peaks. 

While Hidalgo is a pure scorer who reached double figures in all 35 games last year, led Notre Dame in 3-pointers (50), and had the most points scored (790) by a freshman in program history, Miles is already the program’s career triple-doubles leader with three and can score in bunches, but also opts to be a facilitator who can make an impact off the ball, too.

Chances are that Notre Dame will be just fine and find a setup that gets all of its stars plenty of situations to thrive, and Miles’ return — even if it takes a bit for her to get back up to speed after nearly a year-and-a-half away from the game — will make for a big addition for the Fighting Irish at the Cayman Islands Classic and beyond.

Cayman Islands Classic

Notre Dame will face TCU and Utah on Nov. 29 and 30, respectively, as part of the Cayman Islands Classic, streamed live and exclusively on FloHoops. The Cayman Islands Classic is part of FloHoops’ extended coverage of men’s and women’s college basketball all winter long, being the exclusive home of hoops across multiple NCAA Divisions I, II, and III conferences.

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