Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
Issue link: https://read.uberflip.com/i/1105789
52 MAY 2019 BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED WOMEN'S BASKETBALL BY LOU SOMOGYI T he Notre Dame women's col- lege basketball house was go- ing to be gutted in 2019-20 with this year's graduation of Arike Ogunbowale, Brianna Turner, Jessica Shepard and Marina Mabrey following the heartbreaking 82-81 loss to Baylor in the national title game April 7. Then on April 8 it was razzed to its foundation when junior guard Jackie Young declared for the WNBA Draft that was held two days later — and where she would be the No. 1 overall pick. It is a massive makeover remi- niscent of what happened to Notre Dame men's basketball in 1981 af- ter losing in the second round of the NCAA Tournament to Brigham Young on Danny Ainge's (in)famous full-court drive and basket to close the game. In the eight years from 1974-81, the Fighting Irish were a perennial top-10 program, highlighted by the 1978 Final Four and temporary No. 1 rankings in 1974 and 1979. After that loss to BYU, Notre Dame graduated three NBA top- 25 picks in Orlando Woolridge (No. 6), Kelly Tripucka (No. 12) and Tracy Jack- son (No. 25) — plus freshman center Joe Kleine, a future No. 6 overall pick, transferred to Arkansas. The lone returnee for the 1981-82 team was yet another future first- round pick in guard John Paxson, but even he was not enough to prevent a drop-off to a 10-17 record that season. It took four years before Notre Dame returned to the NCAA Tournament in 1985. A similar precipitous descent from the 2019-20 Fighting Irish women isn't envisioned because there is less parity in their game, but duplicating the astounding run of success that the program experienced from 2011- 19 — eight straight No. 1 seeds and conference titles, seven Final Fours in nine years and the 2018 national title — will be extremely difficult with so much turnover. Here are some most-asked questions: Is this the end of Notre Dame's reign as one of the nation's top three programs in the 2010-19 decade? Hopefully not in the long run through 2020-29, but in 2019-20 there will be some inevitable pangs of growth. The Fighting Irish are also go- ing to need top-shelf recruiting hauls in 2020 and 2021 to start getting back into the Final Four conversation. Players such as Turner, Shepard, Ogunbowale and Young were all ei- ther top-five or top-10 rated recruits or even national players of the year (Turner and Young) — and Mabrey was the co-MVP in the McDonald's All-American Game. When they ar- rived, they already had established veterans and star power on the roster such as Skylar Diggins, Kayla Mc- Bride, Natalie Achonwa, Jewell Loyd, Madison Cable, Lindsay Allen … for guidance and to take the burden off of them. The marquee figure on next year's team is incoming freshman Sa- mantha Brunelle — a top-five recruit like many of her predecessors this decade — but that's putting way too much on a rookie. Even with Young, the ceiling next season might have been the Sweet 16. One can't lose an entire start- ing lineup that tallied 10,230 career points — easily the most in NCAA basketball annals — and not feel the effects. Minus Young, just getting an invite to the NCAA Tournament in 2020 is the first goal, and then build from there. MASSIVE MAKEOVER No team in 2019-20 in any sport will have as much production to replace than Fighting Irish women's basketball Forward Mikayla Vaughn appeared in 38 of 39 contests this past season as a sophomore and averaged 3.3 points and 2.4 rebounds per game. PHOTO COURTESY FIGHTING IRISH DIGITAL MEDIA