It does seem like it's very difficult to change things for athletes at this point. How many guru's did Tim Tebow hire after he left Fla to improve his passing...and he's a baseball player now!
Well Brianna Turner is done for the year with her knee. She's torn her ACL, and is looking at Surgery. Certainly there is a long road ahead for her to play next year, and will she be at the level that she was before the injury. Should she redshirt next year and come back in 2018? I'm sure no decision will be made on that till this fall when they can see how her rehab progressed. As I've said we don't really have anybody to replace her, we will have to basically outshoot Ohio State on Friday. Her presence in the middle as a shotblocker made our defense, now we don't have anybody to step in for her in that roll.
Terry, the two 2017 recruits each are 6'3". One is a 5-star, the other is a 4-star. Obviously Muffet is aiming to beef up our front court presence. While they'll only be freshmen nxt season, perhaps they can help to take the pressure off Turner, who - if she plays - will be coming off the injury and will need some effective relief until she hopefully gets back her mojo.
Yes those 2017 recruits are outstanding players as you noted and they aren't short! But won't help Friday night. Kristina Nelson is 6'4' but she has always been a backup, and Erin Boley and Kat Westbeld are both 6'2" but neither of them are post players. I'm not sure why but Muffet has struggled recruiting post players, Turner is of course the exception. But while we bring in all sorts of McDonald's AA's who are Wing type of players Guards and Forwards. Mabrey, Arike, Jackie Young, Ali Patberg, etc we just haven't been as successful bringing in that post player/shot blocker other than Turner.
Listened to Kelly's Press Conference, not a lot of new stuff. Looks like Tommy Kraemer and Eichenberg are going to battle it out for the starting RT. Alex Bars seems to be the likely starting RG. There was some thought at one time that Kraemer might be in the mix at RG and Eichenberg would be the RT..or maybe the opposite. Hoge seems to be the odd man out here, he came to ND with a lot of fan fare since his Uncle (or was it his dad) played in the NFL. But he doesn't seem likely to beat out Mustipher at Center and isn't likely to start at RG either. For some reason, Kevin Stepherson seems to be somebody who people aren't sure will be at ND next season. Nobody will say why, grades, just doesn't fit at ND, or what. He certainly had a good freshman year, after that rocky start with the traffic stop with pot in the car along with a couple of other players. The guy who everybody seems to like his improvement is Claypool. Big target, great hands. Brock Wright has impressed as well.
Times they are a changin'... Jumbotron in ND Stadium. and now this. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-22/notre-dame-sports-said-to-sell-commercial-rights-for-first-time It's all about maximizing the income of your "brand".
I'm not an alum, but I would like to see ND go to a scholarship system similar to the Ivy League. Basically, if you're smart enough to get in but your parents make less than 70k a year, it's free. It then goes on the sliding scale 'need base' from there. Signed, A frustrated parent of a high school student with a great ACT score and shitty grades.
Well the Irish Women put on quite a shooting exhibition tonight vs Ohio State and beat them easily. I was really dreading the Ohio State Size advantage on the inside, but we just shot the lights out and that was that and they just couldn't keep up. 6 players in double figures and Arike had 32 points. Next up is the winner of the Stanford/Texas game. Will again have to out shoot the winner. But it's possible. Jackie Young and Erin Boley showed why the were Nat'l Players of the year. On the football front there were some key recruits in for the weekend. They had 3 of their targets for the OL in Petit-Frere, Dirkson and Hayes also had both Zach and Nick Martin on campus! That has to help with those guys.
I didn't see the game but the Irish women lost a close one to Stanford. Elite 8 after losing Turner was a pretty great season. We should be a very good team again next year, with Jackie Young, Erin Boley, and Ali Patberg healthy along with Arike and Marina and Kat Westbeld to go with a couple of very talented freshmen. Team should be competing for the Final Four again. Irish Hockey is in the Frozen Four, beating the Golden Gophers and UMass-Lowell this weekend. Frozen Four will be in Chicago. Harvard and Minn-Duluth will also be there and likely Denver. Funny how things are in some of these sports. Denver is a power in Hockey and Men's lacrosse. Irish Fencing Team won the NCAA Championship.
Irish Lacrosse teams were on the road to get big wins, The women beat Syracuse and the men beat Ohio State.
Brandon Harris, LSU grad transfer, is going to UNC. That was a school that reportedly had interest in Malik Zaire. The other contender was supposedly Wisc, but from reading Wisc spring reports it seems like they are pretty set at QB with the returning QB having a very good Spring. I wonder where Malik will end up, he's been very closed mouth about his intentions. The DL that the Irish are interested in on the other hand was very open about the schools he was considering and he's in the process of taking visits, he was at ND a few weeks ago. He'd be a great addition to the Irish DL, but still people think he's likely to end up at a West Coast School. I think he's reportedly going to make his decision in May after all his visits are done.
We're off to a good start Tim! Now if we can keep up the good momentum and have a great year on the field this class could end up being one of our best in awhile.
If you haven't seen this article yet, it's a nice assessment of Elko's impact on the defense, written by the Indy Star's ND reporter. http://www.indystar.com/story/sport...-already-feeling-mike-elkos-effects/99624442/
ND <r><QUOTE><s> </e></QUOTE> Terry,<br/> I agree with you on the 2018 class. What scares me is the upcoming season. I hear a lot of positive things especially on offense but we arent going to know until they take the field for the regular season. We can't have another seaon like last year, we just can't. I just couldn't take it.</r>
Matt Ryan expected to transfer from ND MBB. Not sure if that's good, bad, or neutral. It certainly will affect our depth. He was not getting meaningful minutes, which apparently led to frustration. I hope it means that Bonzie is coming back and that he and Pflueger will be the starting forwards.
There was quite a bit of speculation that Matt would leave, and it always hurts when you lose a kid with potential like Matt Ryan. That said the guys who seem to know the most about ND Basketball feel like he wasn't a sure starter next year and that we'll be OK without him. Good luck to him. This is sort of the season for Basketball transfers, which seem to be growing over the years. Rice Owls had a good season, but lost their coach to VCU and promptly 4 Owls announced they were leaving the program.