Final game of the regular season for the Irish ladies, vs the much hated Louisville Cardinals. A win here would give the Irish a double bye in the ACC Tournament. According to what people have been saying no team has ever won the women's ACC Tournament without the double bye. Louisville is a physical team that likes to intimidate you and their coach Jeff Walz is not well liked by ND fans, might say he's the most hated coach on the schedule.
Couple of notes from the combine. Jean-Baptiste ran a 4.66 40, pretty darn good for the big man. Audric Estime ran a 4.7 40 that will hurt him in the draft. Sam Hartman ran a 4.8 40 it won't make any difference, he's going to be a UDFA but the comments on Twitter about is hair were funny. Cam Hart who had an excellent career at ND as a DB had an excellent combine. But I keep reading that he's got shoulder issues that are going to cause NFL teams to focus on that more than his numbers. 10’10 broad jump, 39.5 inch vertical, and a 4.5 40. I don’t know how they come up with metrics on this, but they’ve got that as the 42nd best cornerback performance since 1987 (out of over 2209 cornerbacks).
Irish Women got a resounding win over Louisville, 74-58. Hildalgo lead the way with big time help from Citron, Westbeld and Kylie Watson. I didn't see the game, played golf, but reading the comments it was a physical game, some fans called the Louisville players thugs and their coach an incessant whiner. As I said Louisville is our most hated rival.
I don't know anything to speak of about lacrosse, but even I can go wow at this goal by ND Football WR, freshman Jordan Faison!! Note the football team on the sidelines for their fall teammate!!
Irish men have a very tough finish, going on the road first to Chapel Hill to face ACC leader and top 10 UNC, then off to Blacksburg to face Va.Tech a team with a similar ACC record but a better overall season so far and a 13-2 home record.
Nobody not named Catlin Clark is going to win this award, but quite the honor for true freshman, Notre Dame's Hannah Hildalgo to be a finalist.
Sonia Citron is one of my favorite basketball players, she is very smooth and does a lot of different things on the court, plus she's cute!! I just found out that Sonia and Marist Liufau have been dating for a couple of years.
Rare meeting on the baseball diamond between Notre Dame and Purdue this afternoon. It'll be a step up in competition for the Irish for sure and also an unusual early home game, weather isn't going to be great a high of 50 and some rain. Some Irish facts. - Notre Dame leads the all-time series 80-40-3 - Purdue won the last meeting 8-7 in February of 2018 in San Antonio - The Boilermakers haven’t traveled to South Bend since 2007 and haven’t won at Notre Dame since April of 200 - Notre Dame is tied for the ACC lead in home runs with 29 through three weekends - The Irish pitchers enter the week last in the ACC in ERA at 6.44 - Notre Dame also leads the ACC in fielding percentage at .988 Game Thread | Purdue at Notre Dame
Not a big surprise, UNC took the Irish to the woodshed tonight. 30+ point beat down. Now off to Blacksburg, Va.Tech no UNC but they are very tough at home. Baseball however finally got some good pitching and beat Purdue 11-2.
True that, but good to see Jacy get some recognition. She's our energizer bunny and scrappy as hell on both ends of the floor.
Baseball beat Purdue 11-2. Our 2B Estevan Moreno had 3 HR in the game. It's the third time he's done it and the second time in a week, for a school record. He's 6'3" and 215 lbs., huge for a 2B. The Irish are 11-2 and headed to Va. Tech this weekend for their first ACC series.
Certainly good news for the Irish Women's basketball team, but it will be interesting to see how well they play together. Olivia was the star of the team the last 2 years, now that mantle has clearly gone to Hannah Hildalgo. Which is why of course there was speculation from outside the program that Olivia would move on to a team that would give her the spotlight that Hannah has taken from her. The next thing is whether or not Maddy Westbeld will return to the Irish. She will graduate this year and can move on to the WNBA or come back and use her Covid year as so many others can do and I believe she is part of the last class that can do this in college sports. Unlike Catlin Clark, Maddy is a very good women's basketball player not an AA all-time great like Catlin so she's not likely to be drafted high by the WNBA. But even so it gets down to is she ready to move on from College Basketball and play in the WNBA or in Europe like her sister or comeback with the hope of a year where the team makes the final 4.
Irish Football Spring Drills started today. I eagerly await the reports of bigger, faster, better, etc that will be coming!! Seriously though the defense is expected to be very good this coming year with Al Golden back for his 3rd year and a number of returning starters. They keep saying our DT's are going to be amongst the best and Jack Kiser will be the leader on defense and is poised to have a great final year. Benjamin Morrison and Xavier Watts will be AA candidates in the backfield. So time to develop the younger guys to fit in with the vets. On offense a lot of changes, Riley Leonard can only watch so we won't know anything till the fall. Steve Angelli, Ben Minchey and CJ Carr will get plenty of time to sort out the backup. A new LT, Charles Jagusha of whom much is expected, and the RT for now is Tosh Baker who arrived more than a couple of seasons ago as a highly regarded recruit but hasn't so far lived up to that ranking. The interior is going to be again filled with highly regarded young players. Roco Spindler is out with the leg injury he's recovering from, but Ashton Craig, Billy Schrauth, Pat Coogan are players much is expected. It's a big job for OL Coach Joe Rudolph has a lot of talent to work with and the key to the season is how he puts it all together. I expect he will be under the most scrutiny and be targeted by fans as a whipping boy if we don't have a dynamic offense. WR's and TE all have talent, the new transfers have some speed as well something we need. Mitchel Evans has the talent to a top TE, but he's coming back from injury so both he and Kevin Bauman another TE with injury issues and talent will be sitting this Spring. So young guys at TE will get plenty of work. Overall if things fall right and Leonard turns out to be what we hope for at QB this will be a very good offense. I don't know who will be our RB's but they have a good solid room full of guys who can be very good if the OL develops. Go Irish!
First surprise of the Spring is RB Devyn Ford the transfer from Penn State is moving to Safety. Freeman on Devyn Ford moving to safety He's become an elite special teams player. Talked about if that was going to be his primary role, he needed to improve tackling. Understood that opportunities at running back would be limited. Freeman on two-sport players: Working with other teams. Says Jordan Faison is all-in lacrosse and they'll work around lacrosse. (It appears to me that Faison is a future AA in lacrosse, he's doing extremely well so far) Notes Drayk Bowen is required to do less physically for baseball, so it's slightly different ( so far Bowen has not got an at bat for Irish baseball)
Tim Prister on Irish Baseball ( Prister lettered in baseball at Notre Dame) • When I think of…the Notre Dame baseball team’s 9-2 start to the 2024 season, let’s keep everything in perspective at least for the next three weekends. You can’t truly measure a college baseball team until conference play begins. The Irish travel to Virginia Tech and Florida State this weekend and next, and then host Miami the weekend after that. That will tell us a more than what has transpired through the first 11 games, which has indeed been noteworthy. Keep an eye on the starts by pitchers Jackson Dennies and Caden Spivey at Virginia Tech this weekend. Amazingly, that duo combined for 1 1/3 innings, 15 hits allowed, and 18 runs surrendered, 17 of which were earned at Tennessee Tech last weekend, and Notre Dame still managed to win both games! Notre Dame has hit 32 home runs in 11 games. Head coach Shawn Stiffler downplayed it a bit, saying that the Irish have played in favorable ballparks in Houston against Rice, in Miami versus Florida International, in Cookeville, Tenn. against Tennessee Tech, and Tuesday night in the home opener against Purdue. But there’s no denying the impact of multiple grad-transfers in the every-day line up and on the mound, as well as the very real power of Irish second baseman Estevan Moreno, who did the unthinkable in recent days. Moreno hit three home runs Saturday at Tennessee Tech and three more Tuesday night at Notre Dame, which also can be a launching pad when the weather conditions are favorable…which they weren’t Tuesday! Coupled with his three-homer game versus Virginia as a freshman last year, Moreno is the first player in Notre Dame baseball history to have three games of three home runs. And he’s just getting started in his sophomore year with the Irish.