Irish Breakdown answers listener/subscriber submitted questions about Notre Dame women's basketball on today's show. IB's Sean Stires, who is also the radio announcer for Irish women's hoops, is joined by Vince DeDario to answer questions. Some of today's questions include:
* What needs to happen during the tournament for the team to win the national championship?
* Has freshman post Kate Koval exceeded expectations, or simply met them so far?
* Who is out of eligibility after this year, and who is likely to leave early? In other words, who will likely need to be replaced for next year?
* Is the “we’re all good” attitude on playing time, and ball possession starting to tarnish? Seems like the Louisville, and Va Tech game there were a handful of times, with an open shooter, a player had a face like no-no I’m getting mine.
* Has Sonia Citron's role been reduced a little. Seems like she rarely gets 30+ minutes.
* How much fun is it to watch Hannah Hidalgo? On TV it’s like did she really just do that. Does it look more impressive in person?
* Not surprised Liatu King is playing well. Do you think the offense should balance a little more to the inside?
* This season ND football took a very aggressive approach to forcing depth to play in order to keep the team as fresh as possible for the playoff season. What does NDWBB do to get the players in peak physical condition for the postseason? Do these concerns impact Niele Ivey’s substitution strategies? If yes, how do concerns affect her strategies?
* What is the status of Emma Risch? Should we be concerned with her durability? Will she be able to take some minutes off the trio of Hannah, Olivia Miles & Sonia down the stretch?
* Per ESPN’s stats, ND has committed 325 turnovers in 21 games (15.47 avg per game). Having watched every game, the turnovers often come in bunches & are caused by various issues. Sometimes the lineups don’t look comfortable working together yet; sometimes ball handling’s an issue; sometimes passes are off target or are made without seeing a defender; sometimes the mental focus seems to drift. What can and should NDWBB be doing to cleanup this issue? As one example, to get you started, Cassandre Prosper has had dozens of turnovers where a pass goes offer hand(s) and out of bounds. Seems to me she needs to do some of those Pistol Pete drills where you rotate the ball around your torso & tap the ball from hand to hand.
* With UCLA absolutely rolling & South Carolina looking dominant in all their games except the double digit loss to UCLA, how does ND matchup against those teams?
* Niele Ivey has done a good job of utilizing our depth this year, but it’s been hard to keep track of which players are playing on the court at the same time. Does Niele tend to play a limited number of lineups that have the same players in together at the same time? Or has she mixed and matched?
* Liatu King has been phenomenal in many ways this season. Her addition to the team seems like a near perfect marriage based on her strengths & the role NDWBB needed King to play. Yet, she’s only 20 for 44 shooting FTs, which is 45.5%. Once the postseason comes, teams with depth and size may play extra physical & force the referees to call fouls which could put Liatu on the line a lot in close games. Is NDWBB doing anything to improve her free throw shooting? Can ND sub in bigger lineups anytime she gets to the FT line in order to increase their chances of getting a rebound on her missed FTs? How else can ND minimize the damage of her missed free throws turning into easy rebounds for the other team?
* I was trying to come up with a comparison for Hannah, and the best I came up with is that she is a female Allen Iverson. What are your thoughts?
* Would you rather a backcourt of Jackie Young and Arike Ogunbowale or Miles and Hidalgo?
* Do you think the team is having a hard time adjusting to the Hannah’s playing style and Olivia’s playing style. They are both amazing floor generals and at the same time very different players.
* What is Coach Ivey’s strategy for recruiting? It seems like she targets a few high level players and either gets them or not. Also her classes seem to usually be pretty small.
* Also how are we losing out on a lot of top 100 in state recruits?
* Lauren Betts UCLA-If ND ends up playing UCLA in the tournament, how much of a problem will she be (with her size 6’7” and game)?
* What is our biggest weakness as a team?
* What team or teams do you think will give ND the toughest matchup?
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