What Nat Marshall entering transfer portal means for Notre Dame women’s basketball

And then there were 9. Yes, nine. One shy of double digits. That’s how many scholarship players Notre Dame has for the 2024-25 women’s basketball season as it stands while you drink your morning coffee on April 11, 2024.

The transfer portal giveth, sure, but it also taketh. And it has taken a ton away from the Fighting Irish during Niele Ivey‘s short tenure as head coach.

This week, rising junior guard KK Bransford and graduate senior center Nat Marshall became the ninth and 10th players to depart Notre Dame via the transfer portal since Ivey took over in 2020-21. Bransford announced her news on Sunday. Marshall went Wednesday night.

Ivey has reeled in seven portal players in the same timeframe, meanwhile, and she’s expected to bring in at least a couple in this cycle. If she gets three and none of the nine remaining players from last year’s roster decide to dip, then Notre Dame will have come out even in the portal for as long as she’s been in charge.

Ivey’s issue has been high school recruiting.

Let’s be clear; that doesn’t mean she hasn’t signed good players. She’s signed great ones — the No. 5 recruit in ESPN’s rankings in each of the last two seasons in record-setting guard Hannah Hidalgo and incoming five-star center Kate Koval. It’s a quantity problem for Notre Dame. Not a quality one.

Notre Dame has only brought in seven freshmen in the last four signing classes. That’s less than two per class for those still waiting for the caffeine to kick in at home. Here’s a look at all seven of those signees.

2021
Guard Olivia Miles
Guard Sonia Citron

2022
Guard KK Bransford

2023
Guard Hannah Hidalgo
Guard Cass Prosper
Guard Emma Risch

2024
Center Kate Koval

Notice anything? Three of those signees (Miles, Risch, Prosper) combined to play in 12 games last season. That exacerbates preexisting depth concerns.

Notice anything else? Only one pure post player. That brings us back to Marshall. Notre Dame can’t afford to give up anybody at all with how thin the roster has been numbers-wise the last few seasons. And when it’s a home-grown center who’s been at Notre Dame her whole career, one who just made her first four career starts and performed admirably overall in tournament play, that hurts even more.

“She’s really stepping into her role,” senior forward Maddy Westbeld said of Marshall in the middle of Notre Dame’s NCAA Tournament run. “Really, really proud of how she’s came out this whole year. She looks different and she’s blossomed this year. She finally gets the opportunity to make that shine, and so I’m just really proud of her. She’s got more to show. We need her toughness. We need her rebounding, all the little things that she does that people don’t really notice. She’s been doing great for us.”

The best-case scenario for Notre Dame is Koval is as advertised and eats up 30 minutes per game in year one and at some point she’s supplemented by Kylee Watson returning from her ACL injury. But Watson’s timetable is up in the air, and nobody will truly know what Notre Dame has in Koval until she’s in the trenches in real game action this fall.

Westbeld’s status with the team remains up in the air, too. She’s a key cog in all of this. If she decides to spend her final year of eligibility elsewhere or enters the transfer portal herself, Notre Dame is in a world of hurt. Eight scholarship players. Another front-court piece — a starting one at that — out of the picture. Losses like Marshall sting tenfold when they’re accompanied by exits like Westbeld.

Marshall gave Notre Dame solid minutes in the post. Was she elite after all her knee injuries? No. She got beat up by Oregon State’s paint bruisers in the Sweet 16, a major reason why the Irish were knocked out in that round for the third consecutive season. Depth, or a lack thereof, has been one of those reasons the last two seasons, though, and Notre Dame lost more of it when Bransford and Marshall decided to leave this week.

It would have been nice for Ivey to be in a position to add to the roster with portal players. As in, welcoming additions to the roster to work with Bransford, Marshall and the projected starters. Now she’s seeking players to replace them. There has been a lot of one step forward, two steps back for Ivey in constructing her Notre Dame rosters.

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