Why Leah Macy is a perfect fit for Notre Dame women’s basketball

New Notre Dame women’s basketball commit Leah Macy was potty trained in a competitive way. Her mom framed the rite of passage as a game. A race. Who could get to the toilet first? Macy didn’t like to lose then. She definitely doesn’t like to lose now.

It’s been that way for the five-star forward’s whole life.

“That’s how you get me to do stuff — I have to be able to win,” Macy, who committed to Notre Dame on May 6, told Blue & Gold. “I have to win.”

Macy’s done a lot of winning on the basketball court over the years. She started playing two divisions above her age level in elementary school … against boys. That’ll make any young girl better. It worked for Notre Dame point guard Hannah Hidalgo, someone Macy pointed to as an intriguing potential playing partner long before she pledged to play for the Irish.

“Seeing Hannah play this year, I was like, ‘Wow, that’s an amazing guard that I could play with,’” Macy said. “She would bring out the best in me as well, being a leader on that court. She’s amazing. Her energy just translates to people. People feed off her energy. Having a person like that to play with is amazing.”

Hidalgo has unlimited innate athleticism and good genes. It wasn’t just playing against males that made her as good as she is. Macy, 6-3, has all the traits, too. She’s almost a carbon copy of Notre Dame forward Maddy Westbeld. When Macy gets to South Bend in 2025, Westbeld’s five-year Fighting Irish career will be finished.

But in a way, it’ll be like she never left.

Macy has the tools to be a career-long starter at forward, just as Westbeld has been. Notre Dame head coach Niele Ivey recognized that and made Macy a priority in recruiting. If she could get Macy to be the program’s first commit in the class of 2025, it’d be a major victory.

Like Macy beating her mom to the bathroom back in the day, victory secured.

“She just really knows what’s best for the player,” Macy said of Ivey. “For me, she emphasized how I fit in her playing style. Which, I fit perfectly. I’m very similar to Maddy. Being able to see somebody in the program now playing that way and how Coach Ivey uses her, I really, really enjoyed seeing that. My family did too.”

Anyone who’s watched Notre Dame women’s basketball in the Ivey era knows how much of an impact Westbeld has made. They know why it was so important to have her back for a fifth year. So they know, too, how exciting it is to be getting a top-20 nationally ranked player who’s a spitting image of her, right down to the same height.

“We’re so versatile,” Macy said. “We could play inside and out. We’re not one-dimensional. That separates us from other people. Coach Ivey uses her in all aspects of her offense which I really enjoy seeing when I see her play. I can’t wait for Coach Ivey to use me that way.”

The other quality Macy and Westbeld share? That brings us back to the potty training.

“I don’t like to lose,” Macy said. “I’ve just always had a competitive spirit. I want to be the best and do my best.”

Westbeld returned to Notre Dame for the shot to win a national championship. Macy is set to sign with the Irish this fall for the same reason. Maybe Westbeld and the loaded roster Ivey will have for the 2024-25 gets the job done. No matter what, the Irish will have four years of one of the best forwards in the country going for the same goal. That would make for almost an entire decade of dominance at the power forward position.

Not bad. Not bad at all.

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