Notre Dame basketball is entering the NCAA Tournament as a No. 3 seed, but questions remain about the status of star player Olivia Miles.
“We’ll know more this week,” Irish coach Niele Ivey said Sunday. “She’s gonna be with the doctors a little bit more this week, but she is progressing.”
Miles injured her knee in her team’s regular-season finale against Louisville on Feb. 26. The win clinched the first ACC title for Notre Dame since 2019, but the sophomore guard has not played since, and the Irish lost handily to the Cardinals in the second round of the conference tournament.
JWS Bracket Challenge: Sign up for a chance to win $150,000!
Still, the Irish will host Southern Utah in the first round of March Madness. And while the status of their leading scorer remains up in the air, the team has not ruled her out for the postseason, NCAA women’s basketball committee chair Lisa Peterson told ESPN.
That contributed to Notre Dame’s No. 3 seed, as the committee operated under the assumption that Miles would play “because we weren’t told any different,” Peterson said.
Per Ivey, “there was no inquiry” from the committee about Miles’ status for the tournament. And Notre Dame is preparing for any eventuality.
“I think we’ve just kind of been preparing for everything, with or without (Miles),” junior forward Maddy Westbeld said. “It’s just one day at a time, but we’re just approaching practice at every angle.”