She’s lovin’t it. And KK Bransford has plenty of company.
On Tuesday the future Notre Dame guard was named a McDonald’s All-American in girls basketball, the 23rd for the Irish women’s program since the girls game was added in 2002 to the menu with the longer-running boys game (established in 1978).
Bransford is a 5-foot-11 senior guard for Ohio’s No. 1 high school girls basketball team in the largest enrollment class (Division I), Cincinnati Mount Notre Dame. Heading into Tuesday night’s road game at St. Ursula Academy, Bransford was averaging 22.6 points, 4.7 assists and 2.4 steals a game for MND (17-0).
On Jan. 13, Bransford was named to the Naismith Midseason Team for girls basketball. She signed with the Irish last November.
Bransford led her team to a state title last season, as a junior, and was part of a state-title winning team as a freshman in 2018-19. MND was unbeaten Bransford's sophomore year, but the state tournament was canceled due to COVID-19.
Six current Irish players are former McDonald’s All-Americans — Maya Dodson (2017), Katlyn Gilbert (2018), Sam Brunelle (2019), Anaya Peoples (2019), Maddy Westbeld (2020) and Sonia Citron (2021).
Freshman Olivia Miles, a consensus prep top 10 prospect as a senior in high school, would have been a shoo-in to be, but she graduated early and joined the Irish as a pre-freshman last January through a loophole created by the NCAA in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Notre Dame men’s squad, meanwhile, has its first representative on the boys McDonald’s All-American team since Demetrius Jackson in 2017. J.J. Starling, a guard at La Lumiere School in LaPorte, Ind., made the boys team.
The McDonald’s All-American games will be played March 29 in Chicago at DePaul University’s Wintrust Arena. The girls game is set for 6:30 p.m. EDT on ESPN2, while the boys game tips at 9 p.m. on ESPN.
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