Notre Dame Women's Basketball To Debut With Instant Impact Freshmen
There will be no training wheels issued by head coach Muffet McGraw to Notre Dame’s two scholarship freshmen this year.
While she recognizes both 6-2 forward Sam Brunelle and 5-10 guard Anaya Peoples will take their spills along the way, they will be enrolled at Tour de France-level races right out of the gate.
The No. 16-ranked Fighting Irish women make their 2019-20 debut tonight at Fordham, the reigning Atlantic 10 champion, with a 7 p.m. tip-off.
"I hate to start on the road with a young team — that's probably my biggest worry," McGraw said.
After losing the entire starting five from teams that won the national title (2018) and were the national runner-up by a point (2019), plus the transfer of two reserves, there is no choice.
Furthermore, another setback occurred when sophomore guard Abby Prohaska announced on Monday via social media of a health scare that will sideline her at least the next couple of months.
Brunelle and Peoples are the foundation of a youth movement that is expected to eventually return Notre Dame to yearly national title contention down the road.
“I don’t think you can ever ask too much,” replied McGraw when questioned if the burdens on the prized rookies might be overwhelming. “You have to demand more and challenge them to be the best they can be. I know they’re going to be inconsistent because that’s just what a freshman is.
“But I expect them to be in the top three in scoring. I expect that they’re going to come out and score a lot of points for us and do a lot of good things, even on the days that they’re not playing well.
“Anaya Peoples is playing really well right now. She’s doing so many different things, has a lot of versatility, can score a lot of different ways, and is our best defender.
"Sam’s our best shooter, best three-point shooter. With her size, she can do a lot of different things.”
A primary reason why Notre Dame was a perennial national title contender during the 2010-19 decade is it regularly signed game-changing top-five talent to augment the already strong top-25 to top-50 caliber roster.
Such figures included Skylar Diggins (2009), Jewell Loyd (2012), Brianna Turner (2014), Jessica Shepard (2015), Arike Ogunbowale (2015) and Jackie Young (2016), complemented by top-25 figures such as Kayla McBride, Natalie Achonwa, Kathryn Westbeld or Marina Mabrey.
The Fighting Irish came up short in that area during the 2017 and 2018 recruiting cycles, but inking Brunelle and Peoples was a crucial step back to potentially becoming a title contender in the early 2020s.
Brunelle was ESPN’s HoopGurlz No. 4-ranked prospect and won the three-point shooting contest at this year’s McDonald’s All-American Game.
Peoples was rated No. 21 by ESPN HoopGurlz, but No. 8 by Prospects Nation (Brunelle was No. 5), and her stock grew after a standout performance in the McDonald’s All-American Game with 11 points and eight rebounds.
In an open scrimmage against a men’s practice team in early October, Peoples was the best player on the floor with her work on both ends.
With Brunelle, the star power on and off the court is instantly evident with a Diggins-like charisma. At the aforementioned scrimmage for season-ticket holders, she emceed the event for the audience with the ease of a professional.
Her future aspiration is to be an ESPN basketball analyst, a la Kara Lawson, Rebecca Lobo and Debbie Antonelli. She already has her own podcast at Notre Dame with Fighting Irish Media.
“I do want to be a leader,” Brunelle said. “I know that I’m a freshman right now, but I think it doesn’t really matter what your age is. You can always bring some type of leadership to the team.
“I’m getting the hang of the offense we’re running. Defensively, I still have to work, and that’s always been my deal. Hopefully I can become a really good defender sooner than later.”
McGraw noted that when a military group was in this fall to put the women through mental and physical toughness tests, they immediately identified Brunelle as possessing the leadership traits that will bode well.
“That was a great experience,” Brunelle said of the drills they went through. “After doing that it made us better in leadership and accountability.”
Having huge expectations thrust on her is embraced and not avoided, but at the same time she maintains she also has to play within a team framework and not try to justify the hype.
“They have so much confidence in us, and that helps us perform better,” Brunelle said of the coaches. “We’re all getting comfortable with each other and everything we’re doing.”
“She’s very outgoing, I think she’s going to make a lot of friends,” McGraw said. “The fans are going to love her.”
Peoples also possesses an effervescent personality mixed in with fierce competitiveness. Her game is modeled after Young, the No. 1 pick in last year’s WNBA Draft, and she prides herself on an ability to excel virtually anywhere on the court.
“I’ve always been taught if the defense takes something away, give it something else,” said Peoples, who in addition to starting as a guard/wing, serves as the backup point guard for Stanford graduate transfer Marta Sniezek, just as Young did for Mabrey. “Score off the dribble, shoot threes, get my teammates the ball … just so I can’t be stopped in one aspect of my game.
“I’m here for whatever she needs me. I’ll learn all the spots and am pretty comfortable in almost every spot.”
If there was one source of aggravation for McGraw last year it was the lack of defensive intensity because the starters knew they had the firepower to outscore virtually anyone.
In former All-Pac 12 defender Sniezek and Peoples, McGraw sees a backcourt much more committed to that end of the court.
“Anaya’s a great defender,” McGraw said. “She’s active, she’s aggressive, she’s willing — and that’s important.”
“Defense is probably my favorite part of the game,” Peoples said. “Just getting the energy off of a steal, you can feel the intensity when all your teammates are on the same page, and we’re all moving in sync. That just gets the whole offense started, Defense wins championships.
“I think my energy and defensive energy will help this team. We all feed off of each other.”
For McGraw, all five starters are like freshmen because they will be making their starting debuts at Notre Dame, including junior post Mikayla Vaughn and graduate transfers Sniezek and Destinee Walker. Sniezek was sidelined last year with an injury, while former McDonald's All-American Walker has missed the past two seasons with health setbacks.
Gilbert also was red-shirted last season after undergoing shoulder surgery, and she missed most of this preseason with lower leg injuries.
MCGRAW ON PROHASKA
McGraw and Co. won a national title two years ago with only seven scholarship players available from the start of January.
The seven this year, including 6-4 sophomore forward Danielle Cosgrove, is a greater challenge because of the inexperience and because it comes right at the start of the season and with no more margin of error.
The loss of Prohaska at least into January is significant in many ways.
"She is probably one of two players (along with Vaughn) that had some game experience for us coming in," McGraw said. "She's also somebody that gives energy because she comes in and takes charges and hustles for loose balls.
"She's somebody you can point to for the freshmen to look up to and say, 'This is how you're supposed to practice, this is how you're supposed to play.'"
All things considered, McGraw said Prohaska (not made available for interviews) has been in good spirits considering that something life threatening could occur at age 19.
Because Prohaska is such a high-energy player, her ailment became conspicuous during the fall, and it was right before mid-semester break (Oct. 19-27) it came to a head when she had to go to the emergency room.
"It changes the way we play," McGraw said. "We have to play a little more conservatively. We're going to have to shuffle some people in and out. We're not a team that's really in great shape, we're still learning how to get to that point. It changes the whole game plan, and we lose the experience factor."
McGraw said Prohaska had looked out of shape in the early practices and wasn't playing with the same fire. Early blood work came back fine, and she even actually practiced the day she went to the ER after some intense pain.
"I'm just so thankful that she finally said, 'I can't take it anymore,'" McGraw said.
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