Waiting in the wings | Notre Dame's Kate Koval watching, working, dreaming
From a distance, Kate Koval watches the Notre Dame women’s basketball team shed waves of adversity with such finesse and seeming finality that it suddenly feels more like a dream hatching than the transitory season it could have been.
And the 6-foot-5 Ukraine native and proud adapting New Yorker routinely plugs herself into that dream … and what kind of reality it could turn into next season after the ninth-ranked Irish (26-6) take care of business in this year’s NCAA Tournament, starting Saturday at home as the No. 2 seed in the Albany I Regional.
Notre Dame takes on 15 seed Kent State (21-10) at 2:15 p.m. EDT (ESPN) at Purcell Pavilion, followed by another first-round matchup, between 7 seed Ole Miss (23-8) and No. 10 seed Marquette (23-8) at 4:45, with Saturday’s survivors clashing on Monday for a ticket to the Sweet 16.
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“Seeing the way they play — their offense, their defense — I can definitely see myself there,” Koval told Inside ND Sports in a phone interview. “And yes, I definitely think about it a lot and what we want to accomplish. And I think it’s going to come down to how bad we want it and how hard we’re going to work for it, because there are a lot of good players in college and a lot of good teams.
“So, I would say at the end of the day, that’s what it comes down to. But I’m definitely super excited to play with all those amazing guards and forwards and everybody who decides to come back.”
On an Irish team that may only lose grad transfers Becky Obinma, Jenna Brown and most notably guard Anna DeWolfe to expiring eligibility, Koval brings a college-ready game that’s so polished and versatile, recruiting analyst Dan Olson calls the center on the No. 1 high school team in the nation — Long Island Lutheran (21-1) — “the best post player to come out of the high school ranks in the past four to five years.”
Offensively, what that looks like is a traditional low-post game enhanced by her ability to wander out to the 3-point arc on occasion and consistently can mid-range jumpers.
Defensively, she’s a stout, strong presence, but with the nimble footwork of a ballerina. Which isn’t an accident. That was her passion, not basketball, until her father coaxed her to try hoops, and she fell in love with it.
Eventually.
“I don’t do ballet anymore,” Koval said. “I’m a little too big for it now. But yeah, my mom and grandma were big on it. I feel like in Ukraine, especially, a lot of kids do it. Even my brother did dance for some time.
“It’s like a thing. You always do music, art and dance when you’re a kid. That’s what you start with. But my dad just brought it up as an idea to try basketball, and I didn’t like it at first. I’m not going to lie to you. It wasn’t my thing. I loved ballet. But then I kind of got into it.
“My competitive side kind of came out, which I wasn’t able to show in ballet. So, that was nice, but it definitely helped me with my footwork and just being a tall girl, our coordination is not always well with our size. But ballet made it possible.”
In one sense Koval profiles as the final missing puzzle piece fourth-year Irish head coach Niele Ivey needed to add in order have a chance to push the Notre Dame program back to the level of having realistic Final Four aspirations on a regular basis,
In another sense, the November signee set to enroll at ND in June, is very much one of them already, particularly when it comes to mental toughness and the drive to overcome whatever’s put in her path.
Which in Koval’s case is the reality that her family is scattered in three different countries, with her father (Oleksandr) remaining in war-torn Ukraine by choice and some of her young friends, who couldn’t leave, becoming casualties in the 2 ½ years since Russia invaded.
Her mom, Natalia, and grandma relocated to Canada, where the family’s pharmaceutical business has long run a second office. One brother, Oleskii, attends high school in Ohio. The other, Mykolaa, is a student at LSU.
“It’s definitely been a journey,” Long Island Lutheran coach Christina Raiti said. “I commend the kid. I don’t know many kids that can do that, quite honestly, go through all that and handle it that way, be as tough as she was, but also be vulnerable at times.
“And I think it’s not about giving her credit for it. It’s a real-life event that’s still going on, but it’s made everyone around her respect her so much more that way she’s handled it all.”
Above all, Koval has channeled it into a fire that has altered her already promising basketball trajectory into bigger, brasher aspirations as well as the drive to put the work into making them happen.
“I think she’s just a constant,” Raiti said. “You know exactly what you’re getting from her from an effort standpoint at all times. Never have to coach her to play harder. It comes back to a maturity and leadership piece.
“And that’s off the court too, with everything that’s going on in her world. She can say: ‘Now I can actually make a difference. I can raise money for over there [Ukraine] by using the platform I’ve created,’ which in one of her latest interviews with ESPN, she said, “I just don’t want to be the girl that people feel bad for about war. I want to be more than that.’”
Raiti found Koval through a friend who would routinely send her tapes of foreign players that she ended up not having enough interest to pursue. Koval was the outlier.
“We had a pretty quick connection,” said Raiti, whose talent base comprises mostly players from outside of New York. “I speak to tons and tons of kids from all over the world. Sometimes it’s, yes, this is an absolute great fit. Sometimes it’s not on either end. I think she just believed in where the program was going and wanted to be a part of our culture and something that’s bigger than herself. And I knew she was the perfect fit from a personality standpoint.
“She's the perfect amount of stubborn, but strong-willed and confident and she’s a competitor, which is something that you just don’t see every day. I mean like a real competitor. That kid HATES losing, and she lets you know. I never could have imagined our relationship would become so close.”
Six months into Koval’s sophomore experience at Long Island Lutheran, though, everything changed.
“It’s gone in waves, I would say,” Raiti said. “Early on, I would say, things obviously were very bad. I tell the story of how we were playing a game the day that war was declared. She really didn’t think much of it at first, because her entire life Russia has had a presence over there. So, the initial threat didn’t really mean a ton to her.
“She was very used to, ‘OK, Russia’s threatening this piece of land. They’re trying to take back Crimea. Coach, this happens all the time, type of thing.’ When it became real, we really couldn't get in contact with her parents for the first 24 hours. So, we had left her phone on the bench and I spoke to the other coach that we were playing.
“I had offered not to play or for her to not play. And she was like, ‘I’m playing.’ And she was very set on it. So, we kept her phone on the bench, with the understanding that if it rang, we were stopping the game and we were picking up the phone. Obviously, the other coach was completely cool, given the situation with it.
“From there, things got a bit worse, and she was very upset that her father was staying but also understood. And I think the best way to kind of articulate or explain it is Dad is so prideful in his country. His rationale was this is the country he had three kids in and raised them, and so it was his job to protect the country that his kids were born in, essentially.
“So, I think that provided a sense of comfort, because there was so much pride there, if that makes sense. But there was also animosity and fear, obviously. So for the first six months, it was brutal.”
And no one around Koval really knew how to help her unpack it.
“There’s no manual on how to do that,” Raiti said. “We haven’t had a war here. So, you don’t know how to react. You only think you read about these things. Now this kid is living it, and she’s here.”
The next challenging wave was the American media largely moving on from the story, and Koval’s worry that the people she loved would be forgotten.
“And now we’re finally at a point where we check in on it,” Raiti said. “It’s not nearly as much as an everyday thing, and it’s more of: ‘How’s Dad doing? Oh, he’s back to work. OK, great.’ And every now and then, stuff will come up, but she’s at a place now where she knows we’re her family now and we always will be.”
LuHi’s regular season ended on Feb. 21 with a 114-38 romp over an Ursuline Academy team from Wilmington, Del., that fashioned an 18-6 record this season.
The Crusaders didn’t get to defend their 2023 New York high school federation Class AA title, because the state did away with that tournament, largely for financial and logistical reasons.
Yet LuHi continues to practice regularly for the three seniors, including Koval, selected to play in the McDonald’s All-American Game in Houston on April 2 and for the entire team that’s slated to play in the six-team Chipotle High School Basketball Nationals, April 4-6 in Brownsburg, Ind.— roughly two and a half hours south of the Notre Dame campus.
In roughly the same timeline the current Irish team hopes to be playing in Cleveland, Ohio, in the NCAA Final Four.
Koval’s numbers thus far — 15.8 points, 10.6 rebounds, 3.1 blocks — are very similar to what she produced her junior season as a Naismith All-American and New York Gatorade Player of the year in 2023.
But Raiti has noticed a huge evolution in her game. She also points out Koval’s stats are tamped down by an injury she was recovering from to start the season, limited playing time because of the lopsidedness of the score in many games, and the presence of so many other elite college prospects with whom Koval gladly shares the ball and the spotlight.
“This is one way it gets me ready for the next step,” Koval said of the team’s balance of talent. “Of course, being able to play on such a stacked team and going to Notre Dame, I understand I’m not going to be the main person there.
“Like everybody on the team is capable of doing stuff. So, just from me being able to understand now whoever’s night it is, whoever scores the most, we’re all happy for them. And it makes all of us better.”
LuHi’s aggressive scheduling, that took the team out of the country (The Bahamas) and as far away as Phoenix, also helped make Koval and fellow McDonald’s All-Americans USC-bound Kayleigh Heckel and Michigan signee Syla Swords more college ready. The Crusaders didn’t play a single game in their home gym in Brookville, N.Y., until game 14 of this season.
“I always say our goal is if she calls after summer workouts and says, ‘Coach, there’s nothing I haven’t seen before,’ then we’ve done our job," Raiti said. "So, it’s really important that they’re prepared. I think from the stance of playing at the highest level, on a big stage against the best of the best at that level, that’s why we try to create the schedule that we do, because our kids have to be prepared.
“We do our best to simulate college practices and treat them like college athletes. At the end of the day, yes, they’re in high school, but it is to prepare them and hold them accountable. So, all of those pieces I don’t worry about Kate, but I think the nutrition, the weight lifting are going to be a really cool step to see her take the next step.”
Koval is already steeped in American culture — and the language, having attended a Canadian-run school since kindergarten in Ukraine in which some of her classes were actually taught in English.
“Mom and dad get it,” Raiti said. “They always knew they wanted their kids to wind up over here in the U.S. So, the basics were very, very strong. Obviously, still has an accent and what-not, and there are certain words that she’s still learning.
“But for the most part, she was great when she got here. I remember being very impressed when she got here, like how’s your English so strong?”
And now sometimes she even thinks like an American.
“She was here for five months, and the first time she went back to Europe, for the FIBA championships, she was in one of the Baltic countries. She didn’t go back to Ukraine because of everything going on. And she calls me and I’m like, ‘Is something wrong?’
“This is strange. Middle of the summer. Random time. She’s like, ‘Coach, I need to come home.’
“I said, ‘Did something happen?’
“She said, ‘No, the bagels here are terrible,’
“I said, ‘Are you kidding me? You haven’t even lived here for a full year.’
“She’s like, ‘And the pizza is different too.’
“I’m like, ‘You’re a New Yorker, now.’”
And soon to be a Hoosier in South Bend, Ind., with at least one familiar face.
“We played Hannah Hidalgo’s team last year, and she kind of killed us when we played them,’ Koval said of LuHi’s eventual 63-60 escape from Hidalgo’s Haddonfield (N.J.) Paul VI High team. “We got [the win], but it was tough.
“Just seeing her transition from high school to college and dominate in college was just awesome. I love her and all of her energy on the court and off the court. Such a sweet person.”
Hidalgo — the nation’s third-leading scorer and No. 1 in steals heading into the NCAA Tourney — had 29 points, five rebounds, five assists and eight steals against Koval’s team.
“I was actually mad, because we gave up so much to her,” Raiti said. “And I felt a whole lot better when she was doing it to everyone this year in college. I joke, but I think when all is said and done, we have kids going to play with really great kids and really great coaches.
“I think Niele Ivey is one of the best coaches in the business. I think she’s caring. I think she’s compassionate, but I also think she’s a fierce competitor and will challenge and get the most out of Kate.
“I think there’s this school of thought of ‘don’t go to this school if the ball’s already in someone’s hands’ or ‘they have too many scorers.’ It’s like our kids embrace being around talent. So, Hannah is someone I personally love watching.
“I was a coach on an all-star team last year. And she wasn’t playing in the all-star game, because she was hurt, but she was on my team. So, we sat on the bench together. This was early in Kate’s recruitment process. I said, ‘Selfishly, I would love to see Kate play with you.
“She was like, ‘We should make it happen.’ She’s just a really good kid, and I think she’s a ton of fun to watch.”
And now it is only months away from actually happening.
“I mean, Kate has size and she’s mobile,” Hidalgo told Inside ND Sports. “She can move. Just playing against her last year was tough. They had a phenomenal team, and obviously she was a big contributor to that.
“So, just her ability to finish, her ability to catch the ball, her ability to move. She’s just such a dynamic player, and so we’re excited to have her coming in as a freshman. She’s going to do a lot of big things.”
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