Nearly all the talk around NCAA women's basketball thus far has surrounded UConn's Paige Bueckers and USC's JuJu Watkins. Bueckers is of course the presumptive number one pick in the upcoming WNBA Draft and Watkins has been hyped as the closest thing to Caitlin Clark.

The South Jersey-born star piled up ‪24 points, eight assists, six rebounds, and five steals to lead the Fighting Irish to a 74-61 win in the nationally televised showcase game.

All offseason long, a lot of folks around women’s college basketball offered the same concern when it came to Notre Dame’s outlook this season. The common question was that, while the Irish seemed to be incredibly talented on-paper,