Overview:
Notre Dame’s ladies’s basketball workforce, co-champions of the ACC common season, is ready to face their subsequent problem within the ACC Event on March 7. Haitian-Canadian Olympian Cassandre “Cass” Prosper has performed one of many key roles of their journey, exhibiting solidity after an harm final season. Because the Combating Irish put together for the postseason, Prosper displays on the workforce’s highs and lows, her Haitian heritage, and her journey again to full energy.
Because the common season got here to a detailed, Notre Dame’s Combating Irish ladies’s basketball workforce celebrated a hard-fought victory over No. 25 Louisville, securing their place within the ACC Event quarterfinals. The workforce, co-champions of the ACC common season, now turns its focus to March Insanity, with Haitian-Canadian Olympian Cassandre “Cass” Prosper taking part in a key position together with a few of her teammates of their postseason ambitions.
Their journey hasn’t been with out obstacles. After a double-overtime loss to NC State and a troublesome defeat in opposition to Florida State, Notre Dame bounced again with an announcement win of their last residence recreation. Now, all eyes are on their upcoming match recreation on March 7.
A redemption win for Notre Dame
On Sunday, March 2, Notre Dame confronted off in opposition to Louisville at Purcell Pavilion. The sport, featured on ESPN’s “School GameDay,” had excessive stakes, because the Combating Irish appeared to safe a prime seed within the ACC Event.
Louisville freshman level guard Tajianna Roberts opened the sport with a three-pointer, however Notre Dame shortly responded. By halftime, Notre Dame led 36-28, and within the third quarter, graduating level guard Olivia Miles’ buzzer-beater three-pointer despatched the group right into a frenzy. When the ultimate whistle blew, Notre Dame secured a 72-59 victory, incomes a double bye into the quarterfinals.
“We had too many beauty that we turned down,” Louisville head coach Jeff Walz stated in a digital postgame press convention.
For Notre Dame head coach Niele Ivey, the win was a vital bounce-back.
“[I’m] grateful for this win, but in addition simply the best way we gained. I believed defensively we have been stable at the moment,” Ivey informed reporters after the sport.
“There was a ton of vitality defensively, and I believed that was the distinction within the recreation proper from the start.”
Ivey additionally highlighted the contributions of Notre Dame student-athletes Hannah Hidalgo, Liza Karlen, and Kate Koval within the victory.
Cass Prosper and Notre Dame
Regardless of struggling an harm final season, Prosper, a 6’2″ guard from Montreal, has returned stronger, bringing defensive versatility and offensive energy to the workforce.
“She’s been improbable!” Ivey informed The Haitian Instances. “I believed she had a improbable recreation at the moment. She’s one other unselfish participant, I believe her ceiling is so excessive! She’s more healthy, is aware of her position, and offers us such a spark offensively and defensively.”
For Prosper, the season has been a journey of progress.
“The method of getting back from an harm is more durable than the harm itself as a result of you need to actually be affected person with your self,” she stated. “I got here again, then went proper into the Olympics, which type of was a blessing for me as a result of I needed to get again in form.”
Prosper represented Canada on the Paris 2024 Summer time Olympics in ladies’s basketball, gaining invaluable expertise on the worldwide stage. That have, mixed along with her resilience, has made her a frontrunner on the workforce.
Happy with her Haitian roots
Prosper is making her mark in faculty basketball, however her Haitian heritage stays core to her identification.
“My grandma on my mother’s aspect is from Cap-Haïtien, Haiti. My dad was born in Haiti till about his teenage years, then he moved to the States and later to Canada,” Prosper stated.
Rising up in Montreal, a metropolis with a robust Haitian presence, Prosper felt related to her tradition.
“There are such a lot of Haitians in Montreal, particularly as a result of it’s French-speaking and so many Haitians are extra accustomed to French because of Creole,” she stated.
Though she moved round Canada whereas rising up, Prosper credit her mother and father for guaranteeing she all the time felt a way of belonging.
“I by no means felt like a minority due to my mother and father ensuring we have been round different Black individuals,” she stated.
With a household basketball legacy and Haitian and Canadian roots, her household’s affect has formed her journey on the court docket.
Looking forward to the ACC Event and March Insanity
Regardless of a robust common season, the Combating Irish confronted some setbacks, together with a heartbreaking loss to NC State in double extra time on Feb. 23. The defeat price them the next seed, however Prosper stays optimistic.
“It was a fantastic battle! It went into double OT; I believe the sport may have shifted our aspect a few instances,” she informed The Haitian Instances. “However on the finish of the day, we fought actually arduous, it was simply type of a last-minute factor the place like on the finish we simply ran out of juice. ”
Now, Notre Dame shifts its focus to the ACC Event, the place they are going to compete for an computerized bid to the NCAA Ladies’s March Insanity Event.
“We’re not likely apprehensive concerning the rankings,” Prosper stated. “We’re simply apprehensive about studying from that recreation.”
Notre Dame’s quarterfinal matchup will happen at First Horizon Coliseum in Greensboro, N.C., on March 7. The ACC Ladies’s Basketball Event started on March 5 and is being broadcast on ACC Community, ESPN, and ESPN2. Followers may stream the video games dwell on Sling or hearken to the play-by-play on SiriusXM Channel 193.
With March Insanity on the horizon, Prosper and her teammates are able to make a deep run, decided to show they belong among the many nation’s elite.