SOUTH BEND, Ind. — Less than six full seasons removed from a Hall of Fame coaching career, former Notre Dame women’s basketball icon Muffet McGraw can barely recognize the game she grew up in as a self-described bossy point guard.
And later a coach. And now a rock star of a college basketball analyst for ESPN and the ACC Network during the season, and a professor teaching a class in leadership at the Notre Dame Mendoza College of Business during fall semesters.
It’s not the X’s and O’s evolutions that she finds disconcerting. In fact, she reveled in Notre Dame’s current team taking apart No. 22 North Carolina, 73-50, Sunday at Purcell Pavilion behind Hannah Hidalgo’s 31 points and smothering defense, with McGraw and most of her 2001 national championship team in attendance.
It’s the business that’s wrapped itself around the game that concerns her about the future of women’s basketball — and all college sports, for that matter.
NIL. Revenue share. Unlimited transfers.
In the right dosage, with the right guardrails, they can work, she reasoned. Unchecked and unenforceable?
“I hate the portal, and I hate the NIL,” McGraw told a group of reporters during the 2001 team’s 25th reunion, which included being introduced at halftime of the ND-North Carolina game. “I think it’s great the kids can make money. I think there has to be some sort of a limit on what you can make.
“You have to be able to commit to a team for a certain number of years. You cannot go as a free agent every single year. It makes it impossible for everyone to coach their teams. The transfer portal, same thing. There’s tampering.
“There’s so many illegal things that are going on, and it’s ruining college athletics. I really hate it. I think kids should be able to transfer once. I think if they graduate, they should be able to transfer. But this back and forth, four schools in four years, we’re not doing anything.
“We’re not teaching them any life skills. We’re not helping them in their future.”
McGraw helped Notre Dame amass 842 victories, nine Final Four appearances and national titles in 2001 and 2018 during her 33 seasons at Notre Dame before retiring after the 2020 season. Her five-season run at Lehigh, prior to coming to ND, boosts her career win total to 936.
A team to remember and to relish
Four years before Notre Dame won the national title for the first time in program history, McGraw’s 1997 team reached the Final Four, another program first, and as a 6 seed no less.
The 2001 Irish, however, were a No. 1 seed and beat UConn, 90-75, in the national semis before edging Purdue, 68-66, in the championship game.
“This was the team that really got us started,” McGraw said. “And they laid the foundation. They set the bar really high. They did so many great things. And I just love looking back at all the fun that we had, because it wasn’t fun going through it. It was only fun afterwards.”
And fun again 25 years later at the reunion on campus ahead of Sunday’s game.
“To see just the camaraderie and telling the stories from back in the day, some that I had never heard, and just some fun times to get together,” McGraw said. “And really the thing they talked about the most was the life lessons that they learned, how they know how to handle adversity in their life, how they have the resilience and the determination and the work ethic to do things in their life right now. And that’s what makes me so proud.”
They were a team that changed the way McGraw viewed herself as a coach and even the way she coached.
“I learned a lot from this team,” McGraw said. “This is the team that kind of taught me that every turnover is not the worst thing that ever happened. You know, I lived and died on every mistake. I took everything personally.
“I was really hard to please, and I started to let them in a little bit more, collaborate a little bit more. My leadership changed from being a dictator to being more of a democratic collaborator. And I enjoyed it more, getting to know them more off the court.
“I thought the relationships that we developed and the trust that we built was really fun, and that was a turning point in my career.”
And a great lesson in chemistry that McGraw tried to foster in her subsequent teams.
“They were so good on the court, and they were accountable for each other,” she said. “They had great trust. They could be honest with each other. And that’s the difference in a championship team and just a team.
“They are willing to be in the locker room and say, ‘You’re not doing your job. You need to do more.’ They knew what their job was. They did their job. They didn’t expect any more.
Everybody knew what they had to do, and they went out and did it.”
Remembering Niele Ivey, the player
Current Notre Dame coach Niele Ivey was the starting point guard on the 2001 team honored on Sunday and later was a longtime assistant on McGraw’s staff.
“Niele was amazing,” McGraw recalled of her first impressions of Ivey as a recruit out of St. Louis. “I mean, she was somebody that had the energy, the leadership, the work ethic.
“Her high school coach said, ‘Hardest-working kid I’ve ever had.’ And a lot of high school coaches say that, but it was true. When she came, she brought such a great energy to the team.
“She had leadership qualities even as a freshman. She was somebody that could be on the court all business, but at the same time make us laugh, and kind of break the tension with a funny line. So she added tremendous things to those teams.
“And she learned a lot being out injured on the ’97 team and then got to take it all on when she came back.”
Ruth Riley, the All-America center on the 2001 team, wasn’t surprised one bit that Ivey found her way into coaching after her playing career ended.
“She not only had the knowledge of the game and the ability to communicate it, but the ability to see and put people in positions to succeed,” Riley said. “As a teammate you appreciated that. And obviously I loved playing with her as our point guard. And so I think it was an easy transition for her to be able to go along. And she could coach at any level. I mean, you saw her in the NBA.”