Hannah Hidalgo\u2019s<\/a> 31 points and smothering defense, with McGraw and most of her 2001 national championship team in attendance.<\/p>\nIt\u2019s the business that\u2019s wrapped itself around the game that concerns her about the future of women\u2019s basketball \u2014 and all college sports, for that matter.<\/p>\n
NIL. Revenue share. Unlimited transfers.<\/p>\n
In the right dosage, with the right guardrails, they can work, she reasoned. Unchecked and unenforceable?\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI hate the portal, and I hate the NIL,\u201d McGraw told a group of reporters during the 2001 team\u2019s 25th reunion, which included being introduced at halftime of the ND-North Carolina game. \u201cI think it\u2019s great the kids can make money. I think there has to be some sort of a limit on what you can make.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou 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\u2019s tampering.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s so many illegal things that are going on, and it\u2019s 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\u2019re not doing anything.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re not teaching them any life skills. We\u2019re not helping them in their future.\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
A team to remember and to relish<\/p>\n
Four years before Notre Dame won the national title for the first time in program history, McGraw\u2019s 1997 team reached the Final Four, another program first, and as a 6 seed no less.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was the team that really got us started,\u201d McGraw said. \u201cAnd 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\u2019t fun going through it. It was only fun afterwards.\u201d<\/p>\n
And fun again 25 years later at the reunion on campus ahead of Sunday\u2019s game.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo 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,\u201d McGraw said. \u201cAnd 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\u2019s what makes me so proud.\u201d<\/p>\n
They were a team that changed the way McGraw viewed herself as a coach and even the way she coached.<\/p>\n
\u201cI learned a lot from this team,\u201d McGraw said. \u201cThis 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cI 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought the relationships that we developed and the trust that we built was really fun, and that was a turning point in my career.\u201d<\/p>\n
And a great lesson in chemistry that McGraw tried to foster in her subsequent teams.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were so good on the court, and they were accountable for each other,\u201d she said. \u201cThey had great trust. They could be honest with each other. And that\u2019s the difference in a championship team and just a team.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are willing to be in the locker room and say, \u2018You\u2019re not doing your job. You need to do more.\u2019 They knew what their job was. They did their job. They didn\u2019t expect any more.<\/p>\n
Everybody knew what they had to do, and they went out and did it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Remembering Niele Ivey, the player<\/p>\n
Current Notre Dame coach Niele Ivey<\/a> was the starting point guard on the 2001 team honored on Sunday and later was a longtime assistant on McGraw\u2019s staff.<\/p>\n\u201cNiele was amazing,\u201d McGraw recalled of her first impressions of Ivey as a recruit out of St. Louis. \u201cI mean, she was somebody that had the energy, the leadership, the work ethic.<\/p>\n
\u201cHer high school coach said, \u2018Hardest-working kid I\u2019ve ever had.\u2019 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd she learned a lot being out injured on the \u201997 team and then got to take it all on when she came back.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ruth Riley, the All-America center on the 2001 team, wasn\u2019t surprised one bit that Ivey found her way into coaching after her playing career ended.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe 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,\u201d Riley said. \u201cAs 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.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SOUTH BEND, Ind. \u2014 Less than six full seasons removed from a Hall of Fame coaching career, former…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":531206,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3723],"tags":[7,217,231,772,1544,783,68598],"class_list":{"0":"post-531205","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-college-basketball","10":"tag-ncaa","11":"tag-ncaa-basketball","12":"tag-ncaab","13":"tag-notre-dame-fighting-irish","14":"tag-women-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115880849825289088","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=531205"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531205\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/531206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=531205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=531205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=531205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}