Evolving Notre Dame Basketball roster faces transfers ahead of promising season

The Notre Dame Women’s Basketball program might be about to take the next step in its evolution, but it’s going to be doing so without a couple of key contributors. Despite a successful season and expectations of an even better one in 2024-25, the Irish have seen two players depart for the transfer portal in the last few days.

Niele Ivey’s squad is expected to be one of the best teams in the country next season but it may now need to replenish its roster a bit after forward Natalija Marshall and sophomore guard KK Bransford entered the portal. 

Bransford announced her departure on Instagram at the beginning of the week. She was officially the first Notre Dame basketball player  from Ivey’s squad to decide to go look for greener pastures. There is some hope of course that she didn’t start a flood of departures. Her leaving did spark at least one of her teammates to decide to leave as well.

Natalija “Nat” Marshall announced she’d be a grad transfer on Wednesday evening. She made it clear in her post that moving on was more about seeing what else the college basketball world had to offer after three years in South Bend.

Notre Dame basketball stars depart the Fighting Irish

Marshall will leave Notre Dame after starting in her final four games for the injured Kylee Watson. In her seasons with the Irish, Marshall averaged 4.1 points and 1.3 rebounds a game. Meanwhile, Bransford averaged 7.5 points and 3.8 rebounds a game.

The good news is that, so far, Notre Dame's two losses from its latest Sweet 16 team involve depth players more than impact contributors.

Considering that the Notre Dame basketball team entered the offseason with rumors of trouble between Olivia Miles and Hannah Hidalgo, things appear to still be going quite good for the Irish.