While the Notre Dame Fighting Irish are still a few days away from tipping off the basketball season, it’s officially “watch list season.” And because Niele Ivey has a ton of talent on her roster, three more members of the Blue and Gold are staring the possibility of winning a key award at the end of the year.
Earlier this week, Sonia Citron was announced as being on the watch list for the award that goes to the best point guard in the country. Then three Irish players were placed on the Naismith Award Watch List for best female athlete in the sport.
On Thursday, three more Notre Dame Fighting Irish stars were named to the Katrina McClain Power Forward of the Year Award. As it turns out, while they’ll all be working to try and get ND to the Final Four, Liza Karlen, Liatu King and Maddy Westbeld will be competing against one another for this prize.
Notre Dame Fighting Irish stars make another watch list
Karlen averaged 17.7 points per game and 7.9 rebounds per game as a senior at Marquette last season, started in all 32 games and was a unanimous selection to the All-Big East First Team.
King, who comes to Notre Dame as a graduate student and played at Pittsburgh as a senior, averaged 18.7 points and 10.3 rebounds per game. She also had 1.8 assists and 1.8 steals per game.
Westbeld had 14.4 points per game 8.7 rebounds per game for Notre Dame last season, making 34 starts. However, she is a bit behind the eight ball when it comes to trying to win this award as she’s set to miss the start of the season and then an undefined amount of time of the regular season due to injury.