Tom Noie

1 week ago | southbendtribune.com | Tom Noie

MISHAWAKA – It was supposed to be about hoops and not loops for Penn High School senior Marjan Pulja. Basketball was Pulja’s game growing up in his native Croatia, where he spent his first nine years before his family immigrated to the United States. Thanks to YouTube videos and stories shared by his father, Edward, Pulja became a fan of arguably the game’s GOAT, Michael Jordan. Born in 2007, four years after Jordan called it a playing career, Pulja knew all there was to know about MJ. The moves.

1 week ago | southbendtribune.com | Tom Noie

SOUTH BEND – From an optics standpoint, it sits somewhere between awkward and awful. Just when you thought the Dumpster fire of Notre Dame women’s basketball since late March had burned itself out, two players off a team that was ranked No. 1 in the nation as late as February 23 — the two starting guards, the two all-conference guards, the two freaking All-American guards — decide to each blowtorch the smoldering ash.

1 week ago | sports.yahoo.com | Tom Noie

SOUTH BEND – From an optics standpoint, it sits somewhere between awkward and awful. Just when you thought the Dumpster fire of Notre Dame women’s basketball since late March had burned itself out, two players off a team that was ranked No. 1 in the nation as late as February 23 — the two starting guards, the two all-conference guards, the two freaking All-American guards — decide to each blowtorch the smoldering ash.

1 week ago | southbendtribune.com | Tom Noie

SOUTH BEND — Pull back the (black) curtain late Friday morning on a WNBA shoot-around at Purcell Pavilion and you’re struck by the sight of and sound from former Notre Dame women’s basketball guard Jackie Young. The legacy lives: She's still good with the shot that lives forever in Notre Dame women's basketball historyIs that the same player with all that potential who spent three seasons at Notre Dame? The one who was a quietly confident catalyst for consecutive Final Fours in 2018 and ‘19?

1 week ago | usatoday.com | Tom Noie

SOUTH BEND, IN – All basketball eyes Friday were on WNBA rookie Paige Bueckers. Except those on former Notre Dame All-American guard Arike Ogunbowale. Or former Irish guards Jewell Loyd and Jackie Young. The three veterans received warm welcome back receptions during the first WNBA game played at Purcell Pavilion, an exhibition Friday between the Las Vegas Aces and the Dallas Wings. Bueckers, the top pick by Dallas in last month’s WNBA draft, wasn’t far behind.