Supposedly in Phillipsburg, New Jersey, some 650 miles away from Notre Dame, there was an eighth-grade point guard named Olivia Miles with exceptional vision and eye-popping scoring ability. Ivey, now in her third year as head coach of the Irish after a 12-year stint as an assistant, had to investigate. 

Notre Dame is no stranger to stellar guard play. Over the course of playing in nine Final Fours and winning two national championships, Irish uniforms were worn by the likes of Ivey herself (class of 2001), Skylar Diggins (2013), Jewell Loyd (2015), Jackie Young (2019) and Arike Ogunbowale (2019), each of whom turned in All-America campaigns in South Bend, Indiana. (The last four were all top five WNBA draft picks, too). Their fingerprints, and names, are all over the Notre Dame record books. 

As such, it takes a truly impressive guard to turn Ivey’s head when she hits the recruiting trail. And when she first walked in the gym to watch Miles, she did a double take. This was the girl who sliced and diced defenses at will, who could bully other guards in the paint and score at the rim whenever she wanted? The nerdy looking one in goggles?

“You never know what you’re going to see, but it’s not what I was expecting,” Ivey recalled, laughing, to USA TODAY Sports. “But when she stepped on the floor, oh my gosh, she completely separated herself – how fast she was with the ball, the way she gets downhill, what an elite finisher she is. She reminded me of an NBA player with her skill set.”