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SOUTH BEND – She left enough breadcrumbs over the previous eight days that you had an idea where the trail might lead Notre Dame women's basketball guard Olivia Miles.
Make that former Notre Dame guard Olivia Miles.
Noie: Was this Notre Dame women's basketball team different in this March Madness Sweet 16?
On Monday night, ESPN Senior NBA Insider Shams Charania, usually one to break big NBA news – Lakers acquire Luka Doncic – broke some equally big women’s college basketball news. He reported through sources (i.e., agents), that Miles, the dynamic, play-making guard who earned first-team All-Atlantic Coast Conference and second team All-American honors this season, would bypass the 2025 WNBA draft to enter the transfer portal and play her final year of college.
It seemed stunning that the 5-foot-10 Miles would walk away from being a top-five pick – likely top two – in the April 14 draft for another season of (theoretically) classes and homework and workouts and road trips and conference games to chase a Final Four/national championship at a powerhouse/blueblood program that doesn’t carry a 46556 zip code.
Any elite program in need of an elite guard? Miles’ DMs are open.
Surprising? Shocking? Not really. Not if you’ve paid attention. To Miles. To the WNBA. To where the college game is with Name Image and Likeness and all (i.e., $$$) that it entails.
Miles admitted following the March 23 second-round NCAA Tournament home win over Michigan, after which she took the public address microphone to thank the fans at Purcell Pavilion, that that was her last home game at Notre Dame. The belief was that Miles, who missed the 2023-24 season after suffering a serious right knee injury in the closing stages of the 2022-23 season, which allows for that return in 2025-26, was ready to start her WNBA career clock.
It was time to be a pro.
Or was it?
The rookie salary scale for a top-four WNBA pick is $76,535. A college player the caliber of Miles (elite) might demand – and earn – 10 times that in NIL. The bigger the market/program, the more earning opportunities. It’s about dollars, but it also makes sense.
It makes too much of it that Miles can make more in college than in the W. That matters.
Seated in a somber Notre Dame locker room Saturday afternoon inside Legacy Arena in Birmingham, Alabama, Miles walked through the decision-making process that awaited with a handful of reporters. It was like listening to a tennis match. Back and forth she volleyed ideas. Pros. Cons. Everything.
After one sentence, you thought, she’s gone. After another, it was, uh...hold on.
Maybe she would declare for the draft. Maybe being a top-five pick might be too good to pass up. Maybe she would return to school. She loved college but also admitted that she’d outgrown it.
College was the ultimate known. The WNBA was the great unknown.
“I’ll be prepared and I’ll be confident in my decision,” Miles said Saturday.
Maybe she was just tired of Notre Dame. After 101 games and 3,241 minutes, 1,430 points, and 654 assists, it was time to do something new. To try something new. To be somebody new. It happens.
Speaking of tired, Miles dropped the biggest breadcrumb when she mentioned that one drawback about going pro now would be picking up where she left off – playing basketball. Following the draft, it would be right into training camp and preseason games and a 40-game regular season that runs from mid-May to mid-September.
Saturday afternoon in Alabama, Miles looked and sounded like someone who needed a break. Badly. She was running on fumes, emotionally and physically. She needed to go sit on a beach somewhere and decompress. Not look at a basketball. Not wear a pair of sneakers. Let her mind, her body, and her sprained left ankle heal. The last thing she needed (and likely wanted) was to go run up and down the court every day for the next five months and a college season that just ran for six.
She looked at that schedule and thought, can’t do it. Not yet. Not now.
Seeing Miles enter the transfer portal, it’s easy to point to loyalty, as in, there’s none of it in college athletics today as athletes grab bigger paydays at schools A, B. or C. Miles is simply the latest to go chase a bag of cash.
Partially true, until you remember what Miles’ left ankle looked like after she played 27 minutes on it against Michigan. It was swollen and all shades of black, blue, and red. A golf-ball-sized knot subsided the day before the game.
Miles had no business walking on that foot let alone running on it. She could have - maybe should have – shut it down right there to preserve her future and said, yeah, I’m done for the rest of the year to let this heal.
It would’ve been an understandable business decision.
Instead, Miles did what she did because of who she is. A hooper. Six days later, she played again, even when her still ankle wasn’t all the way right in the Sweet 16 loss to TCU. You could see sitting courtside that it bothered her.
Miles gave herself a pep talk right there on the court during an early timeout, She then stomped her left foot to the floor once, twice, three times. She admitted afterward that it hurt, hurt a lot, but she never begged off, never said she couldn’t go. She had to play.
Miles gave everything she had to Notre Dame. She gave everything she had in this postseason. It’s time to give everything somewhere else. It may not be right. It may not be wrong.
It is the way of the college basketball world.
Follow South Bend Tribune and NDInsider columnist Tom Noie on X (formerly Twitter): @tnoieNDI. Contact Noie at [email protected]
This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: One of the elite guards in women's college basketball's enters transfer portal
Continue reading...
Make that former Notre Dame guard Olivia Miles.
Noie: Was this Notre Dame women's basketball team different in this March Madness Sweet 16?
On Monday night, ESPN Senior NBA Insider Shams Charania, usually one to break big NBA news – Lakers acquire Luka Doncic – broke some equally big women’s college basketball news. He reported through sources (i.e., agents), that Miles, the dynamic, play-making guard who earned first-team All-Atlantic Coast Conference and second team All-American honors this season, would bypass the 2025 WNBA draft to enter the transfer portal and play her final year of college.
It seemed stunning that the 5-foot-10 Miles would walk away from being a top-five pick – likely top two – in the April 14 draft for another season of (theoretically) classes and homework and workouts and road trips and conference games to chase a Final Four/national championship at a powerhouse/blueblood program that doesn’t carry a 46556 zip code.
Any elite program in need of an elite guard? Miles’ DMs are open.
Surprising? Shocking? Not really. Not if you’ve paid attention. To Miles. To the WNBA. To where the college game is with Name Image and Likeness and all (i.e., $$$) that it entails.
Miles admitted following the March 23 second-round NCAA Tournament home win over Michigan, after which she took the public address microphone to thank the fans at Purcell Pavilion, that that was her last home game at Notre Dame. The belief was that Miles, who missed the 2023-24 season after suffering a serious right knee injury in the closing stages of the 2022-23 season, which allows for that return in 2025-26, was ready to start her WNBA career clock.
It was time to be a pro.
Or was it?
The rookie salary scale for a top-four WNBA pick is $76,535. A college player the caliber of Miles (elite) might demand – and earn – 10 times that in NIL. The bigger the market/program, the more earning opportunities. It’s about dollars, but it also makes sense.
It makes too much of it that Miles can make more in college than in the W. That matters.
Seated in a somber Notre Dame locker room Saturday afternoon inside Legacy Arena in Birmingham, Alabama, Miles walked through the decision-making process that awaited with a handful of reporters. It was like listening to a tennis match. Back and forth she volleyed ideas. Pros. Cons. Everything.
After one sentence, you thought, she’s gone. After another, it was, uh...hold on.
Maybe she would declare for the draft. Maybe being a top-five pick might be too good to pass up. Maybe she would return to school. She loved college but also admitted that she’d outgrown it.
College was the ultimate known. The WNBA was the great unknown.
“I’ll be prepared and I’ll be confident in my decision,” Miles said Saturday.
Maybe she was just tired of Notre Dame. After 101 games and 3,241 minutes, 1,430 points, and 654 assists, it was time to do something new. To try something new. To be somebody new. It happens.
Speaking of tired, Miles dropped the biggest breadcrumb when she mentioned that one drawback about going pro now would be picking up where she left off – playing basketball. Following the draft, it would be right into training camp and preseason games and a 40-game regular season that runs from mid-May to mid-September.
Saturday afternoon in Alabama, Miles looked and sounded like someone who needed a break. Badly. She was running on fumes, emotionally and physically. She needed to go sit on a beach somewhere and decompress. Not look at a basketball. Not wear a pair of sneakers. Let her mind, her body, and her sprained left ankle heal. The last thing she needed (and likely wanted) was to go run up and down the court every day for the next five months and a college season that just ran for six.
She looked at that schedule and thought, can’t do it. Not yet. Not now.
Seeing Miles enter the transfer portal, it’s easy to point to loyalty, as in, there’s none of it in college athletics today as athletes grab bigger paydays at schools A, B. or C. Miles is simply the latest to go chase a bag of cash.
Partially true, until you remember what Miles’ left ankle looked like after she played 27 minutes on it against Michigan. It was swollen and all shades of black, blue, and red. A golf-ball-sized knot subsided the day before the game.
Miles had no business walking on that foot let alone running on it. She could have - maybe should have – shut it down right there to preserve her future and said, yeah, I’m done for the rest of the year to let this heal.
It would’ve been an understandable business decision.
Instead, Miles did what she did because of who she is. A hooper. Six days later, she played again, even when her still ankle wasn’t all the way right in the Sweet 16 loss to TCU. You could see sitting courtside that it bothered her.
Miles gave herself a pep talk right there on the court during an early timeout, She then stomped her left foot to the floor once, twice, three times. She admitted afterward that it hurt, hurt a lot, but she never begged off, never said she couldn’t go. She had to play.
Miles gave everything she had to Notre Dame. She gave everything she had in this postseason. It’s time to give everything somewhere else. It may not be right. It may not be wrong.
It is the way of the college basketball world.
Follow South Bend Tribune and NDInsider columnist Tom Noie on X (formerly Twitter): @tnoieNDI. Contact Noie at [email protected]
This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: One of the elite guards in women's college basketball's enters transfer portal
Continue reading...
