Injury to impact: How Cassandre Prosper became key contributor for Notre Dame women's basketball

You know the player who logs starter minutes without being a regular starter? Call ’em a sixth man or sixth woman or whatever you want, but, in essence, the simplest description is the first or second person who comes off the bench and gives a team everything it needs and more on both ends of the floor. Notre Dame has one of those.

Her name is Cassandre Prosper.

A junior who’s only played in 51 games with 7 career starts over the last three seasons — in one of those she was a mid-year enrollee and in another she went down with an injury in November, only playing in five games all season as a result — Prosper is currently playing the best basketball of her college career. That doesn’t look the same for every top-20 recruit, of which Notre Dame’s roster is filled with.

For fellow guards Olivia Miles, Hannah Hidalgo and Sonia Citron, for instance, it looks like the ability to pop off for 20-plus points in any given game. Miles and Citron just blasted past that plateau in Thursday’s 88-57 Notre Dame win over Pitt. Hidalgo has hit the mark in 19 of 22 games. Prosper? Just once — in her whole career.

Scoring big might’ve been the name of her game in high school. Actually, it was. Say it definitively because it’s the truth. But she brought so much more on a nightly basis at the preps level, too, and those are the things Notre Dame head coach Niele Ivey has asked her to lean into as someone who averages 24.7 minutes per game this season, fifth-most of any Irish player.

Defense. Rebounding. Aggression. The occasional three-point splash. Notre Dame gets a lot from Prosper in those areas. The supplementation it provides a team with arguably the highest concentration of elite talent in the country takes Ivey’s squad over the top. Or, at the very least, to the top. Notre Dame might have a No. 1 next to its name when Monday’s Associated Press Poll is released.

Prosper isn’t throwing any fits over her role or eyeing the transfer portal for more stardom sought elsewhere because that No. 1 matters more to her than any other number she could put down on her personal stat sheet.

“When you realize the potential for this team, for me, it’s like, ‘How can I contribute to this team in a way where I’m consistent and they know exactly what they’re going to get from me every game?'” Prosper said.

Ivey called Prosper’s mindset “a credit to her character.”

“She wants to win,” Ivey said. “She wants to compete to win, and she wants to bring whatever we need that’s going to help us.”

Cass Prosper: Doing it all

At 6-2, Prosper said one of the things she takes pride in is being able to guard every opposing position on the floor. If she gets switched on to point guards, it’s not a death trap. She’s confident in her mobility to stay in front of a quicker foe. It’s not a great matchup for her to have to go up against a taller center, but just as in the other case she can give it more of a fighter’s chance than some of her peers.

As great of players Notre Dame’s guards are, particularly Hidalgo and Miles, there are some things in basketball that are no-gos. Nonstarters. Hidalgo can’t feasibly post up in the paint or stand her ground against traditional front court players. She’s 5-6. Not her game. Not really Miles’ game at 5-10, either. Prosper has the physical tools to partake in such on-court endeavors, however, just like she can live out beyond the three-point line on both ends of the court, too.

She’s as well-rounded a player on a loaded Notre Dame roster as any, even if she’s only averaging 6.8 points and 4.4 rebounds and 1.1 assists per game. She does the dirty work — and she does it all the time, without fail.

“Cass has shown a lot of consistency this season,” graduate student forward Liza Karlen said. “She’s been huge for us. She can play any of the guard spots. She was at the ‘4’ there at the beginning of the season. Super versatile. Very knowledgeable.”

Consistency is born out of confidence. There was a time earlier in her career when Prosper wasn’t as sure of herself as she is now. That’s a natural evolution in any player’s maturation process. Prosper’s was slowed down by last year’s injury. What she’s doing now she envisioned doing then. The injury made that an impossibility.

This year, though, her three-point shooting is up from 21.4 percent as a freshman and sophomore to 37.8 percent as a junior. That’s consistency born out of confidence. She’s routinely taking the ball away before opponents even get set in the half court and getting all the way to the rim, channeling her inner Hidalgo on such steal and scores. That’s consistency born out of confidence.

Prosper said she takes pride in both of those contributions — the threes that bring the house down and the takeaways that yield quick-score opportunities that bring down the spirits of the opponent. What she takes the most pride in, though, is just being a part of it all.

Being a part of a team that can truly win it all.

“Knowing that you coach trusts you, every player wants that,” Prosper said. “The minutes I play, I know what I’m going to get about every game and that consistency allows me to just focus on the gift itself and not even worry about, am I gonna play am I not gonna play? And that’s like a blessing in itself. Our coaches do a great job of dealing with a lot of different superstars, a lot of different skill levels, but as a team, we know that we’re deep, and that’s our superpower.”