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Kylee Watson becomes fourth Notre Dame women’s basketball player to enter transfer portal this week

IMG_9992by:Tyler Horka•04/02/25•

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Notre Dame forward Kylee Watson, center, stands and cheers for a point scored against Davenport during an exhibition game on Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2024, at Purcell Pavilion in South Bend. Notre Dame won 101-41. (Photo by Michael Clubb / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images)

Notre Dame has had as many players enter the NCAA transfer portal this week are there are remaining on the current 2025-26 Fighting Irish women’s basketball roster. The number for both is four.

Graduate student center Kylee Watson is the latest Notre Dame player to go into the portal, per On3’s Talia Goodman. Watson has a “do not contact” tag next to her name, according to Goodman, which means she likely already knows where she’s headed.

On that note, Watson’s move could come across as not as surprising as that of her peers. She joined graduate student guard Olivia Miles, junior guard Emma Risch and sophomore center Kate Koval in the portal in the last 48 hours. Miles could have gone to the WNBA and been a top pick — or stayed at Notre Dame to real the name, image and likeness (NIL) rewards she’ll enjoy wherever she suits up next — while Risch and Koval could have been integral pieces to the Notre Dame program in the coming years.

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Watson, meanwhile, missed the entire 2024-25 season rehabbing a knee injury she went down with in the 2024 ACC Tournament. She stayed on with the Irish for the entire year knowing she wasn’t going to be able to play anyway anywhere she went. She was very involved in cheering on her Irish teammates from the bench during a season in which Notre Dame went 28-6 and ended the year with a loss to TCU in the Sweet 16.

Watson transferred to Notre Dame from Oregon ahead of the 2022-23 season. She played in and started 64 games for the Fighting Irish over two seasons, averaging 6.5 points and 4.6 rebounds per game. For her career, Watson, a former McDonald’s All-American and the No. 17 overall prospect in the recruiting class of 2020, has played in 114 games with 73 starts. She’s averaged 5.1 points and 3.6 rebounds per game.

With Watson joining the aforementioned trio in the portal and Notre Dame losing a handful of other scholarship student-athletes to an exhaustion of eligibility, the Irish are down to the following scholarship players on the upcoming season’s roster; freshman forward Leah Macy, junior guard Hannah Hidalgo, redshirt junior guard KK Bransford senior guard Cassandre Prosper.

If Notre Dame had to play a game tomorrow, the Irish would not have enough players on scholarship to field a full starting lineup. As badly as head coach Niele Ivey’s team has been ravaged by the portal, she’s going to need to go out and do some portaling herself to rebuild her roster.

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