Five-star 2025 forward Leah Macy commits to Notre Dame women’s basketball
A wildly entertaining 24 hours of roster improvement for Notre Dame women’s basketball got even better Monday. Five-star class of 2025 forward Leah Macy committed to the Fighting Irish this afternoon following transfer portal commitments from Liza Karlen on Sunday and Liatu King this morning.
Macy won’t have a chance to play with Karlen and King, but she’s the Irish’s first commit in her class and a darn good one that that — the 6-3 post player ranks No. 14 in ESPN’s HoopGurlz recruiting rankings for 2025. She’s the latest top-20 commit for Niele Ivey in a long line of them during her short tenure as Notre Dame’s head coach. There have been five of them alone from 2023 to 2025; Hannah Hidalgo (No. 5 in 2023), Cass Prosper (No. 16 in 2023), Emma Risch (No. 20 in 2023) and Kate Koval (No. 5 in 2024).
Per MaxPreps, Macy scored 24.9 points and 13.9 rebounds per game as a junior at Bardstown (Ky.) Bethlehem High School. She shot a staggering 67.3 percent from the floor. She chose Notre Dame over Kentucky, Louisville and UConn and holds scholarship offers from a plethora of other programs.
Macy started her high school career at Elizabeth Town (Ky.) High School as a seventh grader. She transferred to Mercy Academy in Louisville for her freshman and sophomore seasons. In four varsity years at those two institutions, Macy totaled 2,027 points and 1,197 rebounds. She was a two-time Courier Journal All-State first-team honoree at Mercy and kept the streak going with another first-team selection in her first year at Bethlehem.
Macy projects as a perfect longterm complement to Koval. The two of them could team up and start in the Notre Dame front court for four years with Karlen, King and Maddy Westbeld all moving on from the program at the conclusion of the upcoming season.
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Macy’s game resembles that of Karlen and King. She’s sizable, yes. But she’s also athletic and likes to get out and run. She can score in transition as easily as she can in the half court. In high school, she’s a five; often the tallest, biggest person on the floor. In college, she’ll be a four with 6-5 Koval holding down Notre Dame’s center spot.
Should Notre Dame retain Macy’s commitment and see it through to signee status, there are six scholarship players on the 2024-25 roster who will have at least one year of eligibility to team up with her in 2025-26. Guards Olivia Miles and KK Bransford will be seniors with one year left to play then. Hidalgo and Prosper will have two years of eligibility remaining, and Risch and Koval will have three.
Ivey attacked this offseason with every intention of making Notre Dame a national title contender next season. Karlen, King, Westbeld, Sonia Citron and Kylee Watson all have just one year of eligibility left. But even when they’re gone, the Irish will have more than enough firepower to continue making Final Four runs for years to come. Macy’s commitment is part of what makes that possible.
