Notre Dame women's basketball adds walk-on from Irish volleyball team
Notre Dame women’s basketball has added two walk-ons to the roster in the last two weeks. The latest is a multi-sport Fighting Irish student-athlete — junior Bella Tehrani from the university’s volleyball program.
Notre Dame women’s basketball head coach Niele Ivey is good friends with the school’s volleyball head coach, Salima Rockwell, so it was as simple as hitting her up and asking if Tehrani was an option to play both sports.
The connection is deeper than that, though, as Ivey explained. Tehrani is good friends with Notre Dame junior guard KK Bransford.
“So she’s been at my house a couple times for team meals,” Ivey said. “So I know Bella. Perfect fit. Size-wise, we needed another body, being a forward position.”
Tehrani is listed as a 6-3 middle blocker for the volleyball team. She did not register any time on the floor in her first two seasons. A native Canadian, Tehrani excelled for Team Canada basketball at multiple levels of the country’s junior system. Tehrani joins junior Cassandre Prosper, who’s also 6-3, as native Canadians currently on the Notre Dame women’s basketball roster.
According to FightingIrish.com, Tehrani enrolled at Notre Dame when she was 16.
“She knows Notre Dame,” Ivey said. “She aligns with our culture. So I thought it was a perfect fit.”
It didn’t take long for Tehrani to make her Notre Dame women’s basketball debut. She played nearly 4 minutes at the end of the Irish’s 97-54 win over Loyola Maryland on Sunday. She missed the only shot she took and picked up a personal foul, but she also recorded a block.
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Tehrani shared the floor with the other newly acquired walk-on, 5-10 freshman guard Luci Jensen. Jensen grabbed a couple of rebounds and dished out an assist in her four minutes of floor time.
Notre Dame made it to the middle of the fourth quarter without a single bench point and still came within three points of hitting 100 against Loyola Maryland. Sophomore guard Emma Risch had all of the team’s bench points — all 7 of them, that is.
The Irish played without senior guard Sonia Citron and freshman center Kate Koval for what would be called “load management” in the NBA. They could have played if the opponent was tougher, but Ivey held them out on purpose to rest up ahead of conference play picking up at home vs. Virginia on Dec. 29.
When they come back, and when Notre Dame gets graduate senior forward Maddy Westbeld in the mix for the first time this season, the Irish will be even more of a problem for opponents than they already are. Tehrani and Jensen will only be needed in garbage or break glass in case of emergency type of situations.
“Offensively, our pace, we’re shooting the ball really well from three, but our pace is really good,” Ivey said. “There are so many weapons on this team. They do a great job of sharing the ball, having a lot of balance. I’m excited for our depth because I think we’re going to be a little bit healthier, and I think that’s really going to help us be able to extend our defense and be even more of a powerhouse offensively.”
