Notre Dame women’s basketball injury updates on forwards Liatu King, Liza Karlen for USC game
It sounds like Notre Dame can go deeper on its bench than one player against USC on Saturday. Head coach Niele Ivey said forward Liatu King is on track to play versus the Trojans after sitting out this past Sunday’s game against Lafayette with a head injury.
“Oh yeah,” Ivey said when asked by Blue & Gold is King would be an option to play in Los Angeles for Saturday’s 4 p.m. ET tipoff. “She’s back.”
In front of a small gathering of reporters in South Bend, Ivey added, “She’s being reinserted back into practice and feeling pretty good.”
King, a Pitt transfer who was an All-ACC honoree a season ago, recorded double-doubles in each of her first two appearances in a Notre Dame uniform. She went down in the second minute of the fourth quarter against James Madison last week with 11 points and 3 rebounds. She did not return to the game after smacking her head on the court at Purcell Pavilion.
Marquette transfer Liza Karlen, also an all-conference performer at her previous institution, has not made an official appearance this season, meanwhile. She was helped off the floor with a lower-body injury in Notre Dame’s exhibition game on Oct. 30. She’s been in a heavy-duty walking boot ever since.
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Blue & Gold asked Ivey about Karlen’s recovery.
“It’s coming along well, but hers is more time,” Ivey said. “It’s more of a timetable for her.”
With Karlen sidelined in addition to graduate senior front-court mates Maddy Westbeld and Kylee Watson, the former recovering from offseason foot surgery and the latter rehabbing from knee surgery in the spring, and junior guard KK Bransford, who’s out for the year nursing a foot injury, Notre Dame has eight available players against the third-ranked team in the country this weekend.
King’s return should push Cassandre Prosper back to the bench, where she’ll be an option along with sophomore guard Emma Risch and senior guard Sarah Cernugel, a former walk-on. Prosper and Risch are coming off some stellar performances; Prosper is averaging 10.8 points and 5.5 rebounds per game while Risch, Notre Dame’s sharpshooter, has made six of her last nine three-point shots.
Most of what Notre Dame does will obviously funnel through the starters, though. Having King back in that capacity along with senior guards Olivia Miles and Sonia Citron, sophomore guard Hannah Hidalgo and freshman center Kate Koval is a massive boost to the Irish’s chances of taking down one of the top teams in the sport.
Hidalgo is the reigning ACC Co-Player of the Week. Miles won the award the week prior. Koval is the reigning ACC Co-Rookie of the Week. Citron is averaging 10.3 points per game and still sitting sixth on the team in that category. The Irish may not have a lot of available players, but the ones they do have are some of the best in the country.
They’re ready to take on the Trojans, King included.
