Notre Dame women’s basketball officially adds Oregon transfer to roster
It’s official. Oregon transfer Kylee Watson is Irish.
Last month, Watson announced on social media she’ll suit up for Notre Dame this upcoming season. The program made it official Monday with a press release.
“Exciting news today with Kylee Watson officially joining our ND family,” Notre Dame head coach Niele Ivey said in a statement. “Kylee is one of the most dynamic and versatile posts in her class. She can score at all three levels and is extremely explosive in transition, either running the floor or igniting the break. What I love about her most is her motor and toughness.”
Watson was one of three Oregon players to in appear in all 32 games for the Ducks last season. She started nine of them. Still, she only played 16.4 minutes per game. There is an element of untapped potential with the 6-4 junior. She needed a fresh start, and she seems to have found the perfect place for it.
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A 2020 McDonald’s All-American and the No. 17 overall player in the class according to ESPN, Watson has the talent. She averaged 16.9 points and 10.1 rebounds per game as a senior at Linwood (N.J.) Mainland. She averaged 18.1 points, 11.0 rebounds, 5.0 assists and 3.1 blocks per game in a junior-year run to the state championship.
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Watson put up 3.2 points and 2.4 blocks per game in two years at Oregon. She’s going to be given a completely different opportunity at Notre Dame. The Irish lost center Maya Dodson to the WNBA. Notre Dame is expected to make Texas transfer Lauren Ebo’s arrival official soon, so Watson isn’t completely alone in the post for the Irish. But she’s still in a position in which Notre Dame is going to have to heavily rely on her much more than Oregon did even with 6-4 Ebo in the fold.
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Notre Dame has built a legacy on luring McDonald’s All-Americans to South Bend. Highly touted players like that usually have international playing experience, and Watson is not an exception. She competed for Team USA at the 2021 3×3 National League in France. She won a gold medal at the FIBA Americas with the USA U-16 National Team in 2017.
The likes of Notre Dame sophomores Olivia Miles and Sonia Citron also have ample international experience. There’s a collection of accomplished players on the roster for Ivey, even if there are still only nine scholarship players on it including Watson, Ebo, Stanford transfer Jenna Brown and incoming freshman KK Bransford — another McDonald’s All-American.
There is certainly room for Notre Dame to take on another transfer, but it’s getting late in the game for that. Most transfer portal prospects have already chosen their new destinations. All four who left Notre Dame this offseason have. Still, look out for Ivey and the Irish to try to bring another player into the mix.
