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WNBA or staying in South Bend? What’s next for Notre Dame guard Olivia Miles after Sweet 16 exit

IMG_9992by:Tyler Horka•03/29/25•

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Notre Dame guard Olivia Miles celebrates a three in the Sweet 16. (Photo by Jake Crandall/ Advertiser / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images)

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Olivia Miles needs to make a few calls.

No, really.

That’s the exact verbiage Notre Dame’s point guard used when she was asked in the Legacy Arena locker room what’s next for her following her senior season in South Bend. Will she stay there for another or will she enter the WNBA Draft? She’d be a lottery pick if it’s the latter. She’d get another year to try to get everything right with fellow All-American Hannah Hidalgo if it’s the former.

She can’t go wrong. But sometimes that makes choosing even harder.

“I truly do not know what I want to do,” Miles said. “But I’m very blessed because I’m in a great position.”

The circumstances under which Miles must decide are as difficult as the decision itself. Notre Dame lost to TCU, 71-62, in the Sweet 16 on Saturday. It’s the fourth consecutive year in which the Irish have dipped out of the NCAA Tournament in the third round.

If this was it for Miles in the college game, she’ll leave having never played in the Elite Eight — let alone the Final Four. But she’ll also leave having been on the roster of a team that played in the second round of the tournament four years in a row, even if the ceiling was always the first day of it. The first Notre Dame team she played on as an early enrollee in the winter of 2021 did not go dancing in March Madness.

That team was .500 — 10-10. In the four years since then, Notre Dame has had a winning percentage of 0.793. That’s a record of 107-28. For as long as Miles has been with the Irish, sans a few games in a season shortened because of the COVID pandemic, her presence has been synonymous with success.

“When I think about legacy I think more about the impact that I leave on people,” Miles said. “Winning is great. Obviously everyone wants to do it. But as Coach [Niele] Ivey said, as long as you leave the place better than you found it, you left a really good impact.”

Miles admitted it’d be tough to give up such high draft stock. She was the No. 2 overall pick to the Seattle Storm in ESPN’s most recent mock draft that came out earlier this week. Not bad for someone who didn’t play in a competitive game for 18 months, from February 2023 to October 2024, because of a significant knee injury requiring surgery.

What if she sustained a similar setback in the 2025-26 collegiate season? No way she’d be the No. 2 overall pick at this time next year, right? She’s coming off a season in which she averaged 15.5 points, 5.9 assists and 5.8 rebounds. She can do it all offensively — when healthy. Or even when not healthy; she played through Notre Dame’s second- and third-round tournament games this week with a severely sprained ankle. She was still one of the Irish’s best players in those matchups.

Tearing a ligament and structurally damaging a joint? Completely different story. She knows first-hand.

“I’m thinking about that top pick, and it’s hard to risk that,” Miles said.

Still, Miles admitted she could turn her ankle walking to the bus stop. Injury risk isn’t pushing her to definitively forego her final year of eligibility. She means it when she says she needs to make those calls.

“Now I have to face that reality,” Miles said. “I’m ready to do so.”

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