Terps forward Alyssa Thomas considered attending Notre Dame, but when she visited the school in her junior year, “I just wanted to get out of there,” she said.
RALEIGH, N.C. – Nearly four years ago, a certain forward from Harrisburg, Pa., flew with her family to visit South Bend, Ind., during the fall of her junior year in high school. The rising star was highly touted and widely sought after by that September afternoon, and Notre Dame’s coaching staff had invited her to take in the school and see the Fighting Irish football team take on rival Michigan.
The visit – with its walks across the picturesque campus, the scheduled visit to legendary Notre Dame Stadium, the palpable school pride of a day set to honor coaching icon Lou Holtz – was intended to dazzle.
And yet Alyssa Thomas wanted to leave as soon as she arrived.
“I just wanted to get out of there. It was raining, it was a miserable day and I was ready to go,” Thomas said. “I knew as soon as I got there it wasn’t the school for me.”
So instead of readying for an Elite Eight game with a Fighting Irish team she could’ve called her own tonight, Thomas will instead don her familiar No. 25 jersey, lead the Terrapins women’s basketball team onto the PNC Arena floor and attempt to upend the top-seeded Notre Dame program she spurned years before. A win would send the Terps to their first Final Four since their 2006 national-title season.
Thomas’ on-court presence for the No. 2 seed Terps – and absence on their opponent’s lineup – will again loom large. Fittingly, Fighting Irish coach Muffet McGraw said Thomas and her frontcourt teammates pose the biggest threat to the team’s dreams of a second straight appearance in the sport’s final weekend.
“They’re a strong rebounding team with great size. They like to play four guards and are much more physical inside than we are,” McGraw said after Notre Dame’s 79-35 win over St. Bonaventure on Sunday. “It’s going to be a difficult matchup for us.”
As deep as its roster is, Notre Dame lacks the height and length the Terps feature all over the floor. Four of its five starters are shorter than 6 feet tall, and the team’s tallest player, reserve forward Natalie Achonwa, stands just 6-foot-3.
Thomas and her towering teammates stand in stark contrast to the Fighting Irish. Five players in the Terps’ normal eight-deep rotation are at least 6 feet tall. Thomas is 6-foot-2, and paint presences Tianna Hawkins, Alicia DeVaughn and Lynetta Kizer are all 6-foot-3 or taller.
“We’ve been fortunate, obviously, in our recruiting process to have some tremendous players when you talk about Alyssa Thomas playing the three-spot at 6-foot-2,” coach Brenda Frese said. “It gives us second-chance opportunities, it gives us more looks at the basket and it’s been a trademark of ours as we continue to recruit players into this program.”
“We use our length to get on the glass, and that gives a lot of teams a lot of trouble,” Thomas said. “We know we have a height advantage on them, especially inside. I know our inside game is going to be a huge strength for us tomorrow.”
Thomas might not have enjoyed her trip to South Bend all those years ago, but that didn’t necessarily mean she wanted to go elsewhere. Along with this university and a handful of other schools, the Fighting Irish were one of the teams Thomas closely considered in her recruiting process.
But before long, Notre Dame’s interest waned.
“When I went there, they kind of told me that it was between me and another girl,” Thomas said. “They said there was only one scholarship, and they weren’t really sure on me.”
Four years later, Thomas can sustain a sophomore season defined by its personal accomplishments – first-team All-ACC honors, ACC Player of the Year, a spot on “SportsCenter’s” top-10 plays – with a bit of personal payback. To be able to stick it to a Fighting Irish team that decided it didn’t want her? That would make victory far sweeter for Thomas.
“Their doubting me,” Thomas said yesterday, “it’s kind of fueling me for Tuesday.”
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