As a matter of fact, Notre Dame HAS a freshman this year who is perfectly healthy and did not see a minute of play in this Final Four. Her name is Danielle Patterson, a 6-2 forward from Long Island who was a McDonalds All-American last year as a senior in high school. Have you ever heard of her? Have you ever asked why she never got into either of these games? (Checking the box scores, she played 9 minutes against Villanova and 8 minutes against TA&M. Didn’t do much, apparently. My guess is that those minutes were in garbage time.)
If Notre Dame had lost either of the last two games (which could easily have happened), do you think the Muffet would deserve to be criticized for not developing her freshman forward so that she could give a few minutes of bench time when (as in tonight’s game) two of Notre Dame’s forwards played most of the second half with four fouls?
I really don’t see the difference between her situation and Megan Walker’s, except that Megan was more highly ranked coming out of high school. Both teams had a desperate need for effective bench players, but neither of these players fit that description.
You mention three players who are NOT freshman for Notre Dame this year. Arike and Mabrey were in the KLS/Collier class, and Young was in the Dangerfield class. I think if you checked their freshman minutes and productivity against their same-class counterparts at UConn, they would be quite similar.
I repeat again a point that you and many other posters don’t seem to get: Geno has no generic aversion to playing freshmen. In recent years, he has given substantial non-garbage minutes to Crystal, KLS, and Pheesa as freshmen, and certainly to Kia Nurse in her freshman year. I’m sure he really hoped to get something similar from this year’s freshman class, but he just didn’t. I think he hopes and expects, as we do, that next year’s freshmen will be a different and more typical story.
