2026 wing Bella Ragone commits to Notre Dame WBB

Notre Dame women’s basketball coach Niele Ivey invested much of her spring applying spackle to the holes in her 2025-26 lineup in the kind of 4 one-and-done graduate transfers.Thursday brought an addition for 2026-27, and one with potentially more staying power.Four-star wing player Bella Ragone has actually ended up being the first player in the 2026 recruiting class to devote to the Irish. The 6-foot-2 increasing senior from Braselton, Ga. is the No. 25 player in general in the class, per ESPNw, can sign with the Irish in November. From Mill Creek High School, Ragone took a main visit to Notre Dame in April and wound up selecting the Irish over finalists Louisville, Duke, North Carolina and UCLA. The Irish have eight scholarship players on their 2025-26 lineup, with the possibility of still including one or two more, however 4 of them will be preceded Ragone arrives for the 2026-27 season.And guard Hannah Hidalgo, Cass Prosper and KK Bransford will all remain in their last season of eligibility in 2026-27. Incoming freshman Leah Macy is the only player on next year’s roster who has several years of eligibility.Notre Dame the past number of months has included 4 one-and-done players– Vanderbilt guard Iyana Moore, who announced for the Irish on Monday, in addition to three April transfer signees– Milaya Cowles, a 6-3 forward from Wake Forest, Kansas State 6-4 forward Gisela Sanchez, and Duke 5-8 guard Vanessa de Jesus. New Notre Dame males’s and females’s basketball general supervisor Pat Garrity, who met the media on Thursday, talked about the value of both programs ‘stressing high school recruiting, player advancement and player retention as building blocks. And after that using the transfer portal to supplement, not to refill. “When you’rea team and a program like we have here, the word is development, “Garrity said.”Like, we’re generating freshmen. We’re developing them physically on the floor into roles where they understand that they can grow and excel.” That doesn’t suggest the portal isn’t

going to belong of it, however I think as we’ve seen, it’s going to be more minimal than a lot of other locations. I in fact take a look at it as an advantage, because when you’re having a discussion with a young player and their household about your plan to develop them as a player and where you believe you can get, they can basically take that to the bank if they come and put the work in.”