{"id":587725,"date":"2026-04-07T09:35:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T09:35:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/587725\/"},"modified":"2026-04-07T09:35:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T09:35:11","slug":"her-final-notre-dame-chapter-written-cassandre-prosper-to-enter-wnba-draft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/587725\/","title":{"rendered":"Her final Notre Dame chapter written, Cassandre Prosper to enter WNBA Draft"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cassandre Prosper<\/a> was a vital piece of Notre Dame\u2019s first Elite Eight run in seven years. She won\u2019t be running it back with the Fighting Irish for another shot at making the Final Four. <\/p>\n

Prosper is entering the 2026 WNBA Draft, she announced Monday evening on Instagram.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat a beautiful journey is has been,\u201d she wrote. \u201cWatching myself grow these past years has been the most rewarding process. This has been an incredible experience in my life, and it is such a blessing to have the awareness to know when I am ready for a new chapter. I couldn\u2019t be more proud of the woman I\u2019ve become.\u201d <\/p>\n

The ACC\u2019s 2026 Most Improved Player, Prosper had a fifth year of eligibility to utilize if she wanted. But after averaging career-bests in points (13.6) and rebounds (6.5) per game as a senior, Prosper is choosing to parlay the best season she ever had at Notre Dame into an opportunity to play professionally. She has the size for it at 6-4, and she might still be tapping into her potential as a game-changing two-way player. <\/p>\n

Prosper enrolled early at Notre Dame in the 2022-23 season. Coming from Montreal, Quebec, Prosper has plenty of international basketball experience. She played for Team Canada in the 2024 Olympics in Paris. Prior to that, she won bronze medals at the FIBA AmeriCup and the FIBA U-19 World Cup and a silver medal at the FIBA U-16 Americas Championship. <\/p>\n

Once she got to Notre Dame, Prosper played in 22 games as an early enrollee freshman. She made her first three career starts as an eligibility sophomore in 2023-24, but she only played in five games before an injury held her out for the rest of the season. She played in all 34 games with 4 starts in 2024-25. As a senior in 2025-26, she started all 36 of Notre Dame\u2019s games. <\/p>\n

The final line on Prosper\u2019s career reads 43 starts in 97 games played with 8.7 points, 4.8 rebounds, 1.2 assists, 1.2 steals and 0.9 blocks in 26.3 minutes per game. <\/p>\n

Prosper won\u2019t go down as a national champion, but she will be remembered as one of the prominent players who helped head coach Niele Ivey break through to the Elite Eight for the first time in her tenure. Notre Dame had fizzled out of the NCAA Tournament in the Sweet 16 four years in a row before this spring. Prosper averaged 12.3 points and 4.5 rebounds in 34.0 minutes per appearance during the Irish\u2019s four-game stay in the tournament. <\/p>\n

Had Prosper returned, she\u2019d have been another key cog in Notre Dame\u2019s efforts to make it back to the Elite Eight and maybe even the Final Four. She made it clear to Blue & Gold<\/a> immediately after losing to UConn on March 29, though, that she felt like her time at Notre Dame was successful even without a trip to the sport\u2019s ultimate end-of-season landing spot. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m very proud of my college career,\u201d Prosper said. \u201cI think now it\u2019s just about what I want for myself personally.\u201d<\/p>\n

Current Notre Dame women\u2019s basketball 2026-27 roster<\/p>\n

Returning players are in bold. Games played at Notre Dame are in parenthesis.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Graduate senior guard KK Bransford (90)
\u2022 Senior guard Hannah Hidalgo (103)
\u2022 Senior guard Kelly Ratigan (17)
\u2022 Junior guard Luci Jensen (22)
\u2022 Redshirt freshman forward Leah Macy (0)
\u2022 Freshman guard Jacy Abii
\u2022 Freshman guard Jenica Lewis
\u2022 Freshman guard Bella Ragone
\u2022 Freshman guard Amari Byles
\u2022 Freshman forward Isabella Sangha<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cassandre Prosper was a vital piece of Notre Dame\u2019s first Elite Eight run in seven years. She won\u2019t…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":587726,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[49,48,82,630,4143],"class_list":{"0":"post-587725","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wnba","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-wnba","12":"tag-womens-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587725","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=587725"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587725\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/587726"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=587725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=587725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=587725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}