Skip to main content
Notre Dame
Join Now

Notre Dame women's basketball guard KK Bransford goes down with scary injury

IMG_9992by: Tyler Horka6 hours agotbhorka

Notre Dame women’s basketball can’t ever stay away from the injury bug. It bit again Thursday.

Starting guard KK Bransford was in the midst of a coast to coast transition drive in the second quarter of
Notre Dame’s 97-48 win over Morehead State when her right knee appeared to buckle and she took an awkward tumble to the court. She laid in the same spot for quite some time, audibly yelping in pain while being tended to by team trainers. Head coach Niele Ivey stood over her for comfort and support for most of the time she was down as well.

Bransford was helped to the locker room without putting much weight, if any, on the affected leg. She got back to the bench to watch the second half … on crutches. Ivey said “it sounds like it’s going to be good” in relation to Bransford’s pending diagnosis, but it’s still very much up in the air.

“We’ll hear about KK tomorrow or Saturday,” Ivey said. “We’re just praying for the best.”

A redshirt junior who sat out the entirety of last season with a foot injury, Bransford started all nine Notre Dame games this season including Thursday night’s vs. Morehead State. She averaged the most minutes per game of any Fighting Irish player through the first eight games of the season, too.

In those 33.9 minutes per game, Bransford was putting up 10.6 points, 6.4 rebounds, 1.9 assists and 1.9 steals per game. Those are all career-high numbers for the former McDonald’s All-American.

Notre Dame has been playing most of the season with a seven-player rotation, including Bransford. That’s after only utilizing six players at the beginning of the year while transfers Iyana Moore and Malaya Cowles came back from late offseason knee injuries. Freshman forward Leah Macy is out indefinitely recovering from a knee injury she sustained in the final month of her high school career.

After Moore and Cowles returned, transfer Kelly Ratigan was kicked to the end of the bench. The Irish have gone with the same starting five since game one plus Moore and Cowles off the bench.

If Bransford’s injury is as serious as it looks, Moore will have to start. The role of Cowles, a center, won’t change. But Ivey might be forced to use Ratigan more often again for depth purposes.

Moore isn’t the same type of player as Bransford, who’s taller and gives the Irish more of a presence on defense and around the glass for rebounding. Moore is more of an offensive minded asset.

Since she redshirted last season, Bransford does have one more year of eligibility remaining. First things first, though; she’ll get the prosper testing and diagnosis required to determine her status for the rest of this year. It didn’t look good, but she can’t be ruled out long-term until official word is given by the university.

Come back to BlueandGold.com for the latest on Bransford and everything else involving Notre Dame women’s basketball.