May 6, 2009
NOTRE DAME, Ind. – On Saturday afternoon, the Notre Dame women’s basketball program — all 12 returning players, plus the coaches and support staff (a total travel party of nearly 35 people) — will embark on a 10-day European tour that will take them to three countries (France, Monaco and Italy) and see them play three games against quality European competition during that time. The Irish also will have the opportunity to enjoy some of the most amazing historical sites in Europe, from the Eiffel Tower and the River Seine, to Monte Carlo and Lake Como, and on to the Vatican (including St. Peter’s Basilica and the Sistine Chapel), the Colosseum and the Roman Forum.
Throughout this memorable 10-day trip, UND.com will bring you wall-to-wall coverage in a variety of ways, all of which will be neatly packaged at the official on-line web page for the Fighting Irish in Europe located by clicking right here. Links to this page also can be found in the sidebar and in the lower right corner of the women’s basketball page at UND.com.
We will offer video interviews with Irish players and coaches during the tour’s Media Day activities after practice at the Joyce Center on Friday (May 8), as well as a special video wrap-up of the trip soon after our return. In between, we plan to offer two daily player diaries, with junior point guard Melissa Lechlitner writing for the South Bend Tribune and freshman forward Kellie Watson penning her thoughts for the Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette — those diary entries will be available right here at UND.com through the links on the special tour page, as well as through the South Bend Tribune and Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette web sites.
But that’s not nearly all. We plan to have regular blog postings (sometimes daily and sometimes more often than that, as our Internet access and cell phone reception allows), giving you a chance to hear from other members of the Irish travel party. We’ll also keep you in the loop on our travels, as well as the results of our three exhibition games over in Europe, with daily photo galleries in the works as well.
Of course, you can satisfy your Irish women’s basketball cravings up-to-the-second by signing on free of charge for either our exclusive Notre Dame women’s basketball Twitter page or the Irish ALERT text-messaging service. That Twitter page also will come in handy even after we get back from Europe, as we’ll continue to keep that updated with breaking news and other behind-the-scenes information about the Irish. What’s more, that special tour page has a history section where you can get a quick refresher on Notre Dame’s last European tour in 2002, including game recaps from all four contests over in Italy.
So don’t waste any time — go ahead and bookmark this page in your web browser because you’ll want to stop back every chance you get to see what’s happening with the Notre Dame women’s basketball team during this amazing experience … GO IRISH!!