Feb. 28, 2017
By Leigh Torbin
NOTRE DAME, Ind. – A week’s worth of ACC postseason honors began to roll out on Tuesday and the success of the No. 3 Notre Dame women’s basketball team was duly noted. Both Lindsay Allen and Brianna Turner earned a spot on the league’s Blue Ribbon media panel’s all-ACC first team while Jackie Young was honored with a spot on that group’s all-freshman team.
More league honors will be unveiled throughout the coming week surrounding the 40th annual ACC Tournament in Conway, South Carolina, for which the Irish hold the top seed.
Allen has yet to miss a start in her 142 games at Notre Dame and, on Sunday, tied the school’s 30-year-old career assist record with 778. On the season, she has helped 219 buckets, ranking fifth on the school’s single-season chart. The two-year team captain also stands eight assists shy of breaking the ACC career assist record of 785 set from 2004-08 by Virginia’s Sharnee Zoll. Allen both leads the ACC and ranks among the top six nationally in assists, assists per game and assist to turnover ratio. She chips in 9.2 points per game and has 67 steals to place among the league leaders there as well.
Reflecting her all-around game, Turner is one of just two players nationally (with West Virginia’s Lanay Montgomery) to rank in the top 16 nationally for both field goal percentage and blocked shots. Turner leads the ACC in both of those categories as well. Just a junior, she already stands 11th in league history with 254 career blocked shots and fourth with her .621 career field goal percentage. Turner turned in six double-doubles this season and made perhaps her greatest impact when she scored a career-high 31 points in the win at No. 21 Syracuse. Turner, who leads Notre Dame at both 15.5 points per game and 7.4 rebounds per game, earned ACC Player of the Week recognition Dec. 12.
Young averaged 7.1 points her game in her debut campaign for the Irish, appearing in 26 of the team’s 30 games. She averaged 4.7 rebounds per game, fourth on the squad. Her career-high 12 rebounds proved to be crucial in the narrow Feb. 19 win at No. 21 Syracuse. An athletic presence whose defense has continued to improve along with her renowned scoring touch, Young also contributed 32 assists and 23 steals while blocking eight shots. She was named the ACC Rookie of the Week twice this year, claiming the prize on both Dec. 5 and Feb. 13.
The Irish begin their quest for a fourth consecutive ACC Tournament championship at 2 p.m. on Friday when they face the winner of Thursday’s second round game between Virginia and Wake Forest. The game will be broadcast regionally by the ACC Network. For those outside of the ACC Network’s footprint (including the South Bend area), the game can be streamed live online at WatchESPN.
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Leigh Torbin, athletics communications associate director at the University of Notre Dame, has been part of the Fighting Irish athletics communications team since 2013 and coordinates all media efforts for Notre Dame’s women’s basketball and men’s golf teams. A native of Framingham, Massachusetts, Torbin graduated from the University of Massachusetts in 1998 with a bachelor’s degree in sports management. He has previously worked full-time on the athletic communications staffs at Vanderbilt, Florida, Connecticut and UCF.