OLYMPIC BASKETBALL: Notre Dame sends Natalie Achonwa and Cassandre Prosper to the Canadian team

Here come the Olympics, and the Notre Dame Fighting Irish will be well represented by our friends in the north… Canada.

From the ND press release:

Natalie Achonwa and Cassandre Prosper are 2024 Olympians

On Tuesday, Team Canada announced its 12-person roster for the upcoming Olympic Games in Paris. Notre Dame is one of just two schools to place multiple players on the team.

Achonwa, a 2014 graduate of Notre Dame and native of Ontario, is Canada’s first four-time Olympian in women’s basketball (2012, 2016 and 2020). She has had a long and storied career, beginning in 2009 when she was the youngest player selected to the Canadian Senior National Team. She was 16.

While in South Bend, Achonwa added several accolades to her resume including being named to the AP All-America Third Team in 2015. She had a lifetime field goal percentage of 56.2, which ranks eighth in Irish history, and she notched 970 rebounds over her career, which ranks fifth. Achonwa finished her time at Notre Dame with 1,546 points (17th in school history).

Prosper, a rising junior at Notre Dame after enrolling early in December 2022, missed most of last season with a lower leg injury. The Montreal native averaged 8.2 points, 4.2 rebounds and 1.8 steals over the five games in which she saw the court, all of which were improvements from the 2022-23 season.

The Canadian women qualified for the 2024 Olympic Games by finishing third in the FIBA Women’s Olympic Qualification Tournament in Hungary earlier this year. It is the team’s eighth Olympic appearance.

Once in Paris, the group stage of play for the women will begin July 28 and run through August 4. The quarterfinals, semifinals and gold medal match will be August 7, 9 and 11, respectively.