Olivia Miles Is Shredding Defenses as a Freshman. How Far Can She Go?

Olivia Miles doesn’t keep in mind when she realized she was good at basketball. What she remembers is when different folks realized she was good at basketball, which occurred virtually as quickly as she began taking part in in fifth grade.

“Individuals have been simply telling me that I had the flexibility,” she mentioned.

It was as apparent to anybody watching then because it has been to this point within the N.C.A.A. event, the place Miles, Notre Dame’s 5-foot-10 level guard, has already made historical past by changing into the primary freshman in both the ladies’s or males’s tournaments to document a triple-double. In her first event recreation, an 89-78 victory over Massachusetts, Miles had 12 factors, 11 rebounds and 11 assists.

“It’s all the time good for me to see the triple-double, as a result of it reassures me that I’m placing rather a lot on the court docket,” she mentioned. “It’s enjoyable to get these stats — to depart my mark and depart a legacy.”

Miles, 19, can discuss triple-doubles like an outdated good friend as a result of the one she recorded within the first spherical was the second of her faculty profession. And she or he often comes simply a few rebounds or an help wanting one other one.

In Notre Dame’s second-round drubbing of Oklahoma, the No. 4 seed, Miles steered the fifth-seeded Preventing Irish to 108 factors, essentially the most this system has scored in its event historical past. In that recreation, she had 9 factors, 7 rebounds and 12 assists.

These numbers are a testomony to Miles’s ability, but in addition to the belief Niele Ivey has put in her first recruit as Notre Dame’s head coach. Miles, who was ranked No. 8 in her class by ESPN HoopGurlz, dedicated to Notre Dame simply two days after Ivey, a former Notre Dame star participant and assistant coach, assumed the highest job in 2020.

“I’ve principally given her the ball and mentioned, ‘Give me the ball again in 4 years,’” Ivey mentioned.

Because it seems, Miles loves to present the ball away. She is Notre Dame’s main scorer, however she averages 7.4 assists per recreation — second solely to Iowa’s Caitlin Clark in that class nationally.

These assists are essentially the most eye-popping components of her spotlight reels, usually coming in transition when solely a pair seconds have been shaved off the shot clock.

“My first apply together with her, she gave me like three open photographs instantly,” mentioned guard Dara Mabrey, a senior. “I used to be like, ‘Whoa, that is going to be enjoyable.’”

Miles can learn defenses at a near-professional tempo, evaluating them immediately and normally discovering a teammate prepared to attain. She sees the court docket with readability by means of her signature sports activities goggles (no, she’s by no means wished to strive contact lenses).

“She’s bought in all probability the very best imaginative and prescient I’ve seen on anybody,” mentioned Ivey.

Miles attributes that capability, partly, to soccer, which she performed as a younger little one in Phillipsburg, N.J., lengthy earlier than she stepped on the hardwood. It was her first sport, and he or she continued taking part in each fall into highschool — even after the purpose when she may need simply targeted on basketball.

“I really feel like studying defenders, taking a look at open areas and discovering the place to make the precise path on the proper time — these components of soccer actually translate to basketball,” Miles mentioned. She additionally believes that diversifying her athletic endeavors has made her extra sturdy. “It’s helped me rather a lot to get used to completely different actions, completely different turns and cuts,” she mentioned.

Miles additionally research N.B.A. and W.N.B.A. gamers, which helps her think about a wide selection of choices for any given play. It’s hardly a revolutionary tactic, however watching Miles play, her passing and her technique appear a lot nearer to the skilled stage than these of most of her friends.

“Generally we’ll be darting up the court docket in transition as quick as we will, and he or she’ll see one thing and make a move,” Mabrey mentioned. “I’m like, ‘Dude, how did you even see her? How do you know that was going to occur?’”

As she explains it, Miles felt she needed to take phrase “scholar of the sport” actually as a result of she hadn’t grown up watching a lot basketball. Her father is a runner and likes soccer, and her mom didn’t have an curiosity in sports activities. Collectively, they’d little sense of the chances Miles had inside the recreation and the trail she must take to understand them.

“I didn’t even know that you might go to varsity to play basketball,” Miles mentioned. “Different folks simply needed to inform us, like, ‘The subsequent step for her is that this.’”

The extra severe she bought about basketball, the extra time she spent learning YouTube movies and Twitter clips of Trae Younger and Stephen Curry, Arike Ogunbowale — one other youth soccer participant turned Notre Dame basketball star — and, she grudgingly admits, Sue Chicken.

“Although she went to UConn and it’s an entire huge factor, I actually love watching her play,” Miles mentioned of Chicken and their groups’ rivalry. “I imply, her imaginative and prescient is ridiculous.”

Cultivating her personal imaginative and prescient has turn into Miles’s major mission, one she is so singularly targeted on that she elected to forgo her senior season at Blair Academy, a New Jersey boarding faculty. The season had already been postponed numerous instances due to the coronavirus pandemic, so Miles proposed to Ivey that she turn into Notre Dame’s first early enrollee for girls’s basketball, becoming a member of the crew in late January 2021.

“I used to be like, OK, we’re not going to have a season and I’m simply going to be stagnant,” Miles mentioned. “At my highschool, doing nothing — after I may very well be studying and rising in each educational methods and on the court docket.”

Early enrollment is frequent for athletes who play fall sports activities, particularly soccer, as a result of they get an opportunity to ease into the school expertise. However for Miles, it meant beginning each faculty and faculty athletics in the midst of convention play — and working the ground for her older and extra skilled teammates.

The teachings of these early video games have been bearing fruit at precisely the precise time, with the Notre Dame offense clicking beneath Miles’s command. Miles has led one attention-grabbing victory within the event to this point. Subsequent, she is going to attempt to assist repeat certainly one of Notre Dame’s greatest wins of the season, a regular-season overcome North Carolina State, when the groups meet once more within the spherical of 16 on Saturday — with the Wolfpack as a No. 1 seed.

“I need her to have enjoyable, I need her to steer our crew and push tempo, and I need her to play with freedom,” Ivey mentioned. “In different phrases, I need Olivia to play her model of basketball.”