TOLEDO, Ohio — It’s so easy to take for granted just how special Grace VanSlooten is. She makes everything look so easy and we’ve been watching her do this for three years now.
Last week, in Notre Dame’s sectional-opening win, she scored 40 points and 35 of those came in the first half. In that game, the junior went over 1,000 career points.
"It's a lot of fun," said VanSlooten. "It was just great because my teammates were looking for me. I think they knew I wanted to score 1000 that game. I just have great teammates and it's a lot of fun to play with them."
VanSlooten is one of the top-20 players in all of America for the 2022 class. She’s got offers from just about every major program in the country.
But staying humble has never been an issue. She continues to put her head down and go to work.
"I don't think it's hard to stay humble," said VanSlooten. "I have a great family and I definitely think they keep me humble. It's not hard at all. You just got to know that there's other people out there thinking they're better than you."
The scary part of all of this is she has a full year of high school left at Notre Dame and there is still room to improve her game.
"She has more room to improve," said head coach Travis Galloway. "She's a special player because of her work ethic, and her motor, and her drive. Obviously, she's very skilled, she has great size, she can do a lot of things on the floor. But her effort in the offseason to get better is second to none."
Grace VanSlooten from Notre Dame is our athlete of the week.