Mother-Son Duo Niele Ivey, Jaden Ivey Eyeing NCAA Tournament Basketball Titles

On Friday afternoon, Niele Ivey plans on driving 160 miles from Bridgeport, Conn., to Philadelphia to watch her son, Purdue star guard Jaden Ivey, play that night in the Boilermakers’ Sweet 16 NCAA tournament game against Saint Peter’s.

Arriving in time for the 7 p.m. tip-off may be tricky for Niele Ivey, the Notre Dame women’s basketball coach. The Irish are practicing on Friday in Bridgeport to prepare for Saturday morning’s Sweet 16 game against North Carolina. They then have mandatory media obligations. But, barring a traffic jam, Niele figures she should be in her seat to watch Jaden.

After the game, she’ll drive immediately back to Bridgeport, making it a long day. Still, she is thrilled it worked out that she could be in Philadelphia and with her son.

“I’m so blessed,” Niele Ivey said. “I’m so grateful to still be playing and doing this together with him.”

Niele is no stranger to the NCAA tournament. Jaden was born in February 2002, just 10 months after his mother won the 2001 national title as a player at Notre Dame. Niele, a 5-foot-8 point guard, was the leader of an Irish team that in the Final Four overcame a 12-point halftime deficit and knocked off a University of Connecticut team that featured future WNBA and Olympic stars Diana Taurasi and Sue Bird. The Irish beat Purdue, 68-66, in the championship game that was held in Ivey’s hometown of St. Louis.

The Indiana Fever selected Niele in the second round of the 2001 WNBA draft, and she played that season while pregnant. During her WNBA career, she appeared in 131 games in five seasons, retiring in 2005. She then accepted an administrative assistant position at Xavier University under women’s basketball coach Kevin McGuff, who was an assistant at Notre Dame when Ivey played there.

“It kind of fell into my lap,” Ivey said. “I thought I wanted to stay around the game somehow. I didn’t know which path I was going to take and then the opportunity at Xavier came up.”

After two seasons at Xavier, Ivey was hired as an assistant at Notre Dame under longtime coach Muffet McGraw. It was a chance to earn a promotion and more money, return to her alma mater and provide a stable environment for Jaden, who was getting ready to enter elementary school. Devereaux Peters was a freshman on the 2007 team when she met Jaden.

“He was so little,” Peters said. “He came up to Niele’s knees. I remember meeting him and trying to say hi. He was like hugged up behind her and would not let go of her leg. They were like attached at the hip.”

And they continued to be like that as Niele, a single mother, always had Jaden around the program. He attended games, practices, dinners and team functions.

“Everywhere we went, he was there,” Niele said. “He came off the bus in third, fourth grade like he was playing that night with the girls. He was always ready. He was a gym rat.”

Notre Dame’s players also helped Niele raise Jaden and loved being around him. They would pick him up from school, babysit and attend his birthday parties.

“They were his big sisters,” Ivey said. “He was the little bro, always.”

Said Peters: “He was always with us. If you watch videos of that era, any time we win a game or we’re in the tournament, he’s in the background and always with us and hanging out. He was like our little brother.”

When Jaden was growing up, Niele signed him up for every sport and activity she could find, including swimming, karate, football and soccer. But by middle school, Jaden was focused solely on basketball, playing whenever he could.

In July 2018, just before his junior year at Marian High School in Mishawaka, Ind., Jaden received his first scholarship offer from Purdue after attending the school’s elite summer camp. Notre Dame offered him a scholarship a few months later, but Jaden decided in April 2019 to commit to Purdue in large part because of his relationship with coach Matt Painter.

“(Painter) saw something in Jaden that resonated with me,” Niele Ivey said. “He saw what I see every day. As a parent, you want the coach to see (the child’s) greatness and see the uniqueness of your child. Every parent feels that way. Coach Painter told me when he first saw (Jaden), ‘That kid is special.’”

Still, back then, Jaden was far from a sure-fire NBA player. In fact, he was only 99th in the 247Sports Composite index for the high school class of 2020. As a freshman last year, Ivey began the season coming off the bench for the first 11 games before starting the final 12 games. During that 12-game stretch, Ivey averaged 14.8 points, including a season-high 26 points in Purdue’s first round NCAA tournament loss to North Texas. And last summer, he helped Team USA win the FIBA U19 World Cup, averaging 12.3 points per game, which was second-best on the team.

This season, Ivey, who is 6-foot-4 and 195 pounds, is averaging a team-high 17.6 points per game. Earlier this month, he was named a first-team All-American by the National Association of Basketball Coaches and a second-team All-American by the Associated Press and United States Basketball Writers Association. He has also emerged as a likely top-5 pick in June’s NBA draft.

“It’s been fun watching him grow up and seeing how much he’s improved,” Peters said. “But it’s not shocking at all because we know how hard he worked. His work ethic is just unbelievable. He’s one of those kids that just lives in the gym. That’s how he grew up. He was always in the gym and always around us.”

Said Niele Ivey: “I’ve always known he was NBA material and he would eventually be NBA ready. But I didn’t know when it was going to be….He’s made such huge strides. It’s really amazing to see his progress.”

Jaden is already familiar with the NBA, having attended numerous games growing up thanks to his mother’s connections throughout the sport. Niele also spent the 2019-20 season as an assistant for the Memphis Grizzlies while Jaden was attending his senior year of high school at La Lumiere, an Indiana boarding school and basketball powerhouse. Niele returned to Notre Dame in April 2020 as its head coach after McGraw retired.

Niele and Jaden remain in touch with several Grizzlies’ players, including center Jaren Jackson, Jr. and star guard Ja Morant, who are both 22 and were lottery picks in the 2018 and 2019 drafts, respectively.

“They’re Jaden’s big brothers,” Niele Ivey said. “They really bonded when I was with the Grizzlies. Jaden got a chance to really learn and talk to some of his biggest role models. He got a chance to see it up close and personal. It’s really helped Jaden.”

Although Jaden is likely headed to the NBA in a few months, he still has more to accomplish in college. Purdue, the No. 3 seed in the East Regional, is heavily favored to beat No. 15 seed Saint Peter’s on Friday. If the Boilermakers win that game, it will face either No. 4 seed UCLA or No. 8 seed North Carolina on Sunday with a chance to advance to Purdue’s first Final Four since 1980. The Boilermakers have never won a national title.

Notre Dame’s women’s team, meanwhile, is the No. 5 seed in its regional and an underdog on Saturday against No. 1 seed North Carolina State. But the Irish are coming off a 108-64 victory over Oklahoma in the round of 32, and Niele Ivey is accustomed to NCAA tournament success, having won a national title as a player in 2001 and assistant in 2018. She played in another Final Four as a player and an additional six Final Fours as an assistant, as well.

So far this season, Niele has been able to attend 16 Purdue games in person, making the 2 hour, 10 minute drive from Notre Dame whenever she can. Still, it’s not easy sitting in the stands.

“I’m a mess,” Niele said, laughing. “I’m so nervous. People are like, ‘Are you more nervous as a head coach or as a Mom?’ I’m like, ‘A Mom.’ I’m hanging on the edge of my seat.”

And yet, Niele is confident that her son can continue to have a dream season. She recalled that Jaden attended all of Notre Dame’s seven Final Four appearances between 2011 and 2019, going to the games and practices, hanging out in the locker room, riding on the team bus. She said that he was always hoping that could be him some day, celebrating on the court and thriving on the biggest stage.

“He was right by my side,” Niele said. “He’s seen it. He’s felt it. He knows what it feels like. He knows what it looks like. I know he’s going to be able to utilize those experiences while he’s on his own path and journey with Purdue.”