When Madison St. Rose plays her next college basketball game on Nov. 1, a lot will be different. She’ll be wearing a Notre Dame uniform, not a Princeton one, and the game will be in Rome, Italy, not the United States.
But one thing will feel familiar: the opponent.
“It’s funny that I’m going to be seeing Villanova, a team that I’ve played all four years [at Princeton],” St. Rose told The IX Basketball. “So it’s nice to see a little bit of familiarity.”
St. Rose committed to Notre Dame as a graduate transfer on Sunday. She’ll graduate from Princeton in May, making her ineligible to continue playing in the Ivy League, but she still has a year of NCAA eligibility after missing almost all of her junior season with a torn ACL.
Between now and November, a lot will feel like the Rome trip for St. Rose: plenty of newness, interspersed with a few things that feel the same.
St. Rose, a 5’10 guard, packed about as much into her Princeton career as anyone could ask for in three seasons on the court. She was named Ivy League Rookie of the Year in 2023 and second-team All-Ivy as a sophomore. After her injury, it wasn’t certain that she’d be fully back to her elite level to start her senior season. But she had a career year, averaging 15.8 points, 4.5 rebounds and 2.2 assists in 31.7 minutes per game. She also shot a career-best 47.9% from the field and was named first-team All-Ivy.
“[It’s] so wonderful seeing her back on the court, but playing at a really high level and able to do some of the things she [was] doing before the injury, and maybe even more,” then-Princeton head coach Carla Berube told The IX Basketball in January. “I think she’s definitely stronger now. … It’s so fun having her back and being the leader and the captain that she is.”
“She’s just the type of player who forces you to be at your best as a coach,” Oklahoma State head coach Jacie Hoyt told reporters after beating Princeton in the first round of the NCAA Tournament on March 21.
As Princeton’s leading scorer in 2025-26, St. Rose led the Tigers to a 26-4 record, with losses only to Maryland, Columbia (twice) and Oklahoma State. She will graduate with three Ivy League regular-season titles, three Ivy League Tournament titles and an NCAA Tournament win on her resume.
After her Princeton career ended, St. Rose juggled talking to other programs with getting workouts in and finishing her senior thesis (which she has since submitted). But even with all that on her plate, her schedule wasn’t as hectic as it had been in season, she said. She has even had time to try Pilates, which has helped strengthen parts of her body that don’t get as much emphasis in basketball workouts.
“I started to talk to more schools … once the season ended,” St. Rose said, “but I always tried to view it as something that wasn’t supposed to be stressful and instead just something I can enjoy, since it’s me looking for my next steps.”
St. Rose was looking for a good academic school that also had high-level basketball, so she could continue to develop her game and play on a bigger stage. Though the Old Bridge, New Jersey, native has played close to home all her life, proximity wasn’t a factor for her. And she left the financial component to her agent and focused instead on fit and feel, knowing that she needed to get that right with only one season of eligibility left.
“I just really wanted to still gain exposure playing basketball and be coached by a really good coach and play with a lot of good players,” St. Rose said. “So I was looking for that, like, copy and paste of Princeton to a new school.”
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As St. Rose navigated the graduate transfer process, she leaned on two Tigers who’d done it before her: Kaitlyn Chen, who won a national title with UConn in 2025, and Chet Nweke, who played at Georgetown. She kept them updated every step of the way, including on which schools were reaching out, and asked them lots of questions. They urged her to take her time and do what felt right to her. Chen didn’t even give St. Rose any grief when she chose Notre Dame, one of UConn’s biggest rivals, over Virginia Tech.
In some ways, St. Rose’s recruiting process felt similar to when she was coming out of high school. But it also felt more complicated because, with the transfer portal in full swing, it was hard to tell who was joining, staying at or leaving any program she was considering.
“It was kind of tough trying to see and wait, just to see who is going to end up committing to some schools,” St. Rose said. “… I didn’t really think about [roster construction] that much when it came to high school, but now, being a transfer student and knowing that I only have one year, I think that was a big driving point for me.”
Though the Fighting Irish lost several players to graduation and the WNBA Draft, St. Rose could lean on her familiarity with rising senior guard Hannah Hidalgo, who was a consensus All-American and won several national defensive player of the year awards last season. St. Rose and Hidalgo played against each other in high school and with each other in AAU for Philly Rise.
With St. Rose’s commitment, she and Hidalgo will form a potent backcourt tandem.
“We are really dynamic guards in the sense that we can both score and create,” St. Rose said. “So I think that we can kind of make it tough for people to choose who they want to guard, in the sense that if [opponents’] whole focus is on Hannah, then that kind of gives me opportunities to be open and create for myself, and even just vice versa. … So I just think that our games complement each other and that we’ll play at a really fast pace.”
“Maddie strengthens our backcourt with her experience, three-level scoring ability and leadership,” Notre Dame head coach Niele Ivey said in the team’s press release. “She brings size, defense and versatility on the wing, plus a high basketball IQ that fits perfectly with everything that makes Notre Dame special.”
Notre Dame’s summer classes begin on June 8, less than two weeks after St. Rose’s Princeton graduation. It’ll be her first time having team workouts in the summer, as the Ivy League prohibits them. She’s excited to get a head start on learning Ivey’s system and bonding with her new teammates, who she said brought “so much energy” on her official visit. And she’s thrilled that she can work on her game this summer, rather than building her body back up like she did last summer.
“Right now, I’m just trying to elevate my game,” she said, “and I’m so grateful that I have this summer to do so, because last year I was kind of working more on the basic mechanics of running and shooting and all that stuff.
“But now I can really work on … all the little fundamental stuff that I know I can get better at, especially playing in the ACC. There’s gonna be a lot more height and probably athleticism in the league, so just training to get used to that as well [and] get used to the physicality.”
St. Rose hopes that spending her final college season in South Bend helps propel her to a professional career — and perhaps even the WNBA, just like Chen. But she’ll also get a one-year master’s degree in digital marketing at Notre Dame, with an eye toward having a career in sports after she’s done playing.
Whatever heights St. Rose reaches as a player, she’ll look back on her time at Princeton and know it played a big role in getting her there.
“I am extremely happy about … how my years have been at Princeton, academically and athletically,” she said. “I did face adversity, and I had to learn how to go through that, but I just honestly think that it made me a better person, and that going into next year, when I’m playing with Notre Dame and taking all the classes and stuff, I’m gonna be really confident. …
“I’m just grateful that, looking back at Princeton, I have built so many relationships that I will carry with me for the rest of my life.”
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