Arike Ogunbowale is now Notre Dame’s all-time leading scorer

Famous buckets, and now, the most points.

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You’ve probably heard the name Arike Ogunbowale before.

She’s the one who put the team on her back, hitting back-to-back game winners on college basketball’s biggest stage, to lead Notre Dame to the national title in 2018.

She also just became the all-time leading scorer in program history, passing Skylar Diggins’ career scoring record of 2,357 points. She needed just 12 points coming into Thursday’s (Feb. 21) game against Duke to break the record–and did exactly that before halftime even hit.

Averaging over 20 points per game this season alone, and 16.2 in her career, we all saw the writing on the wall. As a freshman, she averaged 11.4 points per game and it was nothing but up from there: 15.9 as a junior and 20.9 as of today (Feb. 22). The senior finished the night with 25 points, moving her career total to 2,371 and counting.

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She’ll now be mentioned in the same breath as other Notre Dame greats including Beth Morgan (1993-1997), Katryna Gaither (1993-1997), Ruth Riley (1997-2001) and Diggins. That’s an honor in and of itself to lead an impressive pack of 2,000 plus point scorers.

When you look at the most prolific scorers in the game, Ogunbowale being one of them, it doesn’t take long to realize that there is a level of fearlessness that they all embody. Sabrina Ionescu, Megan Gustufson, Maya Moore, Kobe Bryant, LeBron James–they all have “it.”

Even on an ‘off’ night, or when things aren’t going their way, they always find ways to score or make an impact. Her swagger and fearlessness, not to mention the work she’s put in when the lights are off, have always set her apart. Now she has everything on paper to back up the fact that she is, indeed, different than most.

The No. 5 Fighting Irish are 25-3 this year and 12-2 in the ACC behind her firepower. Although Notre Dame suffered two upsets by North Carolina and Miami not long ago, they are back to their winning ways with four straight W’s over Florida State, Boston College, North Carolina State and Duke. Notre Dame takes on Syracuse and Virginia before the conference tournament begins.