Ultimately, the recruiting of players is the head coach's responsibility. He/She sets the tone in what kind of player that they want and, of course, makes the ultimte decision on whether to pursue, offer, etc.
But then, the day-to-day responsibility is up to the AC that is the in charge for overall recruiting. For the greater part of this decade, that happened to be Niele Ivey who is now, of course, the head coach.
And for the year that she was with the Memphis Grizzlies, guess what assistant was in charge of overall recruiting? Yup, Beth Morgan Cunningham, assisted by Michaela Mabrey.
This is what Carol's bio reads as to her responsibilities:
"Throughout her tenure at Notre Dame, Owens has focused on working with the Fighting Irish post players, while also assisting with the program’s nationally-ranked recruiting efforts (Notre Dame has attracted 24 consecutive top-20 recruiting classes from 1997-2020 something only two other schools achieved)."
So does she look and make suggestions for posts? Or go out to scout ones that Muffet, Neile, Beth and/or Mike like? Sure. But shes's specifically not in charge of recruiting.
As Orangutan brought up, ND fans are not alone in thinking that the Irish can't recruit tall players. The Boneyard was in arms when after Steph Dolson, only O N-O came aboard via the recruiting angle, augmented by transfers like Azura Stevens. They couldn't even get decent back-ups, like Koko.
Baylor has specialized at finding Top Ten and Top 25 prospects, while teams like Oregon State also look for bigs. Up to now, Scott Rueck was a specialist at developing gems. That was noticed and now he's getting gems like Kennedy Brown, Taylor Jones and Taya Corosdale. And, of course, South Carolina, with A'ja Wilson, Alaina Coates and, now Aliyah Boston.
Have the Irish had some misses since Brianna Turner in 2014? Yes, the major one was going whole hog for Aliyah Boston -- as did UConn -- at the expense of other posts/forwards with known interest in ND like 1st team B1G forward, Naz Hilmon or Canadian jumper Laeticia Amihere. The former was a miss IMO, while the latter may have been providential: she was rated behind Boston, didn't want to wait and went to S. Carolina where she's ironically, the back-up to Boston. And, perhaps, not fully recovered from her ACL of a few years back.
As for our coach not being on her coaching game, I think Kayo and Orangutan have pointed out how well CO has done with Koko and Kat. And Shepard was starting to look like a wash her sophomore year at Nebraska, launching three's in blow-out losses. Yes, she came to ND determined to make up for lost time, but guess who helped her do that?
Bri's progress was stymied by injuries, it must be acknowledged, but she still had an outstanding ND career. And in her first season as a professional, she broke into the starting line-up next to Brittany Griner, then went down to Australia and was named first team all-league. And who was signed a few games into the year for an injury replacement and started every game? Kat Westbeld.
Would people have liked to see her develop a better mid-range jumper? Sure, but players are who they are and Bri has numerous other strengths and talents that no one has.
And think of other posts she's had during ND's great runs: future pro's like Dev Peters and Natalie Achonwa to very adept collegiate players like Markesha Wright and Ariel Braker, both of whom -- incidentally -- are now college post coaches.
At some point, CO will retire as well and perhaps one of her charges or someone like Melissa D'Amico (who was here while CO has HCing at Northern Illinois) will take over the posts. Until then, I think we're pretty darn lucky to have her.
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BTW, ND may have targeted a 2021 post we don't know of yet (but it's doubtful) or have a transfer in mind. But the gut consensus is they will go hard -- very hard -- after posts to join Nat Marshall in 2022. Just so happens most of that classes' top-rated players are posts/forwards, including Lauren Betts, Ayanna Patterson (offered), Janiah Barker and Timea Gardiner. All but Patterson played on the U.S.A. team in Chile with Miles and Citron.
And guess who flew down to watch themn all? Yup. Carol Owens.