Fighting Irish at #5

The *Notre Dame Fighting Irish basketball squad, for a while anyway, is the immediate athletic focus for the school, especially with their realistic aspirations to make it to Detroit for the Final Four this April. Going into this season they carry a 37 game home winning streak, good for second best in the country.

They return four out of the top five scorers. The team is senior laden and coached by one of the most underrated coaches in college basketball, Mike Brey.

Notre Dame Basketball is a big deal.

A few reasons why they are not on UNC’s level, or even Oklahoma’s…

Very little new blood will be infused to this team this year, as no freshmen or new transfers of any kind are on the roster. Consequently the team is not what you would call deep, but the firepower to score and score often is more than there. Losing Rob Kurz’s 12.5 ppg and 7.1 reb is significant especially considering that production in the lineup isn’t necessarily guaranteed to be filled. Redshirt sophomore Carleton Scott seems like the logical replacement, not in terms of position, but in terms of minute distribution. Starting position wise, 6’10 senior Luke Zeller will compete with fellow senior, 6’9 Zach Hillesland, for the second front court position alongside reigning Big East player of the year Luke Harangody.

6’7 Ryan Ayers, yet another battle tested senior, will be hard pressed to improve his stellar 45% downtown clip, but all the while will be a big part of the outside barrage and should be a likely double digit scorer for this squad (it will be interesting to see if the three point line change will adversely affect the Irish).

Tyrone Nash could be the sleeper choice out of the remaining bit players. Just a small premonition.

Guards Kyle McAlarney and Tory Jackson complement each other as well as any duo in the country. Kyle is a lethal shooter (44.1% 3pt fg) and Tory is the ringleader, the caddie, the shutdown corner.

Tory must improve his outside shooting efficiency (38.6% fg in 07) to be considered a true all around player. His gaudy 1.8 steals/gm and 5.9 assists/gm make him a consistent jumper away from being NBA material.

I’ll tell you this, the Fighting Irish may not have a lot of depth beyond the seventh guy, but it’s a solid and hungry group that can score in a variety of ways and know the roles in which they must carry out.

Next year transfers Ben Hansbrough and Scott Martin will be eligible to play, but with so many seniors departing, not to mention Harangody’s somewhat expected leap, the only chance to make serious noise is now.

Style over substance could be the theme that derails Notre Dame, but who doesn’t like scoring?

*Thanks to crackedsidewalks.com for having the Big East Prospectus easily available.