Jon Rothstein of CBS Sports has begun his conference previews on his website, College Hoops Today. The ACC is the first conference he’s looking at, and you probably can guess where he has Notre Dame given the state of the program. Yes, he’s picking the Irish to finish last out of 15 teams in 2023-24.
It’s disheartening to see but also not a surprise. Virtually the entire roster is different with only a few bench holdovers from 2022-23. [autotag]Micah Shrewsberry[/autotag] is the new coach, and he had to pick from the transfer portal’s scrap heap just to have enough players to field a team. Even those players had little experience compared to your typical college basketball rotational player.
To be fair, it’s not completely terrible. Rothstein lists [autotag]Carey Booth[/autotag] as an impact freshman and [autotag]Kebba Njie[/autotag], who was with Shrewsberry at Penn State, as an under-the-radar transfer. But for everything else, this is going to be a rough season. In fact, it probably will take two or three years before Shrewsberry has the team he wants.
Here’s hoping the Irish do anything to make it worth everyone’s while to watch them this season. That’s going to be tough.
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