Tag: ACC Basketball

Three Notre Dame basketball players make point guard award watch lists

Who would you most trust to run your offense?

Even as basketball moves more and more towards a positionless game, offenses still rely heavily on their point guards. Notre Dame is blessed to have a lot of talent up top for both the men’s and women’s teams. People nationwide are starting to take notice, too.

For the past two years, one of [autotag]Olivia Miles[/autotag] or [autotag]Hannah Hidalgo[/autotag] has been running the Irish’s offense and done very well at it. Now, they finally will join forces for the first time this season, and there might not be a backcourt in women’s basketball that can compete with it.

So it should come as no surprise that both Miles and Hidalgo have been named to the Nancy Lieberman Award Watch List. If either of them wins this award, which is given to the top female point guard in the country, they would be the second player in Irish history to win this award after [autotag]Skylar Diggins[/autotag] in 2012 and 2013:

On the men’s side, Markus Burton is trying to build up a campaign in which he was named the ACC Rookie of the Year. The Mishawaka native is off to a good start by being named to the watch list for the Bob Cousy Award, which is awarded to the best male point guard in the country. He would be the first Irish player to win it:

Point guards are not in short supply at Notre Dame. We can say at least that much when it comes to basketball.

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CBS to broadcast Notre Dame-North Carolina men’s basketball game

A sign that the Irish are drawing interest.

The Notre Dame men’s basketball team is on the verge of something special. It won’t happen this year, but it likely will when the Irish’s top-ranked 2025 recruiting class comes in. Until then, there’s interest in where the Irish currently stand.

To that end, CBS Sports unveiled its regular-season schedule for its longstanding college basketball coverage, and the Irish will be part of it. Specifically, they will help tip off a tripleheader of games for CBS on Jan. 4 when they welcome North Carolina to Purcell Pavilion.

This will be the first time the Irish have played on CBS since they picked up a 64-63 road victory over Kentucky on Dec. 12, 2020. It didn’t broadcast any of the three games the Irish played during their last NCAA Tournament appearance in 2022.

The last time the network broadcast a game from South Bend was an 82-55 loss to Virginia on Jan. 26, 2019. The Cavaliers went on to win that year’s national championship:

Here’s hoping the Irish will rise to the occasion of getting national exposure on college basketball’s most prestigious broadcast coverage.

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Duke steals 2025 4-star forward from UCLA in surprise recruiting twist

Four-star forward Nik Khamenia committed to Jon Scheyer and Duke on Tuesday, despite all the projections pointing to him staying home and going to UCLA.

2025 four-star forward Nik Khamenia was considered a lock to commit to Mick Cronin and the UCLA Bruins on Tuesday.

Instead, the 6’8 California native shocked the college basketball recruiting world by announcing his commitment to Jon Scheyer and the Duke Blue Devils, another huge win for the ACC powerhouse on the recruiting trail.

Khamenia is the No. 19 ranked prospect in the 2025 class according to 247Sports. He was choosing between a top three of Duke, UCLA, and Gonzaga, and also had offers from North Carolina, Arizona, Kansas, Michigan, Ohio State, Creighton, Oregon, and many others.

Khamenia rose up the rankings in the 2025 class with a strong performance on the summer circuit, which included representing the United States in the FIBA U18 3×3 World Cup.

Khamenia now joins the Boozer twins, Cameron and Cayden, in Scheyer’s 2025 recruiting class, which is currently ranked No. 1 in the country.

Since taking over for coach Mike Krzyzewski in 2021, Scheyer has landed 10 five-star recruits and countless other four-stars, continuing the elite level of recruiting in Durham established by his predecessor.

The high level recruiting has yet to result in a Final Four appearance, but the talent coming through the program certainly hasn’t dipped in the post-Coach K era.

The best and worst possible Duke basketball outcomes, according to EvanMiya

Check out the best-case scenario (and the worst) for the 2024-25 Duke basketball team according to popular analytics website EvanMiya.

EvanMiya, the popular college basketball analytics site, released a story on Friday breaking down the best and worst possible outcomes for each team in the country, and Duke (predictably) could be the top team in the country.

Evan Miyakawa, the site’s founder, explained in a blog post that he simulated the 2024-25 season 10,000 times for the calculations. He used the fifth and 95th percentile results to determine the best- and worst-case scenarios.

The Blue Devils, led by freshman superstar [autotag]Cooper Flagg[/autotag], start the season as EvanMiya’s fourth-best team, but the ceiling projection included the No. 1 spot within their range of outcomes. In fact, Duke was the only team in the ACC with the ceiling to reach the first overall spot as the North Carolina Tar Heels could only climb up to No. 3.

However, as to be expected with a team reliant upon five-star freshmen, the floor in Durham is well outside the top 25. In fact, EvanMiya sees the worst possible version of the Blue Devils finishing as the No. 48 team in the country.

In fairness, however, that floor is not abnormally low among the top teams. The Houston Cougars, EvanMiya’s top preseason team, were the only team with a floor within the top 30 (26th). Only the Cougars, Gonzaga Bulldogs, Iowa State Cyclones, Alabama Crimson Tide, and Kansas Jayhawks finished with a higher floor than Duke in the preseason projections.

The median Duke result, according to EvanMiya’s calculations, was the tenth-best team in the nation. Only Houston (fifth) and Gonzaga (seventh) ended with a better number.

On3 names Notre Dame’s Matt Allocco among top 20 ACC impact transfers

How do you expect him to contribute this season?

Unlike most other ACC teams, Notre Dame didn’t dip its toes very deep into the transfer portal this past offseason. In fact, the Irish joined North Carolina, Florida State and Pittsburgh as the only schools in the conference to add three or fewer players via the transfer portal. That fell below the conference average of 4.6 transfers a team.

But one of them figures to contribute mightily to the Irish this this upcoming season. On3’s Jamie Shaw has named [autotag]Matt Allocco[/autotag] one of 20 impact transfers in the ACC for the 2024-25 season.

Allocco came over to the Irish from Princeton and is coming off career-high averages in both scoring (12.7) and assists (3.3). That netted him his second straight Second Team All-Ivy League honor, and he now will see how well his game translates in a power conference.

Shaw described Allocco this way:

“Matt Allocco is another connector for [autotag]Micah Shrewsberry[/autotag]’s team. The 6-foot-4 senior is comfortable moving the ball or knocking down shots. He brings a winning pedigree (70-21 in college) and will provide a veteran presence beside [autotag]Markus Burton[/autotag], someone who compliments his game and is able to take some pressure off his duties.”

Irish fans will be watch Allocco every step of the way. He’ll be crucial to any success this still-young team has.

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ACC basketball coaching legend retires before 2024-25 season, per reports

According to multiple reports, Virginia men’s basketball coach Tony Bennett will retire instead of leading the Cavaliers in 2024-25.

Another men’s basketball coaching legend stepped away from the ACC on Thursday night.

According to Field of 68’s Jeff Goodman, longtime Virginia head coach Tony Bennett will retire effective immediately ahead of the 2024-25 season.

Bennett spent the past 15 seasons at the helm of the Cavaliers, winning six regular-season conference titles and building a reputation for slow, defensive basketball.

His program reached the summit in 2019 with a national championship victory over the Texas Tech Red Raiders. Discounting the shortened 2020-21 schedule, Virginia won at least 21 games in its past 12 seasons with four 30-win campaigns.

True to form, last season’s Cavaliers finished with a 23-11 record with KenPom’s seventh-best adjusted defensive efficiency rating while ranking 362nd in tempo.

Multiple reports, including one from Goodman, confirmed that Bennett’s retirement did not have to do with a sudden health scare or any health concerns at all.

Bennett’s Virginia tenure comes to a close with a 364-136 overall record and an 189-82 record in conference play.

Breaking: Virginia men’s basketball coach Tony Bennett to call it a career

Talk about a surprise just three weeks before the season starts.

In a surprising move, Virginia Cavaliers men’s basketball coach Tony Bennett will hang up the whistle after 15 years on the job. The Wisconsin native leaves the collegiate game with an overall record of 433-169 and with one NCAA Tournament national championship under his belt.

The announcement came as a bit of a shock with UVA set to tip off the 2024-25 college basketball season on Nov. 6 against Campbell. With the announcement of his retirement, the Virginia players now have a 30-day window to enter the transfer portal. With the season just three weeks away and the semester already in full swing, they wouldn’t be able to make a move for this year.

While no one has been named the interim as of the time of the announcement, it would make the most sense for Ron Sanchez to assume head coaching duties on an interim basis. Sanchez served on the staff for 10 seasons before taking a head coaching gig with Charlotte and returned this last offseason.

College Sports Wire will monitor the situation and provide more details as it unfolds. A press conference has been scheduled for Friday.

Virginia’s Tony Bennett, coach of Notre Dame ACC rival, retires

Big story in college basketball.

Notre Dame has part of the ACC for over a decade now, and it has gone against some legendary coaches during that time. While Virginia’s Tony Bennett doesn’t have quite the reputation of legends like Mike Krzyzewski, Jim Boeheim or Roy Williams, he has done a great job of building his own legacy.

When the Irish visit Charlottesville on Jan. 25 this season, the Cavaliers will look very different on the sidelines because Bennett reportedly has announced his retirement effective immediately. That this is happening less than a month before the start of the season is nothing short of surprising.

The Irish have gone 3-13 against Virginia since joining the ACC, and Bennett’s tenure with the Cavailers’ predates that period. But even before that, the Irish learned how good Bennett was when he coached Washington State to a 61-41 win over them in the second round of the 2008 NCAA Tournament.

Bennett retires having won one national championship, two national coach of the year awards, six ACC regular-season championships, two ACC Tournament championships and four ACC Coach of the Year awards. He has an all-time record of 433-169:

https://twitter.com/GoodmanHoops/status/1847009701877461379

Best of luck to Bennett in whatever comes next in his life.

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Caleb Foster, Maliq Brown named among ACC’s most underrated in player poll

The Fayetteville Observer asked players to name the most underrated ACC basketball stars, and two Blue Devils made the list.

All of the attention around the Duke men’s basketball team will focus on top-ranked freshman [autotag]Cooper Flagg[/autotag] this season, but players among the ACC think two other Blue Devils deserve more credit.

The Fayetteville Observer’s Rodd Baxley published an anonymous player poll on Monday asking the conference to name the most underrated basketball players across the league.

Returning starters [autotag]Caleb Foster[/autotag] and Syracuse transfer Maliq Brown came to mind for their ACC foes, two members of the Duke roster who should play a large role in the 2024-25 season.

Foster, now a sophomore, started 15 of his 27 games as a freshman in 2023-24. The 6-foot-5 guard averaged 7.7 points, 2.4 rebounds, and 2.1 assists per game, making more than 40% of his 3-pointers before a stress fracture in his ankle brought his season to an unfortunate end a few weeks early.

He and fellow returner Tyrese Proctor are expected to start in the backcourt, and Foster will be a reliable perimeter presence and ball-handler for the Blue Devils in 2024-25.

Brown has actually flown quite a bit under the radar before his first Duke season. He made 69.8% of his shots in both seasons with Syracuse, leading the conference in effective field goal percentage last year, and he scored 26 points against the Blue Devils at Cameron Indoor Stadium.

Foster and head coach Jon Scheyer think Brown’s best asset is his defense, with the sophomore saying Brown could be the best defender in the country.

Two other names listed in Baxley’s poll should be familiar to Duke basketball fans. Stanford’s Jaylen Blakes and Virginia’s TJ Power, who both played for the Blue Devils last season before transferring, also made the underrated list.

Notre Dame guard Markus Burton named to Preseason All-ACC First Team

He’s the player to watch on the Irish this season.

Although Notre Dame was rebuilding a season ago, [autotag]Markus Burton[/autotag] was a clear bright spot. He led the Irish in averages for scoring (17.5), assists (4.3) and steals (1.9). Basically, he was the men’s equivalent of [autotag]Hannah Hidalgo[/autotag] and [autotag]Olivia Miles[/autotag] put together.

All of that was enough for him to be named ACC Rookie of the Year as well as Third Team All-ACC. Now entering his sophomore season, a select media panel expects to produce highly once again.

Burton has been named to the Preseason All-ACC First Team, receiving 41 votes. He joins a group that includes Cooper Flagg of Duke, Hunter Sallis of Wake Forest, Nijel Pack of Miami and RJ Davis of North Carolina, the unanimous selection for Preseason ACC Player of the Year.

The same panel has picked the Irish to finish 10th out of 18 teams in the expanded ACC. It’s an indicator that the Irish still have some work to do to get back near the top of the conference. It should be a fun season though.

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