Busting Brackets
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ACC Basketball: Way-too-early power rankings for 2020-21 season

By Tristan Freeman

GREENSBORO, NORTH CAROLINA - MARCH 12: The Florida State Seminoles, lead by Head coach Leonard Hamilton (L), are presented with the regular season trophy following the cancelation of the remainder of the 2020 Men's ACC Basketball Tournament at Greensboro Coliseum on March 12, 2020 in Greensboro, North Carolina. The cancelation is due to concerns over the possible spread of the Coronavirus (COVID-19). (Photo by Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images)
GREENSBORO, NORTH CAROLINA - MARCH 12: The Florida State Seminoles, lead by Head coach Leonard Hamilton (L), are presented with the regular season trophy following the cancelation of the remainder of the 2020 Men's ACC Basketball Tournament at Greensboro Coliseum on March 12, 2020 in Greensboro, North Carolina. The cancelation is due to concerns over the possible spread of the Coronavirus (COVID-19). (Photo by Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images) /
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Head coach Mike Brey of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish (Photo by Grant Halverson/Getty Images)
Head coach Mike Brey of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish (Photo by Grant Halverson/Getty Images) /

13. team. 443. . 20-12 (10-10). . Fighting Irish

The decent record for the Fighting Irish is a bit misleading, as they didn’t beat a single team last season that was a clear-cut at-large team in the 2020 NCAA Tournament, with UCLA as their best win. They lost to all the good ones, although eight of the conference defeats came by five points or fewer.

The problem for Notre Dame right now is that their two best players now are gone. TJ Gibbs was the team’s best scoring guard while John Mooney (16.2 ppg and 12.7 rpg) was one of the most underrated players in all of college basketball this past season.

Losing the nation’s second-leading rebounder is tough as he provided the vast majority of the team’s frontcourt production from this past season. That leaves backup forward Nate Laszewski, Juwan Durham and incoming three-star recruits Matt Zona and Elijah Taylor for next season, which doesn’t scream confidence.

The guard line is in better shape, with double-digit scorers Prentiss Hubb and Dane Goodwin coming back next season, joined by Stanford transfer Cormack Ryan coming off a redshirt season. There isn’t much depth after them, with just Tony Sanders and Robert Carmody on the roster, unless Santa Clara transfer Trey Wertz gets a waiver.

Hubb is an All-ACC contender and Goodwin and Laszewski are both likely to improve but this roster is already thin without a clear-cut guy we know can put up 15+ ppg. And unless one of these freshmen explodes out of nowhere, it’s hard to see Notre Dame avoid losing to the bottom-tier teams, let alone finding a way to get a few upsets against the upper echelon programs.