It’s been a month since the previous “way-too-early” ACC Basketball power rankings for next season. In that piece, Duke was viewed as the No. 1 team to beat, while Notre Dame, who literally didn’t have a roster at the time, was picked to finish last.
Has much changed since that time? And who has moved the most up or down after the past month of roster movement? Check out this updated look at the ACC, power ranking the teams for the 2023-24 campaign.
15. Notre Dame Fighting Irish
2022-23 season record: 11-21 (3-17)
The top returner from last season’s roster is Matt Zona, who averaged 1.7 ppg and 1.4 rpg in just seven minutes per game off the bench. That’s how much talent is gone from the Notre Dame roster, as every rotation either ran out of eligibility or transferred out. And they’ll see two of those players next season in ACC Basketball play, as Cormac Ryan went to UNC and JJ Starling went to Syracuse.
New head coach Micah Shrewsberry has brought over some young talent from Penn State, including four-star incoming freshmen, Carey Booth and Logan Imes. Freshman transfer Kebba Njie also will have a large role as a lead frontcourt player.
The problem right now is that they still have a number of open roster sports available and the best-proven player on the team in Northwestern transfer Julian Roper, who averaged just 4.4 ppg and 3.7 rpg in 15 games last season. Unless they start winning some recruiting battles, Notre Dame could somehow end up being worse than they were this past season and that was already awful.