Blue and Gold Illustrated

BLUEGOLDONLINE.COM NOV. 1, 2025 47 BY TYLER JAMES L ouisville showed the ACC how quickly a men's basketball program can drasti- cally elevate its position in the conference. The Cardinals finished 8-24 in head coach Kenny Payne's final season (2023-24) leading the program. Louis- ville gave him just two seasons — and a total of 12 wins — before firing him. In head coach Pat Kelsey's first year at Louisville, the Cardinals only lost eight games last season. He pushed the pro- gram into a tie for second place in the ACC and a return to the NCAA Tourna- ment for the first time since 2019. Kelsey's blueprint required a complete overhaul of Louisville's roster. His 17-man roster last season consisted of one return- ing player, one freshman out of high school and 15 transfers. The roster churn slowed down this past offseason but only slightly. The Cardinals lost 10 letter winners from last season and replaced them with three transfers and five high school recruits. The longevity of what Kelsey's build- ing remains to be seen, but the expec- tations for the upcoming season have been elevated to the point that I pre- dicted the Cardinals to win the ACC. Mine was one of the 15 first-place votes for Louisville cast by media members in the ACC Preseason Poll. Reigning champion Duke received 34 first-place votes as the top-ranked team. Notre Dame head coach Micah Shrewsberry wasn't able to use the same blueprint as Kelsey when he took over the Irish program in 2023. The transfer admissions hurdles at Notre Dame are higher, so Shrews- berry leaned more heavily on high school recruiting. His first three re- cruiting classes have improved each year in the Rivals Industry Team Re- cruiting Rankings: No. 38 in 2023, No. 35 in 2024 and No. 10 in 2025. Shrewsberry's blueprint may re- quire director of athletics Pete Bevac- qua to exhibit patience in evaluating his leadership of the program, but the 2025-26 season should highlight if the process is starting to work. In an ACC that's not as deep as it once was, the Irish should be able to nudge their way into the top half of the conference. Though that should be a fair expecta- tion for the Irish this season, the ACC vot- ing panel pegged Notre Dame's projection as 10th place in the 18-team conference. That would mean just a slight improve- ment following 12th-place finishes the past two seasons under Shrewsberry. I'm not sold on vast improvement quite yet either. I projected Notre Dame in ninth place this coming season. The Irish can certainly prove to be better than that this coming season, but they need to answer a lot of questions about the makeup of the roster. Can Notre Dame get away with playing for- wards Kebba Njie, a senior, and Carson Towt, a graduate transfer from Northern Arizona, together in the starting lineup? How will highly touted freshman guard Jalen Haralson make his mark on this team? Will ball-dominant point guard Markus Burton elevate the play of his teammates in his junior season? The 6-foot-10 Njie has yet to become an offensive force in his college basket- ball career. He averaged a career-high 6.1 points last season on a little more than 4 field goal attempts per game. The 6-foot-8 Towt averaged 13.3 points last season, but his game was more predicated on rebounding, with an average of 12.4 rebounds per game, which led Division I. They'll need to be defensive stalwarts for extended time as a frontcourt duo. Haralson was heralded as a five-star recruit during his high school career, but he ended it rated as a four-star recruit by all the major recruiting networks. He landed as the No. 6 small forward and No. 20 overall player for the 2025 class in the Rivals Industry Rankings. The 6-7 Haralson can create as a ball handler, but he'll need to find ways to impact the of- fense while Burton is driving it. Burton received a spot on the 2025-26 Preseason All-ACC first team after be- ing relegated to All-ACC second team at the end of last season, despite lead- ing the conference in scoring with 23.5 points per game in ACC play. Burton likely holds the keys to elevating Notre Dame's ceiling this season. He has to become more than a vol- ume scorer to do so. With defenses so focused on stopping him, he can create more scoring chances for his teammates and surpass his career- high of 4.33 assists per game. The other pieces around Burton — like junior guard Braeden Shrews- berry, sophomore guards Sir Mo- hammed and Cole Certa, sophomore forward Garrett Sundra and the rest of the freshman class — need to take advantage of opportunities this sea- son and help take the pressure off him. If they can do that, the Irish can make NCAA Tournament bubble talk part of the conversation for the first time in the Shrewsberry era. ✦ Setting ACC Expectations For The Fighting Irish MEN'S B A S K E T B A L L Micah Shrewsberry is entering his third season as Notre Dame men's basketball head coach. PHOTO COURTESY ACC 2025 ACC PRESEASON POLL 1. Duke 2. Louisville 3. North Carolina 4. NC State 5. Virginia 6. SMU 7. Clemson 8. Miami 9. Syracuse 10. Notre Dame 11. Wake Forest 12. Virginia Tech 13. Georgia Tech 14. Pittsburgh 15. Florida State 16. California 17. Stanford 18. Boston College TYLER JAMES' ACC PRESEASON POLL 1. Louisville 2. Duke 3. North Carolina 4. NC State 5. Miami 6. SMU 7. Virginia 8. Syracuse 9. Notre Dame 10. Clemson 11. Wake Forest 12. Virginia Tech 13. Pittsburgh 14. Georgia Tech 15. Florida State 16. California 17. Boston College 18. Stanford

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