Notre Dame Basketball Keeps Hitting New Bottoms for 2025-26

It's official, the Notre Dame men's basketball team has hit rock bottom.

Again.

It began with an embarrassing loss to Purdue Fort-Wayne in December and hasn't gotten much better since.

Head coach Micah Shrewsberry's major meltdown at the end of the Cal loss on January 2nd didn't do any favors, either, as the Fighting Irish haven't won since.

Fighting Irish coach Micah Shrewsberry tried to confront an official after Notre Dame's loss to Cal following this four-point play. pic.twitter.com/zai9rriAfU
— ESPN (@espn) January 3, 2026

There's no denying that Wednesday's loss against North Carolina was certainly the most embarrassing defeat of the season. Notre Dame lost by a season-high 22 points to the Tar Heels, and despite keeping things relatively close in the first half, this game was over three minutes into the second half.

Granted, Notre Dame is down its best player in Markus Burton and has been for a while now, but you'd think a month or so without him would allow other guys to step up. But that would be incorrect.

The Irish star suffered a left ankle/left foot injury back in December against TCU and hasn't played since. And it doesn't sound like Burton is going to be back anytime soon, either.

Notre Dame's Markus Burton (ankle) still has no set timetable for a return, per Micah Shrewsberry.

Has not played since 12/5.

Averages 18.5 PPG.

One of the best players in the ACC.
— Jon Rothstein (@JonRothstein) January 16, 2026

Burton was one of the best players in the ACC, and until he returns, assuming he does, Notre Dame is in big trouble. Like, the Irish might not win more than three more games, kind of trouble.

The Irish won three of their first four games without Burton and even won their ACC opener against Stanford. However, that game was one of the worst displays of offense I've seen in a while. Notre Dame won the game despite scoring only 47 total points, and the two teams shot a combined 15% from the 3-point line and 28% from the field. That's hard to do, and no matter how good both teams were defensively, that's still abysmal offense.

And until Notre Dame finds someone to replace Burton's offensive production, the Irish are going to have to keep teams under 70 points a night to have a realistic shot at winning. And not to make matters worse, but the Irish have scored less than 70 points in three of their last four games and four of their last seven, and are dead last in the ACC during conference play in point differential.

Notre Dame's next game is on Friday against Boston College, and the Irish should probably focus on just keeping this game close. And by close, I mean by single digits. Each of Notre Dame's last three losses has been by 10-plus points. The good news is Notre Dame is back at home, and Boston College is only 9-10 overall, but the bad news is the Golden Eagles have won back-to-back conference games, something Notre Dame can't say.

So, Notre Dame is by no means a lock to win despite having the better record and playing at home.

Saturday's game starts at 5 p.m. (ET) and is available via the ACC Network.

And don't forget to buy the SI Indiana National Cover.