Return of Markus Burton makes Notre Dame a dangerous team

As we countdown to the start of the 2025-26 Syracuse basketball season on Nov. 3, The Juice Online will be doing a team-by-team opponent analysis of every single ACC opponent. Today, we analyze the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, who the Orange will play on Jan. 31.

After Syracuse plays NC State on Jan. 27, Syracuse will match up against Notre Dame on Jan. 31.

Recapping the 2024-25 Notre Dame basketball season

It was a difficult second season for head coach Micah Shrewsberry in South Bend. While the Fighting Irish did improve over their 13-20 inaugural season under Shrewsbury, their 15-18 final record probably wasn’t the kind of sophomore year he was looking for.

After starting the season 4-0, including a win over Georgetown, Notre Dame dropped five straight games, including a concerning 84-77 loss to Elon. Things didn’t get much better during conference play, with the Irish finishing 8-12, with a five-way tie for ninth place.

After tiebreakers, they were slotted as the 12th seed, and knocked off 13-seeded Pitt in the first round of the ACC Tournament before their season ended in blowout fashion to North Carolina, 76-56, in the second round. With a losing record, they were not invited to either the NIT or NCAA Tournament.

Analyzing the Notre Dame roster

The biggest coup for Shrewsberry in the offseason was securing the return of leading scorer Markus Burton. He averaged 21.3 ppg last year, which finished fifth among all Division I players. His 3-point shooting improved to 30.0 percent as a freshman to over 37 percent as a sophomore, while his turnovers dropped from 3.7 per game down a full turnover to 2.7.

Shrewsberry’s son, Braeden, also returns for his junior season, after averaging 14.0 ppg on 41.3 percent shooting from the field.

Gone is Tae Davis (15.1 ppg) who is off to Oklahoma, but Shrewsberry dipped into the transfer portal to land forward Carson Towt from Northern Arizona. Towt is coming off a 13.3 point and 12.4 rebound per game season. The incoming class is also impressive, with four composite four-star recruits, headlined by Jalen Haralson, the No. 18 recruit in the 2025 class.

Notre Dame figures to improve this year

Notre Dame is a team that is hovering around the second/third tier of ACC schools that is poised to make a jump. They sit at 77 in the Ken Pom and can realistically out preform that, and were selected 10th in the Preseason ACC Poll.

Burton landed on the Preseason All-ACC First Team while also receiving two votes for Preseason Player of the Year. That alone gives Shrewsberry hope for his first winning season in the Blue & Gold.

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