How Do We Match Up with Notre Dame?

[What Would Jesus Do?]

Our first game is at home against ND. They tied for last place in the ACC while we tied for first.

On paper, this should be a cake walk. But will it? I confess that if this were at ND, I'd be worried.

As far as I know, ND only lost DJ Harvey (transferred). Both Rex Pfluger and Elijah Burns are eligible for a redshirt year, so I assume they'll be back.

Yeah, DJ Harvey was one of their best players, and a big loss. But still only 1 guy.

Whereas we lost 6 of our best.

ND has no incoming class (unless Brey picked up some transfers or had some redshirts in the wings).

Whereas we have 6 promising newcomers, including 2 5-star freshmen and 2 experienced grad transfers. What's more, we got help where we needed it most. Point and post.

If ND is good this year - and I think they could surprise - it will be because they get back injured players, because their freshmen have taken strong steps forward, and because Brey is an overachieving coach.

Their key advantage in an early game is that with no newcomers, they should play well as a team. Whereas we have a lot of new parts to integrate, and I would expect some stumbles as we decide how the pieces fit.

ND could have one of the best front lines in the conference:

John Mooney - 6'9 242 - ACC's top rebounder, 20 double-doubles
Juwan Durham - 6'11 223 - top eFG% at 57.5%
Nate Laszcewski - 6'10 200 - decent stretch 4 threat who should blossom in his soph year
plus a couple of lightly-used bigs.

Point guard is the big question mark. With no true PG, TJ Gibbs played there or in a Dex-like role helping freshman Hubb. TJ showed a good handle for an SG but his scoring suffered badly. If Hubb advances enough to let TJ go back to his normal role, both will be better off.

Pfluger will be back, giving them experience and outside scoring. A couple other frosh - Goodwin and Carmody - should take steps forward to round out the wings.

 

[DSouthr]

Well coached team and they have some talent, bet the ranch that they will not end up in the cellar after the coming season. I never like to discount the value of experience and yeah, ND will have that advantage. But I think our talent is just to much for them, they may keep it closer than we would like but would be very surprised if we didn't cover the spread at least.

Keep this in mind when considering experience, there are 2 types of experience for UNC players, college players as a whole in fact. First there is experience playing for that school and that coaching staff and second there is experience playing college basketball at all.

Easier for a kid that has multiple years playing college basketball to adapt to a new school and/or coaching staff because they are already accustomed to the better and more conditioned athletes that play in college game as opposed to the high school level. Pretty much every member of a D-1 school was a star in high school, even the walk ons that only get mop up minutes, that is a hard transition for those kids just now coming out of high school that Keeling and Pierce have already gone thru..Yes, they will have to adjust to the fact that at UNC, every game is big time, national spotlight as opposed to the local flashlight and that may take a bit.