Notre Dame Men’s Basketball: Fighting Irish Player Data Review

One of the biggest questions coming into the 2024 season for Notre Dame Men’s basketball was roster depth. The Irish’s 2023 roster consisted of three freshmen, one sophomore, two juniors and six seniors. By comparison, the 2024 roster was made up of four freshmen, five sophomores, four juniors and three seniors.

Coupling a notably younger group of players and a new head coach, a lot of the early concerns were understandable and as the season played out proved to be somewhat valid. Notre Dame’s season wasn’t the smoothest road but the improvement over time was apparent in terms of both qualitative and quantitative information. For more on the quant side, check out my team-level review.

When I started digging through the player-level data I focused a lot on gauging how the team performed by age/classification. The idea was that even if the team-level performance wasn’t where we hoped it would’ve been, the player numbers might give us a better idea of what we could expect from our roster now that they’ve got some more experience under their belts.

Playing Time

Games Played

Head coach Micah Shrewsberry definitely made sure that the younger players saw their court time.

All of the freshmen on the roster played thirty or more games, with Markus Burton, Carey Booth and Braeden Shrewsberry topping out at 33 total games played. Sophomore Kebba Njie played in 29 games and Tae Davis played in 32 games. While juniors and senior play a lot of games throughout the season, the young guys really claimed a sizeable share of court time.

Game Starts

Game starts varied for the 2024 MBB roster. Freshman Markus Burton started all 33 of the season’s games and sophomores Tae Davis and Kebba Njie trailed somewhat closely behind him. Of the seven players with ten or more starts, five were freshmen (3) or sophomores (2).

Minutes Played

The four freshmen tallied up total of 3,250 minutes played during the 2024 season. The freshmen and sophomores, with some notable contributions from juniors Julian Roper II and J.R. Konieczny, accounted for the lion’s share of the team’s minutes on the court.

Performance

Overall Scoring

In terms of overall scoring, freshmen Burton and Shrewsberry led the team. Burton averaged 17.5 points per game and a total of 577. Shrewsberry averaged 10.2 per game and racked up a total of 336. Collectively, the freshman group scored 56% (1,186) of the team’s points.

Assists

Markus Burton was also the team’s standout when it came to assists. The freshman averaged 4.3 per game and a season total of 143 assists. Freshmen (3) and sophomores (2) comprised the squad’s top 5 assist list.

Total Rebounds

When it came to total rebounds, the sophomores led the way. Kebba Njie and Tae Davis had 5.4 TRB and 5.1 TRB, respectively. The remainder of the TRBs were primarily contributed by juniors, with freshman Carey booth getting in the mix with 4.3 per game and a total of 142.

Blocks

Sophomore Kebba Njie led the team in blocks. He averaged 0.7 per game and had a season total of 20 per game. Freshman Carey Booth occupied the #2 spot with an average of 0.6 blocks per game and a season total of 21. Collectively, freshman and sophomores accounted for 51% of the Notre Dame’s total blocks in the 2024 season.

Final Thoughts

The quant analysis reveals a significant contribution from the Irish’s freshmen and sophomores during the 2024 season. Freshman Markus Burton stood out in a range of metric categories, and it makes all the sense in the world why he was named the ACC Rookie of the Year. With signs so far leading to this young core sticking around (sending tribute/sacrifice to the NIL and Transfer Portal gods), I’d say that Irish basketball fans have a lot to look forward to from the 2025 MBB team.

Cheers and Go Irish!!