Men’s College Basketball 2021-2022 Season Preview: Notre Dame Fighting Irish

The college basketball season is just over two weeks away — time is just flying by. To get you ready for the season, I’m previewing the season in men’s college basketball, team by team. In these previews I will highlight key departures, additions, returners and overall DFS viability for each team. These previews will be heavily focused on DFS and fantasy in general, so keep that in mind when I’m talking about the relevancy of a player or team rotations.

We kick things off with the ACC, a conference that severely underperformed in the pandemic-impacted season last year. While the conference will inevitably have a handful of DFS staples for us to use each slate, it still seems like the ACC lost more talent than it was able to gain. With the transfer rules changing after March Madness ended it ultimately led to what was essentially free agency in CBB. There were coaching changes as well which I will talk about throughout this breakdown because new philosophies will mean new strategies for our DFS builds. 

In this one, Notre Dame.

(Check out our full college basketball season preview!)

Notre Dame Fighting Irish

2020-2021 record: 11-15 (7-11 ACC), 11th in ACC
Postseason: None

Key Departures | Notre Dame Fighting Irish

• Juwan Durham (left to play professionally)
• Nikola Djogo (transferred to Northeastern)

Key Additions | Notre Dame Fighting Irish

• Paul Atkinson (transferred from Yale)
• Blake Wesley (4 star recruit)
• J.R. Konieczny (4 star recruit)

Returners | Notre Dame Fighting Irish

• Prentiss Hubb (14.6 PPG/3.2 RPG/5.8 APG)
• Dane Goodwin (11.8 PPG/5.2 RPG/1.7 APG)
• Cormac Ryan (9.9 PPG/4.4 RPG/2.5 APG)
• Nate Laszewski (13.3 PPG/7.3 RPG/0.8 APG)
• Trey Wertz (8.3 PPG/2.7 RPG/2.3 APG)
• Robby Carmody (5.4 PPG/1.6 RPG/0.6 APG in 19-20)

Notre Dame Outlook for 2021-2022

Yale transfer Paul Atkinson will step into the starting five immediately for the departed Juwan Durham and brings his 17.6 PPG/7.3 RPG/1.2 SPG stat line with him. The former Ivy League Co-POY should put up some beefy stats this season as the Irish will be able to let him work down on the block where he excels on offense. ND will be able to surround him with shooters, which will keep the defense from cheating too much in the post. Atkinson is a clear offensive upgrade over Durham, but he is nowhere near the rim protector that Juwan was, so that’s the tradeoff.

Prentiss Hubb will be the primary playmaker yet again and should benefit a great deal from playing with Atkinson. I see many double-doubles in Hubb’s future. Cormac Ryan and Dane Goodwin will have free rein to shoot from long range and punish any team willing to double team the post. Both shot over 100-plus triples at around a mid-30% clip. Nate Laszewski is 6-foot-10 but plays more like a Euro-style big and buried 43% of his 83 three-point attempts. Trey Wertz was another sniper on this team last year and he made 43% of 77 triples attempted. Both Wertz and Nate were top 100 in three-point percentage. Robby Carmody is supposedly healthy after dealing with myriad injuries, but he is nothing more than a depth option for now.

(Check out our rankings of the top 100 teams and top 100 players for men’s college basketball in 2021-2022.)

Summary

Notre Dame looks like a team that will run a Syracuse-esque rotation starting out as they don’t appear to have a ton of depth on paper. The freshmen coming in are a bit raw and may not be thrown into the fire right away while players like Carmody, Matt Zona and Tony Sanders don’t project to be big impact options. Staying out of foul trouble will be crucial but I think the top six for the Irish have a chance to be really fun for fantasy this year. Atkinson, Hubb and Laszewski might come into the year underpriced if past seasons are any indication making them strong plays from day one.