The Notre Dame Fighting Irish’s month-long nightmare looks to be just about over. On Saturday morning, with about 12 minutes to go in the game, star guard Markus Burton returned to the floor against the North Carolina Tarheels. It was the first time he’d appeared in a game since late November,
Burton had missed a little over a month due to a knee injury he suffered in the first three minutes of a holiday tournament game against Rutgers. The Irish had been close-lipped about how much time he would miss. To some degree, because they simply didn’t know when he could play again.
However, just ahead of tipoff against North Carolina, whispers emerged that the Notre Dame Fighting Irish basketball team was getting its star back. There was talk that Markus Burton would come off the bench, and it’s still unclear how long he’ll play. But any minutes at all is an excellent sign for a program that badly needs its shooting guard to compete in the ACC.
Notre Dame Fighting Irish get star guard back for ACC tilt
Entering today, Burton had averaged 18.2 points, 4.5 rebounds and 4.3 assists per game. Of course, all of those numbers were pushed way down because of that game where he played a grand total of 3 minutes.
His impact is actually quite a bit bigger when he plays a complete game. Take out that partial appearance and he’s averaging 21.8 points, 5.4 rebounds and 5.2 assists per contest.
Those are numbers the Notre Dame basketball team needs if they want to compete for an at-large bid out of an always strong ACC conference. Without Burton, his squad went 3-5 including the game he was hurt in, with the latest defeat coming in an 86-75 game against Georgia Tech.