Notre Dame basketball gets big news with Markus Burton's official return

It's not really accurate to say that Notre Dame basketball fans got a surprise on Friday afternoon when Markus Burton announced he was returning for the 2024-25 season. After all, even people who were more than a little nervous when Burton declared for the NBA Draft earlier this spring knew that most likely he was coming back.

Burton even made it clear in his announcement for the draft that he was doing it the right way. That he was going to do it so that he had the option to return. And then when he wasn't invited to the NBA Draft Combine, his returning for at least one more season with the Notre Dame basketball team seemed like a foregone conclusion.

But on Friday, Markus Burton made it official. Jon Rothstein took to X to let all the Fighting Irish faithful know that the star guard told him he'd come back for the 2024-25 campaign.

"Notre Dame's Markus Burton tells me that he will withdraw from the 2024 NBA Draft and return to school next season," Rothstein wrote. Averaged 17.5 PPG, 4.3 APG, and 3.3 RPG last year as a freshman.Will be one of the best guards in the ACC in 2024-25."

The one part that Rothstein got wrong there was that Burton is already one of the best guards in the ACC. He's got numerous rookie of the week awards to prove it. He's also got the fact that he only got better as the season went on.

Notre Dame basketball welcomes back one of its best

The news of Markus Burton's return puts the cherry on the sundae of what has been a very big week for Notre Dame basketball. 

The Irish landed a pair of transfers in Nikita Konstantynovskyi and Burke Chebuhar just a few days before Burton came back.

Now it truly looks like the Notre Dame basketball team is getting ready to make a run at the postseason.