Transfer Portal Woes: Notre Dame Basketball officially loses big man to Fordham
Notre Dame's Matt Zona finds his new home at Fordham, bringing experience and hopes for a fresh start on the basketball court.
The Notre Dame basketball team hasn’t yet landed anyone through the transfer portal. However, they’ve lost a couple of big men to other teams. At least they’ve lost one big man to the portal.
Matt Zona was the first Fighting Irish player to enter the portal this offseason. Highly-touted power forward Carey Booth eventually joined him. There is a chance that Notre Dame could actually get one of the players back, even if it’s an extremely long shot.
One of those players is officially gone. Luckily, Booth isn’t the one that is officially gone. There’s still an outside chance that the Notre Dame Basketball program could convince the man who was once one of the biggest gets for the Irish, to stay in South Bend.
On Tuesday night, Zona announced he’d found his new home. The Blauvelt, New York native is heading close to home. Zona is headed to Fordham to play his final year of college basketball.
In doing so, the Rams are getting a big man that has extensive experience playing on a much bigger stage. While Zona didn’t start many games for Notre Dame Basketball (the 6 this year was a career high) he’s played 76 games for the Irish in his career.
Notre Dame basketball player Matt Zona finds his new home
While we know what Fordham gets, Zona gets something he’s never really had during his college basketball career. He’ll be able to get on the court and actually start more games than he was able to do with the Notre Dame Basketball program.
While he played in 76 games, over the course of Zona’s career he averaged just 8 minutes per game. However, he was considered a key piece to an Irish team that played its best basketball towards the end of the year.
He was especially important in his team’s upset over Clemson. After that game, his comments hinted that he knew he was going to be moving on from the Notre Dame Basketball team once the campaign was over.
“I’m a firm believer in you wanna leave a place better than you found it,” Zona said after the game. “With me doing something or not doing something, I think this place is in a really good spot, and we’re gonna get it going real soon.”