Notre Dame Fighting Irish early analytics show improvement, but not enough

The Notre Dame Fighting Irish basketball team showed some serious fight at the end of the season. Enough fight and enough improvement that there are some analysts who project a massive jump.

However, some very early analytics show that while there is going to be an improvement, and even a winning record, the jump isn’t going to be drastic enough. At least it likely won’t be drastic enough that Markus Burton will carry the Irish to the NCAA Tournament in his sophomore campaign.

Bart Torvik, a site that is similar to KenPom in that it takes analytics to try and project the outcome of every game, has put out its projections for the 2024-25 season. The site has the Notre Dame Fighting Irish posting a 15-12 record overall and a 10-10 record in the ACC.

Notre Dame Fighting Irish basketball looking at good but not great 2024-2025 season

Barttorvik doesn’t just put together a projection of what games the Irish will win, and total record, but even projects what kind of stats the players can put up. Most interestingly, is that the site can also show where a team’s record might have it going in the post season.

That’s also where the bad news really comes in for Notre Dame. While they are posting a winning record in 2024-25, according to Bart Torvik, the 15-12 record likely won’t be good enough to get into the dance.

The list of 10 teams that all had similar resumes to what the site sees as the Irish all, every single one, missed the Big Dance. 

It is worth pointing out that those teams are mid-major squads. It’s possible that if the Notre Dame Fighting Irish get to 15-12, they could make some noise in the ACC and get at least a look. But for now, it appears the basketball team’s rebuild moves forward, just not all the way to the NCAA Tournament just yet.