Vincent Pugliese-USA TODAY Sports
The Notre Dame Fighting Irish will no longer be a Big East team in the 2013-14 college basketball season. They will actually be playing in the ACC. However, they will still play three tough Big Ten teams before conference play even starts.
The Fighting Irish will take on the Iowa Hawkeyes (ACC/Big Ten Challenge), Indiana Hoosiers and the Ohio State Buckeyes.
Iowa made it to the NIT championship game last season and will be returning many players from last season’s team.
Indiana loses Cody Zeller, Christian Watford, Victor Oladipo and Jordan Hulls, so you can definitely say that they will look different. However, Yogi Ferrell and Will Sheehey will both be back and a pretty solid recruiting class is coming in.
The Buckeyes very well could be the best team out of the three since they basically will only be losing Deshaun Thomas. That is a huge loss on the offensive side of the ball, but Ohio State will still be a solid defensive team and could still be a top 10 team in college hoops.
It is interesting Notre Dame would schedule these three Big 10 teams, but it should help the strength of schedule out quite a bit. The team will have to play Iowa and Indiana on the road, but it will get Ohio State at home.
The Fighting Irish will have to play the Duke Blue Devils two games after the Ohio State game and it will have to play Indiana and Ohio State in back-to-back games. In no way will that be easy, but it could pay off in the long run.
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