Luke Winn Gives Props to Irish, Shakes Salt Into Nearly Healed Wound

by CW on May 2, 2007 10:08 AM EDT in Basketball Comment 0 comments

SI.com's Luke Winn came out with some pre-pre-preseason power rankings for college basketball and nicely slipped the Irish in at number 16:

How far could the Irish have gone in last season's NCAA tournament had point guard Kyle McAlarney not been suspended (for a questionably long period of time) after a marijuana arrest? Freshman Tory Jackson played well in McAlarney's place, helping spark a six-game win streak in late February and early March that sealed the Irish's bid to the Big Dance. McAlarney was far superior statistically, though: He had assist/turnover percentage splits of 32.3/23.4 compared to Jackson's 26.7/24.6, as well as an offensive rating of 124.0 compared to Jackson's 100.0. The two floor generals will be playing side to side in the '07-08 starting lineup, which should make for a dangerous offense ... but I can't help but wonder if, with McAlarney, they might have been a Final Four darkhorse last March.

With all the excitement directed towards the draft and future football opponents, it's easy to forget that if the Irish hoops team can replace the scoring on the wing that left with Russell Carter and Colin Falls, they should be a formidable foe in 2007-2008.

Of course, it would be hard to talk about Notre Dame basketball without imagining how things would have been with McAlarney at the point. Still, if K-Mac doesn't decide to spend his Christmas break driving around with weed on his passenger seat (Glovebox, man! Glovebox!), Tory Jackson doesn't get the playing time he did that morphed him into a point guard capable of doing whatever he wanted against Final Four participant Georgetown in the Irish's next to last game of the season. Back in March, Irish messageboards were ablaze with the "OMG, Who will start at point?!?!" question until some level-headed person pointed out "Well, although we'll be a bit undersized, McAlarney can just scoot over to the 2 and problem solved".

Is any basketball reference reason enough to show Baron Davis' bullet fedora and make reference to the fact it's more fun for the Warriors to close this thing out in Oakland? You betcha. Photo courtesy of The Basketball Jones and the great J.E. Skeets.