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Notre Dame Freshman Forward Elijah Taylor To Undergo Surgery, Miss Season

Mike Brey and his coaching staff went into the preseason hoping one of Notre Dame’s two freshman forwards could slide into a role as the backup center behind starter Juwan Durham, providing about 10 steady minutes per game.

One of them now won’t have the chance to claim the role.

Elijah Taylor will have surgery on his left ankle in December to repair a lingering injury sustained before arriving at Notre Dame, the team announced Friday. His recovery timeline is about six months, which will sideline him for the entire 2020-21 season.

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Notre Dame freshman Elijah Taylor will have season-ending surgery on a lingering ankle issue.
Notre Dame freshman Elijah Taylor will have season-ending surgery on a lingering ankle issue. (Jon Lopez / Jon Lopez Creative)

The injury leaves Notre Dame with Durham and freshman Matt Zona as its primary options at the five. Zona’s opportunity to claim a role grows with Taylor’s injury. So does the need for him to prove capable.

Taylor was a three-star recruit out of Philadelphia’s Imhotep Institute Charter High School and the No. 32 center in the 2020 class. He chose the Irish from a group of five finalists that also included Florida, VCU, Pitt and Seton Hall. Zona was a three-star signee out of Oradell (N.J.) Bergen Catholic and picked Notre Dame over Penn State and St. Joseph’s. Rivals ranked him as the No. 39 center in the class.

“Zona is a very sound and fundamentally skilled post,” said then-Rivals national analyst Corey Evans of Zona upon his commitment. “He is not a great athlete, but he does produce in the half court. He has a decent back to the basket skill set along with great hands, touch and toughness around the basket. Where he is best served is facing the basket. He can really shoot it with his feet set...I don’t see him being a double-double threat in college.”

It’s also possible Brey chooses to shift to a small lineup at times when Durham is out of the game, with 6-10 junior Nate Laszewski sliding up from his presumed starting spot at the four to the five and giving Notre Dame more of a spaced-out lineup. Laszewski is a stretch big with a face-up game and a high-volume 3-point shooter for his position.

“Could the substitution pattern be instead of a young big guy going in who maybe is not as ready, a more experienced perimeter player like Nate, who’s our biggest guy?” Brey told BlueandGold.com in July. “Now we’re five out and we stretch the hell out of the floor. Absolutely. We’ll play that way. We’ll substitute that way, play that way and maybe we’ll end up playing that way in crunch time.”

Notre Dame has not officially announced its schedule, but BlueandGold.com had previously confirmed it will open the season Nov. 28 at Michigan State. The Irish’s non-conference slate includes games against three Big Ten teams – Michigan State, Ohio State (home) and Purdue (neutral) – and games against Tennessee (home) and Kentucky (road), which are likely to be the top two teams in the SEC’s preseason poll.

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