As the No. 7 seed in the ACC Tournament, the Fighting Irish we set to take on No. 2 Virginia on Thursday. If Notre Dame made a deep run, there was a chance the program could have made the NCAA Tournament for the first time in four seasons.

Instead, the entire world is bracing itself for the COVID-19 pandemic and massive cancellations across almost the entire spectrum of athletics at the collegiate and professional level has abruptly ended the seasons for several sports teams, including the Notre Dame men's basketball program.

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Unless the NCAA allows seniors to have an additional year of eligibility, this ends the collegiate career for several Fighting Irish basketball players: center John Mooney and guards TJ Gibbs and Rex Pflueger.

Mooney, in particular, will be a huge loss for the program after he became the third Notre Dame player to be named first-team All-ACC (the others were Jerian Grant in 2015 and Bonzie Colson in 2017). He averaged 16.2 points, 12.7 rebounds (second in the nation) and 1.7 assists per game and led the nation in double-doubles with 25.

Despite these losses, the Fighting Irish should have a talented roster for 2020-21 season, which includes one of the most talented collections of players from the classes of 2016 and 2018. The biggest issue for head coach Mike Brey’s squad will probably be overall depth, especially after having just three forwards on the roster this past season.

Often criticized for his lack of toughness and inconsistent play, Nate Laszewski has more talent than almost anyone on Notre Dame’s roster returning.

Coming out of high school in 2018, Laszewski was rated the No. 56 overall player in the country according to Rivals and the highest-rated big man Brey had signed since McDonald’s All-American Torin Frances in 2002.

Over the first two years of his career, Laszewski has averaged 7.2 points and 4.2 rebounds per game as a reserve power forward.

Yet the rising junior showed flashes of improved played down the stretch. Over the last 13 games of the season, Laszewski’s scoring average 8.4 points per game but in over half of the contests he scored in double figures.

Again, the problem was his inconsistent play.

Against Florida State on Jan. 25, one of the team’s biggest games of the year, Laszewski scored zero points on just three field goal attempts and grabbed one rebound. He followed that game up with an 18-point performance against Wake Forest on Jan. 29 while playing just 19 minutes.

The biggest question is will Laszewski be able to take a Mooney-like leap forward next season with more minutes, a bigger role in the offense and an extra year of experience?

To do that, he’ll need to improve as a three-point shooter and a rebounder. He was actually really effective in close-to-the-basket situations last season and hit on 60.6 percent of his two-point shot attempts. The issue is that he took almost twice as many three-pointers during the 2019-20 season and only hit 31 percent of them, a worse than what he produced during his freshman campaign.

But Lazweski has the talent to be a good three-point shooter and even a bump up to 36 percent from beyond the arch would greatly increase his production and efficiency, especially if he plays closer to 30 minutes a game as a starter (he averaged 21 minutes per game in 2019-20).

The toughest aspect of Mooney to replace is his rebounding and this something Laszewski cannot do on his own. Luckily, he should have some help.

A transfer from Connecticut, Juwan Durham is another Notre Dame men’s basketball player who was a highly touted prospect coming out of high school. He was ranked the No. 47 overall player in the class of 2016 and played one season with the Huskies before moving on to South Bend the following year.

Because he sat out of the 2017-18 season as a transfer, Durham has a fifth year of eligibility to use in 2020-21 at Notre Dame if he chooses.

This past season, Fighting Irish center Durham started 31 out of the 32 games he played in this season but actually played almost four fewer minutes per game than Laszewski.

Still, their numbers were rather comparable, with Durham averaging 7.8 points and 4.6 rebounds per game. Where Durham really contributed to the team is on the defensive end, as he produced 2.1 blocks per game (compared to a combined one block per game from Mooney and Laszewski).

Durham also looked less timid as the season went on and seemed more willing to body up thicker post players and block them out, even given his slight frame.

Out of the two returning post players in Durham and Laszewski, Durham seems the most likely to average a double-double. If he can get to 10 or more rebounds per game, that would go a long way in replacing Mooney.

The question is, can he stay on the court long enough to do so?

Thus far, the Notre Dame men's basketball team has signed two players in the class of 2020 and both are three-star centers listed at 6-8.

Elijah Taylor is rated the No. 26 center in the class of 2020, while Matt Zona is listed at No. 33. Both are promising pickups by the Fighting Irish coaching staff, but neither seems to be a lock to play right away.

The addition of graduate transfers will also be a strong possibility for the team, which may be necessary if Brey, or whoever the head coach is, feels that Zona and Taylor are not ready to contribute as freshmen.

This will be especially important to allow Laszewski and Durham a breather, as neither are used to playing more than 21 minutes per game.

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