SOUTH BEND − He’s back.
With it, the extended regular-season nightmare that has been for the Notre Dame men’s basketball team is also over.
Sophomore point guard Markus Burton was back in an Irish uniform on Saturday for a sold-out, nationally-televised game against North Carolina as Atlantic Coast Conference play revs up. Burton worked through warmups with his teammates and is expected to come off the bench for the first time in his career for the noon tip.
Burton worked through warmups 20 minutes before tip with no brace or sleeve on his knee. He was the last on the floor shooting 3s, then sprinted back to the locker room. There would be no minutes restrictions on him Saturday.
Burton checked into the game – his first in 39 days – with 12:19 left in the first half. He played a quick 3:37 burst before returning to the bench. Burton returned and scored his first basket off a drive and left-handed layup with 5:35 left in the first half.
The 6-foot, 190-pound Burton, who had started all 39 games of his collegiate career, has been sidelined since Nov. 26 after suffering a medial collateral ligament injury to his right knee. On that night in Las Vegas, Burton drove to the basket, made a circus shot and fell to the floor in the opening four minutes of a Players Era Festival game against Rutgers.
As Burton lay on the floor, Rutgers center Emmanuel Ogbole, who is 6-10 and 270 pounds, fell on Burton’s right leg. That’s the last time Burton played basketball. Until Saturday. Even when Burton fell to the floor, and it was announced the next day that he would be evaluated on a “week-to-week” basis, Saturday always seemed the proper target date for his return.
Despite missing seven games, Burton leads the Irish in scoring (18.2 points per game) and assists (4.3). He’s also averaging 4.5 rebounds in 28.3 minutes. He’s shooting .477 percent from the field, .346 from 3 and .842 from the foul line.
In the season’s second game against Buffalo, Burton quietly flirted with the second triple-double in program history. He had 19 points, a career-high nine rebounds and eight assists.
The Irish went 4-1 with Burton at full strength. They lost the Rutgers game when he went down and were 3-4 without him.
In a search for someone to handle the ball, Notre Dame fielded two different starting lineups without Burton, last year’s ACC freshman of the year and a first team all-ACC preseason selection this fall.
Burton, a Mishawaka native and 2023 Indiana Mr. Basketball, is the first key Irish player to miss extended time because of injury since 2017-18, when Bonzie Colson, that season’s ACC preseason player of the year, was sidelined for 15 regular-season games with a broken left foot.
Colson returned late that season and re-broke the foot in a first round National Invitation Tournament loss to Penn State.
Freshman guard Sir Mohammed has also returned to the rotation. Mohammed, who underwent knee surgery in early November, missed 10 games before returning to play two minutes and score three points in Tuesday’s loss at Georgia Tech.
Irish coach Micah Shrewsberry constantly preached patience with Burton, who did not need surgery – only rest and rehab and recovery.
“The main thing for me is, like his future is more important than winning one or two extra games,” Shrewsberry said early in December. “I’m not going to put him on the court. We care more about his future than we care about anything else. His health comes first. When he’s ready, he’ll be back. We’re going to make sure he’s 100 percent ready.
“I just don’t know what that timeline’s going to be.”
Privately, the hope inside Rolfs Hall was that Burton could return for the first Saturday in January and the sold-out home game against North Carolina. In late December, he shed the full-length leg brace he had worn and started light shooting/workouts at the team facility. He had spent most home games in the front row of baseline seats near the Irish bench, often with a basketball in his hands.
With Burton, Notre Dame has designs on making a possible push toward the top half of the ACC and possible NCAA tournament consideration. Without Burton, it’s been a struggle with guards Matt Allocco and Braeden Shrewsberry and small forward Tae Davis expected to do more. They haven’t always had a lot of help from the rest of the roster.
Help has arrived.
Notre Dame men’s basketball finally feels whole again.
Follow South Bend Tribune and NDInsider columnist Tom Noie on X (formerly Twitter): @tnoieNDI. Contact Noie at tnoie@sbtinfo.com
