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10. Notre Dame: Staten Island native Kyle McAlarney had to have a hard time believing how his 2006-07 season ended. With Chris Quinn gone, McAlarney was given the reigns to the Notre Dame offense at the beginning of last season, distributing the ball to seniors Colin Falls and Russell Carter. When he wasn't distributing the ball (and he was among the nation's leaders in assists at midseason), McAlarney's shot was falling at an impressive rate. The sophomore had four 3-pointers in each of Notre Dame's most impressive non-conference wins against Maryland and Alabama and was hitting at a 46-percent clip.

And then came the night of December 28. McAlarney was pulled over just hours after scoring a career-high 21 points in a 101-51 rout of Rider. For a while it seemed that McAlarney was done at Notre Dame, likely to resurface at a New York-area program. But Mike Brey reached out to him at a home visit during the Irish's road loss to St. John's in January, and McAlarney committed to coming back, pending his reinstatement by the university, which came at the conclusion of spring semester.

Still, McAlarney was done for 2006-07, and, as he watched as more than a curious observer, the young man had to have mixed feelings while Notre Dame finished in the Big East's top four without him. Freshman point guard Tory Jackson brought a different element to the Irish offense. A whirling dervish with a nose for the rim, Jackson almost single-handedly brought Notre Dame back from a Big East semifinals deficit against eventual Big East Tournament champion Georgetown.

And then, after Notre Dame had seemingly returned to prominence with a 24-7 record and a No. 6 seed in the NCAA Tournament, the Irish then whimpered out of the Big Dance with one of the poorest performances of the first round. Notre Dame fell behind in the last 10 minutes of the first half with shoddy defense and ugly offense. The Irish then made a furious comeback in the second half only to see its shooting, a longtime Notre Dame strength, betray the team down the stretch. NDU shot 4-for-22 from 3-point and 4-for-13 from the charity stripe. It was a sad way for Falls (2-for-10 from deep) and Carter (0-for-6) to end a remarkable season and a sour note with which to begin the offseason.

But now, McAlarney is back, and so is Jackson. And that will be Brey's first dilemma — how to integrate a pair of point guards into the lineup. The Irish's lack of backcourt depth probably means they'll start alongside each other, but their ability to work together will likely determine the success of Notre Dame's offense, a team strength in recent seasons.

In the frontcourt, there should be less controversy, as one of the more surprising developments of the last season was the emergence of Luke Harangody and Rob Kurz as a sometimes-devastating, if not imposing, frontcourt tandem. The two have an innate sense of the other's location on the court and the best way to get each the ball in a position to succeed. Kurz is a deceptively good rebounder despite his waif appearance, and Harangody is deceptively mobile despite his cloddish demeanor. Zack Hillesland is the most likely candidate to start alongside Kurz and Harangody in the frontcourt. Hillesland is an exceptional athlete, showing uncommon quickness and explosiveness on a Notre Dame team that tends to feature skill rather than raw athleticism. He should immediately become the Irish's best defender and a help on the boards.

The biggest conundrum in the Joyce Center is what happened between Luke Zeller's senior year in high school and his arrival in South Bend. Mr. Indiana Player of the Year (edging out Marquette's Dominic James), Zeller has only occasionally strayed from the bench in his first two seasons in college, playing less than one-third of the team's minutes in each of his first two seasons. In that time, Zeller, seemingly immune to rebounding, has already seen Harangody, Kurz and Hillesland pass him in the frontcourt rotation. Will Ryan Ayers be next? Ayers, with his sweet shot but otherwise underdeveloped game, may be an option for Brey on the wing or at the off-guard spot this season, if he should decide to go big. A glance at the Notre Dame roster shows no other returning backcourt contributors from last season and little in the way of help from incoming freshmen.

Brey seems intent on continuing the karmic experience he described so vividly at the Big East Tournament. He believes that his team's hard work, which continued in the offseason led by the captain, Kurz, will lead to results that will prove NDU to be more than a one-year wonder. I'm not so sure.

Brey, a fancier of both Eastern philosophy and turtlenecks as it turns out, has long been in a state of dukkha, frustrated by his inability to bring in the players he wants to Notre Dame, a product of the school's extra rigorous admissions standards. As a result, it's long been rumored that Brey would move on when the next good job came his way. But after an early run of success with Matt Doherty's players, Brey suffered three NIT seasons before getting back into the NCAAs last season, and with no appealing offers forthcoming, Brey signed a two-year extension that will take him through the 2012-13 season. It's a good thing, too, because even with McAlarney, the roster is too thin to survive 18 Big East wars, and Brey is unlikely to pad his résumé this winter.