We gathered a few of your favorite Notre Dame basketball writers to kick off our hoops coverage at 18Stripes. In our first round-table discussion we take a tour of the 2016-17 Fighting Irish roster and bust out our crystal ball to look at the year ahead. Part 1 covers the upper-classmen and part 2 will look at the younger half of the roster

If you’re projecting ahead to the Irish awards banquet in the late spring of 2017, who’s walking away with Notre Dame’s MVP award?

Eric B: VJ Beachem who beats out Steve Vasturia.

Patrick: The last two Irish MVP awards have been given out to duos of departing stars (Grant/Connuaghton and Jackson/Auguste). I might be copping out here, but I’ll predict the trend to continue with a Vasturia/Beachem co-MVP.

Joe: Despite a crazy fantasy of Temple Gibbs coming in and lighting the world afire from day one, reality dictates that Brey’s program is run by veterans, and this team has 2 outstanding ones that will likely share that award. Vasturia isn’t quite the shooter that Matt Carroll was, but I think we’re in for another year of people talking about his “surprising” ability to get to the rim. Ideally, he’ll be paired as co-MVP with Beachem, who will take his NBA feedback to heart with a monster season.

alstein: I think it’s Bonzie time. Colson will finish as the team’s leading scorer and emotional leader, given the relative stoicism of the obvious senior choices. Unlikely? Maybe, especially given Brey’s love of his seniors. Vasturia and Beachem being named as co-MVPs is the obvious choice, but I think Bonzie is going to be a monster this season.

What about most improved?

Eric B: Martinas Geben. Everyone who watches practice has said he looked really good down the stretch of the season. If there’s ever a time for someone to make a jump their junior year, it’s lining up for Geben.

Patrick: I like Bonzie to take home the MIP award. With a lot of apparent question marks in the Irish front-court next season, Colson will likely be asked to be the main offensive threat down low. I don’t think it’s out of the question that he could be the Irish’s leading scorer next year, and I think he wins this award.

Joe: Ideally, it is Beachem. I have to imagine NBA scouts told him he needs to add assertive elements to both his offensive and defensive game. If he puts on some strength and can defend 3 or 4 positions reliably and shows some of that sweet sweet finishing at the rim…

…any excuse to embed this Vine…he could be an all-ACC level beast.

alstein: Bonzie, obviously. But I’ll also give a special shout out to Vasturia, who I think will be a lot more consistent shooting the ball and limiting turnovers. Not sure he will make a big jump in scoring, but I think he will be a lot better in facilitating the offense.

Austin Torres, V.J. Beachem, and Steve Vasturia are the three senior leaders for this season. What do you see for them individually and collectively?

Eric B: Steve Vasturia should be the main source of leadership for the team this season. Although he’s described by Screamin’ Jack Nolan as a silent assassin, he was made a captain toward the end of the 15/16 season, and I’d expect his time playing with Jerian, Pat, DJ, and Auguste to have rubbed off on him in a good way. Beachem also seems like a “lead by example” type with Torres more vocal. The big question will be whether Torres can make the leap into the rotation. It’s hard to be a leader while playing only a couple minutes each game.

Patrick: Austin Torres should be a very interesting player to watch next season. He has provided huge energy and defense off the bench when given a few minutes, but he could never really carve out a rotation spot behind Zach Auguste. Despite the Irish not featuring any proven front-court players, they’ll have a lot of guys battling for minutes. Torres seems built to be a vocal leader, and if he can get ~15 mins a game, that could be huge for him, especially with another year of eligibility left. It will be interesting to see how great of a leap V.J. Beachem can take in year 4. He impressed greatly in the postseason, but struggled with consistency earlier in the year. We know he’ll knock down threes and wow us with some dunks and blocks, but will he be able to create enough space to be a 16 PPG scorer? He took 198 threes last year to only 136 twos — can he continue to improve his game inside the arc? With Steve, I think we know exactly what we have. While he struggled to stroke the 3 for long stretches last year, he continued to provide a stabilizing force on both sides of the ball. Despite DJ’s departure, he won’t rocket into superstardom; however, he’ll be a very good player that leads this Irish team.

Joe: The Austin Torres Energy Machine (™) has two opportunities to leave a big mark on the program this year. First, he’s universally heralded as a great teammate and personality. With the other two senior leaders being such quiet personalities, Torres’ energy will be critical. Second, Brey has to be filling Torres ear with the route to more burn being defense and rebounding. Paired with Colson, and surrounded with 3 point shooting threats, Torres gives Brey a much better rim protector and athletic rebounder to compliment Bonzie’s offensive talents.

Overall, this group will be tasked with attempting to continue the most impressive run in modern Notre Dame Basketball history. Consecutive E8’s and piling on the wins has felt fantastic. If this group can sustain even a good portion of that momentum, they’ll go down as one of the most important recruiting classes in ND history. DJ was always the headline, but these 3 now have the stage cleared to demonstrate their collective impact on the program. I feel they’ll be leaving it in wonderful shape.

Alstein: Beachem has achieved steadiness offensively, but can he truly make the next jump in becoming a defensive PITA without dipping in efficiency? I like that he has Ryan Ayers around to focus on his development at both ends of the court. Still, there aren’t many examples of Irish players who have stepped up as defensive stars, so while VJ certainly has that potential, I’ll believe it when I see it.

Vasturia needs to find that consistency offensively, and he is definitely going to be shouldering the load for Mike Brey’s offense, as Brey loves riding his upperclassmen. Vasturia seemed to fatigue last February and March, but he is at least going to need to find his long-range shot consistently for this offense to really hum like it has been these last two seasons. I think he’ll find a bit more consistency but fall a bit short of becoming a star in the ACC like we’ve gotten used to these past couple seasons from Irish PGs.

I’m not expecting much from Torres. I think Brey is going to experiment with the younger guys, all of whom have a higher ceiling and one of whom really needs to emerge, really on both ends of the court. Seems more likely that Geben or Burns seizes that role rather than Torres, who might be a few-minute-per-game energy guy.

Mike Brey frequently talks about players in his program making a big leap their junior season. What does a big leap look like for Matt Farrell, Martinas Geben and/or Bonzie Colson?

Eric B: Farrell and Bonzie probably being the season in the starting lineup. If Gibbs is as advertised, Farrell may have trouble staying in the starting lineup, but avoiding turnovers, and expanding his role on offense will be the reasons he sticks. Considering VJ and Steve will probably get over 90% of available minutes at the 2 and 3, Farrell will need to step up handling the ball and starting the Irish offense. While Bonzie has been really solid in his first two seasons, whether or not he is able to function as a primary post option will dictate a lot about how the Irish play offense next season. Lastly, Geben’s time to step up is now. There’s a gaping hole in the Irish front court, and if the can’t step up to take it, it’ll be hard to see him ever cracking the rotation.

Patrick: If Matt Farrell can continue to do what he did in last year’s tournament, I think that would constitute a huge step forward for him. He failed to impress in the non-conference season last year, relegating him to garbage time duty. He will likely start as the point guard in the vacuum left by DJ, but I don’t expect him to become a focal point for the Irish. If he can facilitate the offense, shoot 3’s at a decent clip, and not get abused on defense, that would be fantastic. More will be needed from Martinas Geben. As the presumptive starting 5 for the Irish, he will see an enormous increase in minutes this season. I anticipate the Irish trying to feed him the ball early (as they often did with Auguste), and hopefully we can discern early on whether he has capable post moves. If he flounders, the Irish may have to depend on an exclusively small ball lineups for long stretches this year. For Bonzie, he has to be a main guy this year. His charisma has made him a fan favorite, but he didn’t always fit neatly next to Auguste down low. This year, he will become a focus for opposing defense, and if he can continue to use his unique game to exploit mismatches while playing over 30 minutes a game, that would be a nice step forward.

Joe: As Alstein once said, “Remember that time when Brey put Matt Farrell in the starting lineup, we all went crazy, and we made the Elite Eight? Good times…” Farrell just needs to be the swaggy pest that goes all-out when he gets his chance. The shot of confidence last year’s tournament run gave Farrell needs to carry over. When things got cranked up to ACC levels last year, he looked a little shook. No time for that this year. If he can bring that confidence and a semi-reliable jumper, without being a defensive liability, he’ll be a key cog in the back-court.

Bonzie is Bonzie. He’s going to shoot around 60% find a bunch of offensive boards, and lead the team in talking junk at opponents. He’s got a chance to put some of that “Junkyard Bonz” stamp on this team and lead them through the inevitable little dips of the season. Bonzie could be the guy most poised to benefit from the Humphrey hiring. If the former Irish big can get the current Irish big to defend and rebound with the same intensity, good things are coming.

Geben is the guy I hope to be the most wrong about. The game has looked far too fast for him at every opportunity he’s been given. The best sign of life from him last year was the energy he showed when hedging and recovering against PnR opponents in the pre-season. If that’s an intensity level he can maintain throughout a game, and a season, maybe he makes that leap, but I anticipate someone like Torres or one of the more “stretch 4” young guys taking most of his burn.

alstein: A giant leap for Geben would be just looking like a high-major level player. All reports are that he started clicking late last season, but we’ve got to see it in action before we really start to believe the hype. If he can approximate, say, Adam Woodbury from Iowa (without the eye-poking, of course), Notre Dame will be in much, much better shape down low this season than they look on paper.

Farrell needs to be a reasonably consistent deep threat (38% maybe?) and stay swaggy off the bounce. He had some outstanding plays as facilitator in last year’s NCAA Tournament, so just more of that without going off the deep end and turning the ball over like a maniac would be really, really nice.

And Bonzie is the greatest player of all-time. You’ll see.

Look for Part 2 to be published to 18Stripes shortly.