Notre Dame faces uphill battle in Mission League after slow start

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You had to figure the Notre Dame basketball team would struggle this season after the graduation of several seniors, including standouts Mike Stanton and Pierce Brooks, as well as versatile role player Aaron Fisher. But struggle doesn’t begin to explain the recent developments on the Sherman Oaks campus.

The Knights opened up with losses in 11 of their first 12 games, a shocking turn of events for a program that’s traditionally competitive. Moreover, there has to be some level of concern heading into Friday’s first Mission League game at Loyola. Beyond that looms more than a few showdowns with long-time rivals.

‘We knew we we’re going to take some lumps, but this has been a real challenge,’’ Coach Bill Bedgood said. ‘This team is young, it’s lacking some of the experience we had last year. Losing multiple games is something we expected. We’re not measuring things by wins and losses this season. We’re measuring by development and improvement.’’

Notre Dame picked a bad time to adopt such a philosophy, though it didn’t have much of a choice. Harvard-Westlake is loaded. Crespi is no slouch. Chaminade never quits. And it looks as if Alemany may be on the verge of turning the corner. Unfortunately for Knights’ fans, wins might be harder to come by moving forward.

-- Sean Ceglinsky