10* Notre Dame (7:00 ET): Virginia Tech already was a team I felt didn’t deserve to be ranked in the Top 25, now they’ve had to suspend arguably their best player for the foreseeable future. So the Hokies are a very logical fade Wednesday night when they travel to South Bend and face Notre Dame. They just lost by 18 in Syracuse Saturday and that was with starting guard Tyrece Radford (the suspended player in question) in the lineup. This will be their third straight game on the road as well.

Notre Dame got me on Sunday by going to Coral Gables and beating Miami 73-59. They played a somewhat “sloppy” game (16 turnovers), but shot the ball very well and dominated the Hurricanes on the glass. The Fighting Irish finished the game at 53.8% from the field, including 10 of 18 on three-pointers. They also held a 37-28 rebounding advantage. That was a pretty impressive ACC road win and the Irish’s second win in a row overall. They defeated Boston College 80-70 here at home in their previous game.

It can’t be understated what losing Radford means to Va Tech. He is second on the team in both scoring and rebounding and was the “best player on the court” (Coach K’s words) when the Hokies beat Duke earlier this month. My power ratings are quite bearish on Va Tech, still having them outside the Top 40. They’ve lost two of their three “true” road games thus far. This is a revenge game for ND who lost by 14 down in Blacksburg 17 days ago on a bad shooting night. At home, things will be different. 10* Notre Dame