Notre Dame Basketball: The Preview

My friend Mike and I were talking about Notre Dame hoops on GChat a couple of weeks ago and decided to try and condense our thoughts into a little preview conversation about the upcoming season.  This ended up being a rather prolonged exercise of trading e-mails and then I decided to save it for this morning to post before the Old Spice Classic, so please imagine this happening without the knowledge that Tim Abromaitis would snap out of his slump against Maine.

Mike: Ah, college basketball, how I've missed you. I always forget how much fun it is during the fall, when football takes over and ruins everything. ND hoops has low expectations that are easy to surpass, and Mike Brey's underdog/up-tempo/gutty squads are almost always fun, if uneven. 

I have a great feeling about this season, and our tougher-than-usual early-season schedule (Gonzaga, Kentucky, Old Spice Classic) suggests Brey agrees with me. Here are two things that have me optimistic:

1) Depth. We seem to have offensive weapons all-around, and shouldn't have to lean too heavily on one guy or another. There are 6 or 7 guys who could lead the scoring tally on any given night (Abro, Hansbrough, Martin, Scott, Nash, maybe Atkins or Brooks) and I'd be happy with any of them taking the shot in big situations. Think of all the different looks we can throw out there, from three-guard lineups to four-forward things. A lot of good ball handlers and shooters should make some weird/awesome scenarios possible.

2) Size. It always hurts to lose a guy of Harangody's size and caliber, but we're left with some quality gents who aren't afraid of the paint. Nash, Cooley and Broghammer are solid traditional bigs, and Scott and Abro finish well inside. And coming off a year that showed marked defensive improvements, especially in Harangody's absence, I'm liking the length and rebounding abilities the team brings to the table.

OK, CW, what do you think? What's the most exciting to you? And bring me back to Earth a little bit. What could be weaknesses?

CW: I am irrationally excited for a team that has won a grand total of one NCAA tournament game since 2003's Sweet Sixteen visit, but I don't care.  I was talking to a coworker who's a Georgetown grad about the upcoming season and he remarked that this must be a particularly terrible football season if I was already talking about basketball.  (This was before the Utah game, but still, ya burnt.)  I had to explain, with an uncomfortably high level of exuberance, how much I loved Notre Dame basketball, warts and all.  (Coworker was not impressed.)  Everyone with an Irish connection follows the football team, but the basketball team is sort of the forgotten middle child.  You laid out some great reasons to be excited, but my optimism boils down to two things: versatility and a commitment to defense.

The versatility is particularly appealing.  When you have four guys like Carleton Scott, Ty Nash, Tim Abromaitis and Scott Martin, that's a huge lift to any team.  Need them to bang down low?  They've got some size.  (FYI: I have no idea if Scott Martin will bang down low, but he's tall and long, so just roll with me here.)  Bring the ball up to initiate the offense?  Absolutely.  Spread things out and hit some threes?  No problem there.  So now you just fill in the cracks around those guy with size (Jack Cooley, Mike Broghammer, potentially but probably not Thomas Knight) and some more traditional perimeter play (Insane B, Eric Atkins and Joey Brooks). 

The last time Notre Dame had options like this was probably in 2007 before the Kyle McAlarney suspension, when freshmen Luke Harangody, Ryan Ayers and Tory Jackson were helping out seniors Russell Carter (miss you!) and Colin Falls, with Zach Hillesland, Rob Kurz and Luke Zeller in the middle.  Last season's bench was either underutilized or not good, but it certainly was not effective or used much until the Harangody injury (third to last in the nation, although there's some decent company down there at the bottom with Ohio State, Georgetown, St. Mary's and Marquette).

I also like knowing that this team can play defense, as witnessed by the end of last season.  It's hard to look at this team and point at a minus defender, as everyone is either somewhat athletic or long for their position.  In previous years, the Irish had a few players who were prolific offensive players but not so hot on defense and, meaning that even good defensive players were often put in bad position.  Even if the players could have been solid defenders, they were asked to spend so much energy on offense and play the entire game that it would have required superhuman efforts to excel at both ends.  With the depth - and Brey hopefully being willing to use - no one has to pace themselves.  Run at a break neck pace on offense and put in an adequate amount of effort on defense, as we've got someone to rest your legs.

My main concern is what happens if the Irish face a team with a bunch of athletic guards and slashers.  I trust Ben Hansbrough, but I'm not nearly as enamored with Joey Brooks as you are (seemed like we were rooting for him to do cool stuff last year way more than he was actually doing cool stuff) and Eric Atkins is a freshman.  If injuries or foul trouble befall Hansbrough, we'll be fine on offense, but almost forced to go into a zone on defense due to matchup difficulties.  And as anyone who has watched a lot of Notre Dame basketball over the years, there's no better way to ensure a team finding their three-point stroke than to play against the Irish defense.

So I think Notre Dame will be able to score and they should be able to defend, but between some potential matchup nightmares and the depth still sort of questionable (between a lack of experience and Brey), don't we have a decent amount of things to be concerned about?

Mike: Yeah, when I really sit and think about it, there almost as many concerns as there are exciting things. I'm most nervous about what we'll be missing with the departure of Harangody and Jackson, especially (surprisingly?) the latter. It'll hurt to be without Luke's historically dependable inside/mid-range presence, but the team showed last year that there were plenty of guys ready to step up and take on responsibility. I was at the Marquette game in Milwaukee, which is always a tough environment to play in and ND's NCAA tournament hopes hung in the balance. They shot terribly, but defended well, and Carleton hit the huge coming-of-age 3 to tie it at the buzzer. And to put it away in overtime without Harangody showed some impressive cojones.

I'm afraid Tory's graduation will be even tougher to overcome. He created so well, played so tenaciously, and often brought an emotional jolt at the perfect time. I remember you or me saying something like "Tory is absolutely carrying this team right now" a bunch of times over the past two years.  His leadership and craftyness will be sorely missed. Will Atkins step in? Eventually, maybe, but it's not fair to expect consistent performances from a freshman throughout the Big East gauntlet. Maybe Ben can be the guy, but he's shoot-first. Who will set up Abro for an open 3 when he really needs it to get going? I'm hopeful the team's versatility will present everyone with options, but there will be times I'll wish Tory could come back and set the tone.

I'm also skeptical about Brey's game management style. He's enthusiastic and I like how freely he encourages the team to play, but how will he handle his new personnel? The "burn" in Harangody's absence sort of worked, but in an NCAA game against an athletically inferior Old Dominion team, there was no reason to not just run them out of the building. It was painful to watch. I flash back to those painful losses from our sophomore year, when Chris Quinn just sort of threw up wild, game-losing runners after standing at the top of the key for 30 seconds. Will disappointment be the norm again? I hope the evenness across the roster doesn't create a leadership vacuum.

CW: You have unintentionally and prematurely stolen my second worry I had saved, which is who is the leader of this team, and then onto the question of what the heck do the Irish do when they need a basket late?  Notre Dame's offense is going to score through the course of the game, unless you feel like a Mike Brey team will suddenly lose the ability to shoot, get easy points in transition and share the ball to the point a lot of people are getting easy shots.  But at the end of the game, who takes over?  Is there an alpha dog on this team?  It used to be either a Harangody post-up or a Tory drive, but both of those options are gone.  Is it a Hansbrough and Abromaitis pick and roll?  A Nash or Scott post-up?  Or is it going to be, as you alluded to, a flashback to 2006, where it's a nightmare of awkward mid-range pull-ups and forced lay-ups in traffic by whatever player takes over Chris Quinn's role?  The beauty of the Brey offense is the absurdly high assist rate, as the ball is shared.  The beast is that without an established leader, the end of games when defenses lock down could get tricky.  You'd think Hansbrough would be the guy to take over that position, but it's just guesswork at this point.

 I also agree on Brey.  I love the guy, but that Old Dominion game was very troubling.  And remember Washington State in 2008?  They ground the Irish into dust.  If Brey can find some balance between the burn and the traditionally efficient offense, there's a chance for this to be special.  Or perhaps the loss of a Big East Player of the Year and the end of one of the more accomplished point guard careers in Irish history leave this team struggling to find an identity.  Like you and everyone else who followed this team, I loved the way everyone rallied after Harangody's injury, starting with that epic game in Louisville and then going on a run through some of the best teams in the Big East.  Now we have to hope that that wasn't lightning in a bottle, but a sneak peak at a successful 2010-2011 season, minus feature player Tory Jackson.

Shall we wrap this up?  Where do the Irish end up in the Big East?  How far can they run?  Surprises?  Disappointments?

Mike:  At this rate, we're looking at an undefeated year and an NCAA championship. Wahoo. To paraphrase Brian Wilson, I wish they all could be Chicago State.

Our Big East schedule is tough but fair, with double-ups against St. John's, UConn, and Marquette. Let's call those an even 3-3. We have Nova, Louisville, Georgetown at home, with Pitt, Syracuse, and WVU on the road. Split those up, too, which puts us at 6-6. Take one out to be safe, that's 5-7. I'll give us wins over Rutgers, Seton Hall, USF, DePaul, Cincy, and Providence, but take one out because there's always a clunker in there. And that's..10-8, which feels good. I'd guess 9-9, 10-8 in this year's wide-open conference would put us somewhere 5th through 8th, depending on tie-breakers. It'd be excellent to make that top 4 though and secure the wacky BET double-bye, but that's an uphill battle any year. NCAA tournament hopes could rest on how we do in the non-con. If we win or place in the Old Spice, for instance, I'll feel mighty good heading into the Big East.

When I'm feeling confident, the Irish are a Sweet 16 team, at least. On other days, I fear us falling into the "Last Four Out" category. Put me down with a Sweet 16 prediction.

Surprise of the year: Ben Hansbrough becomes an alpha dog, Tyler-style, and makes All-Big East First Team. I'm also feeling big years from Nash and Atkins.

Disappointment of the year: Abro fails to recover his stroke, and becomes the team's fourth option. But he'll complete two or three grad degrees anyway and lock down all the scholar-athlete awards.

CW: I like your record prediction a lot: take some fair guesses, then knock a win off.  9-9 or 10-8 seems about right, although those tussles with UConn are going to come down to whether Kemba Walker is really good or thirty-points-in-a-half good.  I'm not sure what the ceiling of this team is, but I feel like it has a pretty high floor.  It's going to win games against some of the poorer teams in the Big East just based on offense alone, but there aren't a lot of poor teams out there, especially with life being breathed into potential sleeping giants DePaul and St. John's.  The Irish are going to have to defend, and while I'm optimistic that the run at the end of last year was a sign of things to come,  there isn't much extensive evidence over Brey's tenure that this team will lock guys down.  They'll be in a lot of fun games, they'll float around the middle of the Big East and then we'll hope and pray they can survive the opening weekend of the NCAA.

My surprise is that Jack Cooley becomes a formidable presence off the bench, not playing enough minutes to win the Sixth Man of the Year award, but making a run at it anyway.  I also think Ty Nash will be a double-double machine and flirt with Big East First Team status.  My disappointment - although I think it goes without saying that I hope I'm wrong, but I'll say it anyway - will be Joey Brooks, who will get lost in the wing shuffle and lose a sizable amount of his minutes to Eric Atkins at guard.

On to the Old Spice Classic and Georgia, which will be tomorrow night at 7pm on ESPN2.  The Irish will then play either Temple or California, followed by Wisconsin, A&M, Boston College or Manhattan.  They take a breather with Indiana State, then it's back-to-back ranked opponents with Kentucky and Gonzaga.  We're going to have a pretty good idea of what this team is before Big East play even starts, and that's something we always haven't had with some of the lighter non-con schedules.