Mike Brey has had a hell of a run in the ACC so far. The Irish have won 43 regular-season ACC games, 37 of those over the last 3 years. Notre Dame owns 6 ACC post-season victories in our short history, again, all over the last three years. In those same three seasons, Brey’s team has won seven NCAA Tournament games.

In a very short span of time, Notre Dame basketball has transformed from an ACC afterthought to an ACC power. Notre Dame has competed in 72 ACC regular season games and 9 ACC post season games. Steve Vasturia started in 74 of those games and played an average of 34 minutes per game across his four seasons in a Notre Dame uniform. The Medford, NJ guard has been the one constant across Notre Dame’s four year ACC journey and has been the unsung bedrock of this recent run of success.

Here’s a look back at Steve’s arrival in South Bend:

The Medford, NJ guard launched his Notre Dame career against Miami University (Ohio) on November 8th, 2013. He managed a cool 2 trillion that evening at Purcell Pavillion. In fact, Steve hardly saw the floor in the first half of his freshman campaign. The fresh-faced rookie was thrust in to action after Jerian Grant’s academic separation. Following a gut-wrenching loss to Ohio State, Notre Dame faced their first ACC season without their star guard. Vasturia had played a total of 52 minutes in his first 12 games. He had DNP-CD’s in five of those contests. In the final warm-up before conference play, Steve saw 22 minutes of action. He put up ten points in an overtime win over Canisius at home.

Less than a week later, Steve played another 22 minutes against the Duke Blue Devils. Led by Jabari Parker, the Blue Devils were heavy favorites, set to welcome Notre Dame to the ACC with a loss. Notre Dame went on to win that game in a stunning 79-77 upset that served as the lone highlight of that season. In that game, Vasturia went 3-5 from behind the arc for 9 points and contributed 4 defensive rebounds and a steal. It would be far from the last clutch performance Vasturia would log against the Blue Devils.

A week or so later, Vasturia stepped in to a late 3 with the game tied in Atlanta. The shot rimmed out, and the Irish experienced a painful ACC loss to Georgia tech, but I tweeted this:

For those curious, here’s the origin of Bill Faftery’s “Onions” call. Vastura demonstrated early on that he wasn’t afraid of the moment. The Onions nickname stuck around our OFD (now 18S) basketball community and served as an apt descriptor over his career.

Vasturia was one of the few bright spots in that first ACC campaign. He averaged 5 points and 1.2 assists per game at just over 23 minutes per contest. Irish fans quickly grew to appreciate his knack for making the necessary play when his team needed it the most. What that knack didn’t pay dividends his freshman year, those lessons and that experience would be used to launch Notre Dame to unprecedented heights in his veteran seasons as those numbers steadily climbed.

In his second season, Vasturia saw his minutes climb from 23/gm to 32/gm. That ACC Championship team featured three future NBA draft picks plus Zach Auguste and Bonzie Colson. Of course, Vasturia’s utilization rate and number of shots increased only slightly. However, Vasturia proved to be an extremely effective component of the Irish machine that year. It was Steve’s best shooting season, going 41% from behind the arc and putting up a 60% eFG on the season. When Duke’s upset bid of the Irish in South Bend fell short that season, it was Vasturia’s clutch 3 that sealed the victory:

Here’s the video from that night. You can jump to the 1:24 mark for Vasturia’s big corner 3 to seal the victory with 24 seconds remaining. However, if you’re a real basketball nerd, look what Steve does when Jerian is making that crazy floater to beat the shot clock. He rotates back for defensive purposes instinctively. My kind of basketball smarts!

The issue with pulling this together is that there are almost too many Vasturia moments to catalog all of them. I’m sure I’ll miss some. It was, of course, a great excuse to watch this again:

Vasturia’s big steal and lay-in cut the Carolina lead to 3 as part of the legendary lightning run, but the most Onions moment in that game might have been the sequence that led to the 64-64 tie. When Grant loses the ball in the lane, Vasturia is right there to save the possession. After moving the ball back to the perimeter, he spaces the floor perfectly. The textbook Irish ball movement finds Onions alone in the corner for the pure jumper. The run was epic, the game was epic, and the celebration was too…

It was far from Steve’s last big contribution in his sophomore season. The magical Irish run was nearly derailed by Roosevelt Jones and his Butler Bulldogs. With the Irish fanbase desperate to see the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament, Vasturia went 43 minutes in the OT contest, leading his team with 20 points and a perfect 6-6 from the line. He also pulled in 6 rebounds and 2 steals in the 67-64 Notre Dame win. Onions followed that up with 15 against Wichita St. and another 16 in the incredible Elite Eight match-up where Karl-Anthony Towns ripped out the hearts of Irish fans everywhere.

Steve’s sophomore season was significant on many fronts. Of course, there was the team success, but he firmly established himself as one of Brey’s “main guys.” It wasn’t just his scoring, but also his defense and all-around floor game that made Onions one of the finest “glue guys” in the country. It was also significant in the evolution of Vasturia’s game during his time in South Bend. The 2014-15 season was the last season where Vasturia attempted more threes than twos.

Vasturia’s three point attempts per game remained fairly consistent between 1-2 all four years on campus. However, he went from a lone attempt inside the arc his first year to nearly six per game as a senior. His ability to draw fouls also increased from a single attempt per game to two and a half his final season. Of course, that senior season included Vasturia converting 91% of his FT attempts.

In his junior season, Vasturia was named a captain and played alongside Demetrius Jackson. Steve logged more minutes than the eventual Boston Celtics draft selection. It was another year of remarkable performances night in and night out from Steve. With Connaughton’s departure, Vasturia was asked to do even more defensively, and he delivered. While his shooting touch failed him during the final stages of the season, Vasturia did warrior’s work to get the Irish into their second consecutive trip to the Elite Eight, where they eventually fell to national runner-up, North Carolina.

The returning captain entered his senior year with a host of questions. Could the Irish put together another successful ACC campaign with a much more difficult schedule? Could Notre Dame get back in to the dance and make some noise? In particular, the early slate of ACC games seemed to put the Irish at risk of putting themselves behind the conference eight-ball early. Much to Irish fans’ delight, Onions decided to open conference play with a bang.

Five days later, he continued the Irish winning streak with a late runner at Louisville.

How about the key runner in Miami just a week later.

Steve’s heroics set the Irish out to a stunning five-game ACC winning streak to open conference play. That 5-0 start bought the Irish a much bigger margin for error as they reached the crushing middle part of their ACC slate. Defying the media’s underestimation of his team, Vasturia led the Irish to a tie for second in the regular season standings and their third consecutive double bye.

With that double bye, Vasturia saw his team finally get the Virginia monkey off their back. The next night, they defeated Florida State for the second time that season. Steve’s 4-5 shooting from behind the arc propelled his squad to yet another ACC final. After failing to make a final in their entire Big East run, Vasturia had led Notre Dame to two in his illustrious ND career.

You could choose to be someone who let’s a difficult closing stretch in that ACC final and ND’s short NCAA Tournament run sour your view of Steve Vasturia’s career, but you’d be selling short a tremendous contribution to the University of Notre Dame. Mike Brey frequently referred to Vasturia as the best all-around four-year player in program history, and I’m right there with him. There have been flashier athletes, more prolific scorers, and guys with gaudier numbers. However, in terms of a 2-way guy who got better every single year, it is hard to find guys that did more than Vasturia.

In his final interview with Jack Nolan for Inside Notre Dame Basketball, Vasturia says he wants his legacy to be a guy who was part of winning games. Jump to the 9:40 mark of this video for that interview with Nolan.

He told Jack he wanted to be remembered as a guy who worked hard every day, didn’t do anything to hurt the program, and won a lot of games.

Mission accomplished Steve.

Vasturia was a clear example of a guy who expanded his game every year on campus. His scoring average increased from 5 to 13 points per game. His assists climbed from 1.2 to 3.3 per game. His rebounding increased from a little over 2 per game to nearly 4 (as much as I love tempo-free stats, when a guy plays over 36 minutes per game, it isn’t as significant). He goes in to the ACC record books as the 2016-17 leader in FT% at an impressive .910 on the season. He’s 3rd in ACC career minutes played since 2009-2010 and 24th in ACC points produced over that same span. He’s played in the 2nd most games in Notre Dame history, logging 4,402 minutes in an Irish uniform. His hard work payed off in the winningest 3 year period of Irish basketball, along with an astonishing 7 NCAA Tournament victories. Onions put in the work, and helped his team win.

From a technical perspective, he was the ideal piece of the Brey puzzle. Playing alongside ball-dominant guards for much of his career, Vasturia spaced the floor and threatened defenses with heady baseline drifts or roll-and-replace motion. Later in his career, he proved a reliable secondary ball handler and added a potent scoring threat off the bounce. He coupled that with steady defensive contributions and an incredible knack for snatching up 50/50 balls or making big steals.

Steve’s on-court exploits were remarkable. His basketball contributions were numerous. He certainly accomplished his goal of winning a lot of games. Fitting his penchant for understatement, he also didn’t do anything to hurt the program. Quite the opposite Steve. As Brey points out at the end of the video, Steve was an incredibly steady, stabilizing force for the Irish from day one. Over his two year captaincy, the Irish played wonderful basketball and became incredibly reliable in the clutch. In Steve’s four years, many Irish fans evolved from thinking Brey couldn’t close in the big moments to calling Brey one of the loosest and most-clutch coaches in the country. I believe much of Brey’s ability to continue his Loosest Coach in America (TM) act has to do with having such a steady, reliable and calm performer at the center of his plans.

There was never a whisper of campus trouble or academic issues with Vasturia. His understated, unassuming style simply produced results. His expression and demeanor never changed. His teammates always identified him as a hard worker and tenacious defender. In my two opportunities to interact with Vasturia, I found him to be friendly, easy-going, and humble – just like he is in the video above.

As an Irish alumni, you want to be able to point to people and say, “I’m glad he’s representing our community and the Notre Dame family.” Steve Vasturia fits that bill completely. His four year contribution to Notre Dame is one that should be remembered for a long time.