Raise your hand if you had the Irish as 5-0 to start the ACC season. Anyone? Bueller? Well, that’s exactly what they are following Saturday’s 76-71 win over Virginia Tech. Notre Dame is now in sole possession of first place in the ACC standings, which exactly no one predicted.
A few weeks ago, JoeSchu broke down the schedule and was sounding the alarm for January. He said we’d all be “thrilled” if Notre Dame finished January at 5-5 and “greedy” if we expected anything better. Now 5-0, exactly no one would be happy with that outcome. Time to get greedy, Joe!
This game almost slipped from the Irish after a big run in the first half that saw them take a 19-point, 33-14 lead. But fatigue was certainly an issue, as we all knew it would, having just played on Thursday night in Miami (not to mention a flight delay Friday). The Hokies even briefly took back the lead late in the 2nd, but as usual, the Irish leaders just shrugged their shoulders and got to work.
Matt Farrell was again the late-game hero after a fairly forgettable first 35 minutes. What’s new? His sneaky steal of Justin Robinson and assist to TJ Gibbs to put the Irish up 5 with under a minute left just about put the game away. It’s the most Matt Farrell play of all-time.
ICE WATER.
🏀@NDmbb with another CLUTCH play in crunch time – this one from Matt Farrell.
#20 ND 76 | VT 71
FINALpic.twitter.com/GWhIh4DReT— The Fighting Irish (@FightingIrish) January 14, 2017
Big-Time Bench Performance
For the 2nd straight game, the Irish bench came up huge. TJ Gibbs was the star of the Irish reserves, scoring 13 points on 5 of 7 shooting. Gibbs also added 3 boards, an assist, and a steal after an ugly early turnover in his 17 minutes. It’s notable that Gibbs’ two best games have been ACC road games. Tough kid.
Austin Torres provided another great spark in his limited minutes, converting his 2 field goal attempts and grabbing 3 boards. And Rex Pflueger was his usual self and added 7 points and a couple assists.
Brey called it a week ago when he said these minutes were adding up for his starters, especially Bonzie Colson and Farrell. Those two especially certainly looked like it, but 24 points off the bench is a great way to make up for it and still come out with a win. Game ball to those guys.
Vasturia Continues Great Run
The team MVP race seems to be settling in on one guy right now, with another star performance from Steve Vasturia. The senior had 20 points, 4 boards, and 4 assists and helped jumpstart the offense after a slow start.
His deep three late in the game after the Irish had relinquished their lead was one of the most important shots in the game. Notre Dame needed to stop the bleeding, so here comes Vasturia with an NBA three to do exactly that. What a clutch player.
I suspect he will be an after-thought for most ACC voters, but it’s time to start putting Steve Vasturia on the list for all-ACC first team. He’s the best and certainly most clutch player on the conference’s best team (heh), so let’s give credit where it’s due, voters.
‘STREAK BUSTING IN BLACKSBURG.’
❌❌❌ another ‘kill’ (3 straight defensive stops) to win the game.
☘☘☘☘☘-0 in the @accmbb pic.twitter.com/w7mIa54qMO— Notre Dame MBB (@NDmbb) January 14, 2017
Time to Rest Some Legs
Bonzie Colson finished with yet another double-double, 14 points and 12 rebounds. Still, Bonzie looked tired. He was rejected a few times and was quite slow defensively. It says a lot that he had such a productive day when he looked so off at times.
You can probably say the same for Matt Farrell. These guys are in uncharted territory as far as minutes and usage, especially Farrell. The Irish can’t continue to have their point guard play middling ball for 35 minutes and then just expect him to keep winning games in the final 5. Yes, that’s what’s happened a couple times already, but it won’t work all season.
Farrell still finished with 14 points, 5 assists, and 3 steals. But a bunch of that was salvaged late, and he was a non-factor for way too much of this game.
VJ Beachem’s 34 minutes weren’t great, either. He was 2 of 8 in a building that has been unkind to him, including a bunch of open misses that could have tipped the game’s scales in favor of the Irish.
Hokie Comeback
Chris Clarke is a damn good player. Buzz’s prize recruit in his Virginia Tech tenure was great today with a game-high 21 points and 9 boards. His energy was key for the Hokies to overcome their big first half deficit. Some shooting runs from Seth Allen and Justin Robinson were also crucial.
Still, it looks like Buzz has some work to do. His team was really sloppy down the stretch and has a few Achilles’ heels. They are a horrible free throw shooting team (10-18), aren’t good from three (29%), and don’t really pressure defensively like you would expect a Buzz Williams team to do. Everyone was all aboard the Virginia Tech bandwagon, and to some extent that’s a good one to be on, but I’m not sure they are ready for primetime yet.
Conference Leaders
Florida State lost at North Carolina on Saturday, so the Irish find themselves in first place all by themselves in the ACC standings. In fact, only FSU and UNC have just one loss, so Notre Dame is two or more games up on most of the best conference in the land.
There are some warning signs, made apparent by the fact that all five wins have been so close, but the Irish are legitimate contenders. Let’s not understate how impressive 3 road wins already is, so it’s not like this is just an aberration with an easy schedule.
In fact, I thought for sure the schedule screwed them over before this game even started. Road game Thursday, one day rest, flight delay, and an opponent who has been at home all week in pajamas? They had every excuse to let this one go. But great teams don’t cave in to excuses and find ways to win. Notre Dame is the “finds ways to win”-iest team in the country right now.
If they really want to be considered contenders, the Irish have a huge opportunity on Wednesday night (7pm). They have to go back on the road to Tallahassee and take on a Florida State team that everyone nationally is in love with right now. The Seminoles are looking to bounce back from a very forgivable loss at Chapel Hill and have been a tough match-up over the years for Notre Dame.
If Notre Dame can find a way to move to 6-0, I think the college basketball world will be taking the Irish very seriously.
“Notre Dame is the “finds ways to win”-iest team in the country right now”
This.
Also, “home all week in pajamas” = “eating cheeseburgers”
Well, now I know my plans for all next week.
DAT SWEATER THO
Seriously, he looks like an out of place jockey.
In a game where we were so clearly gassed, that was pretty great timing for our horrible FT% defense to start regressing to the mean.
This is definitely a game we drop without a solid bench effort. We’ll need even more of it against Florida St. Anything offensively that Gibbs and Pflueger can give us always feels like a huge boost.
Feels amazing to be the last undefeated team in the ACC. I’m very interested to see how the rankings handle us. I’m mentally preparing myself for a 2-3 Duke team to be still ranked ahead of us.
I just read Seth Davis’ midseason 5-minute guide on SI.com, and he referenced that at one point this week ND’s FT% against was higher than anyone else’s in the country (it’s since moved out of that spot). Combined with having the highest team FT%, it’s a very weird stat.
If we somehow beat FSU, are we the favorite to win the conference? God I can’t even believe I’m contemplating that possibility. A month ago I was wondering what seed we would get if we could manage .500 in conference play. Unreal.
I hate bringing a bucket of cold water, but here are a few of our remaining games:
@FSU, Virginia, Duke, @UNC, FSU, @Louisville.
Even with the hot start, we’ll be favored in exactly ZERO of those. I view this start as buying a ton of insurance against f’ing up in any of our lower-tier games. If you can’t win any of those, your max upside is 12-6. If you trip up in 2 of your remaining 7 lower tier games (totally doable), you end up at 10-8. Thankfully, 10-8 in the league with the wins ND has means a relatively stress-free selection Sunday. That’s still where the goalposts are for me. Everything else is icing on a delicious cake.
Agreed. I’m still thinking we end up 12-6, but if we beat FSU, I think 13-5 isn’t unlikely for this team. The only team I could see finishing with less than 5 losses is UNC, and I’m still very unsure as to just how consistent they can be over the rest of the season.
Regardless, a win Wednesday would be the biggest regular season conference win I can remember for ND in a long time.
Joe- IMO it is quite debatable ND will be the underdogs in all those games.
For instance at home versus Virginia. IMO if the game was played right now, ND would be a slight favorite. Virginia has a great defense, but it is showing some cracks as in their last 2 road games they have given up 70+ points in regulation. They also do not have the inside scoring threats they had in the past.
Also, depending on their performance at FSU, ND could very likely be a home favorite with them. FSU is not playing the suffocating defense we have seen in the past despite a ton of size. They are better offensively, but ND is better defensively.
FWIW UNC beat FSU playing some small line ups and 3 star Luke Maye ended up with 15 boards for UNC.
Also, the way Duke is playing now- not even sure they would be favorites at ND. I will say, the likelihood goes up a ton if Jefferson is playing and K somehow makes it back. Right now, their pieces clearly do not fit.
The 3 road games- of course, those are no brainers.
Pomeroy model still shows Virginia as a coin flip (64-63 them, 48% win probability at home). If there was ever a time we could beat the Fighting Bennett’s, this could be it. Honestly, as much as I love this team, I’m not confident they’ll ever get over that hump.
The FSU games are an interesting exercise in how his model works. The road game is a 5 point loss with 32% win probability. The game in South Bend is a 2 point win and 58% win probability. He loves the home court. From an eye test perspective, FSU is impressive. I loved that UNC’s small ball line up troubled them. We’ve got a fighting chance if we can bomb away and rattle them.
Duke is a really interesting case. The model says Irish by 1 at home with a 55% win probability. There are some very nice emotional factors favoring the Irish in this one. First, you could see the Legion getting up for their Big Monday appearance. Second, we’ve just had their number, and none of their young 5-stars came to Durham to lose to a football school. Third, if Jefferson is out, that hurts them so badly. The big thing working against us is that we’ll be only 2 days after our trip to Atlanta. That’s a really short turn around, but thankfully it is coming at the end of January, where we have more time to recover. We’re Sat/Tue and Sun/Wed the rest of the way with just the Wed/Sat combo at the end of the year.
The trip to UNC is also pretty interesting. I don’t think the wine and cheese crowd still really respects the Irish, but if we’re ahead in the standings, I expect some decent hype for a Saturday game that could be on national TV. The model says that’s the least likely win (85-76, 21%), but we beat them down there 2 years ago (with my son and I in attendance).
Dude, I want to be a blind homer and scream 18-0 from the rooftops, but I’m just not sure it is emotionally healthy 😉
In the FWIW category
http://realtimerpi.com/rpi_158_Men.html
It’s still very hard to believe GT is better than Cuse.
http://realtimerpi.com/rpi_acc_Men.html
Lot of blowback on retiring the RPI in favor of an tWWL BPI or KP model. The RPI’s time might be short.
I really hate RPI, it seems like a terrible ranking tool. But I will say it has done one great thing: it’s encouraged good teams to schedule more high quality non-conference opponents. I doubt Kansas is kicking off against IU (and then following up with Duke the same week) without the RPI benefits. I hope whatever system they move to, they still place an emphasis on rewarding teams who schedule well (even if that’s something ND is never likely to do).
VJ is now 4th in the team in scoring.
Ryan is now 7th.
Have to believe many thought VJ would be 1st or 2nd and Ryan would be 4th.
If you told me preseason that Ryan was struggling to find playing time and was 7th in scoring, I would have been a bit worried, but I would have assumed it was because Beachem was destroying opponents, near the top of the conference in scoring while playing 38 minutes per game. If you then told me that Beachem was actually 4th on our team in scoring, I would have assumed we’d be sitting at 0-5 in conference with the schedule we opened with.
I don’t know how Brey continues to build offenses that can have 2 or 3 players have off nights and still win, but he does it year in and year out. While I’m still holding out hope for Beachem to find some consistency, it appears that this team can still be darn good without him (or if he he can have a scoring explosion every 2 or 3 games). I’m really hoping a few days off helps him find his legs and he knocks down some shots early against FSU. Stretching their defense is going to be key in this matchup. If VJ isn’t looking for his shot early and often, I hope Brey goes to Ryan for at least a few minutes in the first half. I know Ryan isn’t better than VJ at getting himself open, but he also seems less afraid to shoot his shot. Even a couple of misses from outside might help to open up the offense.
Of course, the two of them combined for 1-7 from outside against Miami’s tough defense and we still won, so maybe we don’t need them to win this game. But it sure would be nice.
Without Beachem’s play vs. Clemson, the Irish are 4-1. This guy gets so much grief because of his prodigious potential, but he’s still contributing to a team that is winning a lot of games.
Steve is getting a ton of love right now for being Mr. Clutch, but some were skewering him when he struggled last string. I joked on Twitter that we should just set VJ’s calendar to March and tell Stevie that it is January until the season is over. Of course, that has more to do with our perception as fans than the guys themselves.
I learned a lot in my heavy handed criticism of Auguste. There’s a young man who matured and improved, and eventually, led his team. It is unreasonable to expect consistent perfection out of these guys.
With respect to Ryan, I’d be willing to bet there’s a 18+ point performance out there for him in the not-too-distant future. Teams hug up on him to prevent it, but if 2-3 fall one night, it could easily lead to 6+ going down. If I’m Ryan Ayers or Rod Balanis, I’m in his year with the “Matt Farrell Story(TM).” His time could come at any time. Be ready kid.
He came up big versus Clemson, but in 4 other ACC games he has 25 points with 1-14 on treys.
He’s 6’8 and in 5 ACC games (averaging 35 mpg) he has 13 total rebounds. Matt Farrell has 14.
The only thing I can say positive about him, is his defense seems a bit better and his mediocre play has yet to cost ND a game in the ACC.
As far as the 2 OOC losses, he was a complete no show in 3 of the 4 halves.
Brey said he wants him to be real good in half the ACC games- well for the regular season he now needs to go 8 for the next 13.
He’s had guys guarding him who are 4-8 inches shorter and he refuses to take advantage of that.
I took some time to finally run down the numbers from this one. Our 109.3 OE rating was in line with what we did at Pitt. It is below the 120’ish number we’d all love to see, but on tired legs, we’ll take it. It was the 4th most efficient performance vs. the Hokies on the season and the best an opponent has done in Cassell Coliseum this season. Much of this was driven by 7-18 (39%) 3FG shooting.
Defensively, we eeked out a 102.1 DE rating, driven largely by VT’s 53.5 eFG%. Only NW, Nova, and Clemson have shot the ball better from the floor against us. It was also the most we’ve sent an opponent to the line since Purdue and Colgate, but 56% shooting from the line kept the Buzz Willliams Coaching Show (TM) from cashing in. It was our best defensive rebounding performance in conference play so far, but VT is the worst OR% team in the ACC, so who knows what that really indicates.
Stop me if you’ve heard this before, but this was another essential draw in the 4 factors in an ACC game. The stats indicate how closely this was played. The Irish outshot VT 58/54, and got to the line at a 37% FTR to VT’s 32%. As mentioned earlier, the Irish maximized that advantage despite shooting a season worst 65% from the stripe. VT held the OR% advantage 27/23 and the TO rate was dead even at 19%.
It would be great to break those numbers down by half, because when the Irish pushed the lead to 19 at the under 8 TO in the first half, I think the shooting and efficiency ratings would have been off the charts. The critical part of that run was defending. When the Irish turn you over, or limit you to one tough shot and clear the rebound, they run. They keep their spacing, they catch you sleeping, and they knock down shots. Much of that run was made with offensive “non-factor” guys like Torres and Geben on the floor triggering defense. I hope Brey continues to give guys like Torres and Gibbs key minutes when the opponent starts to hint at making a run at us. His instinct is to “get old” when teams start to warm up, but I’d rather see him lean on his young “coolers” when things get tough.
The funny thing about all of this: DM;5-0. What a great start. This team has tons of momentum and is starting to capture national attention. Things are going to get really tough. @FSU, Syracuse, Virginia isn’t a cakewalk, so we’ll see how they handle adversity. Early returns are great. Let’s hope Brey and his charges can keep it going.
Really interested to see how we play against that Syracuse zone. I really don’t know what to make of that Syracuse team, but if we put up 4 blocks and 8 steals against them like we did against VT, they’re going to have a really tough time scoring against us. The question then becomes, what offensive lineup to we run out there? I doubt Brey will trust Torres at all against them, but I think he could be fine, especially if you have VJ spending a lot of time around the free throw line.
It felt like in the old big east, 90% of the games were against teams that played very similar styles to each other. By the time we get through that Virginia game, we’re looking at roughly 4 or 5 different styles of opponents in our first 8 conference games. To come out of that with 5+ wins speaks volumes to this team’s tournament potential.
I think you have some interesting options vs. the 2-3. I like Bonzie in that high post playmaker role against that defense. Geben has suddenly become an option there, even though he’s no threat to put it on the floor and attack from there.
One interesting line-up vs. the zone would be Farrell, Steve and VJ on the perimeter, Bonzie down in the pinch post and Rex at the FT line. Rex is a great passer, good off the bounce, and a threat to simply turn and shoot if you don’t account for him. He could also be involved in ball screens to free guys up. If you collapse when that ball gets to the FT line, you should be dead against the Irish. You’re either going to give up the hi-lo to Bonzie or leave Steve, VJ, or Farrell a clean look at a 3. I doubt Jimmy B likes any of those options.
One thing Brey doesn’t lack for is ways to attack you. He’s really only limited by his own imagination and what they can work on between games.
You could probably also throw Ryan in there instead of Rex and have pretty good options all around. I’m not sure who you have work the free throw area there, but that’s the team that I could see Ryan getting hot against. He loves that NBA distance three, and it’s almost always available against Syracuse.
I feel very good about a Colson-Geben high-low against that 2-3. Tough to defend with how smart Geben is moving without the ball and how good Bonzie is at everything. Feel like it could open things up really nicely for VJ in the corner if you make the 3 defenders down low pack the lane. I just hope they’re not afraid to shoot that night. Last year, they took a few early, weren’t really hitting them, and became really gun shy. Gonna have to make a few to open things up!
Definitely not a night to grow a conscience. I agree that you need to keep bombing away even if you clang a few. The entire defense is designed to limit dribble penetration, so the ball needs to move crisply in and out of the high post.