The Irish controlled their own destiny to earn another ACC Tournament double-bye. If Notre Dame had gone into Louisville and beaten the Cardinals, they would have locked up the 2 seed in Brooklyn. They couldn’t hold up their end of the bargain, however, as they fell in a frustrating one to Louisville, 71-64.
Notre Dame got help in Chapel Hill, as UNC knocked off Duke late Saturday night to deliver the Irish that double-bye anyway. By virtue of tiebreakers, Notre Dame will be the three seed, as their 2-2 record against FSU and Louisville lost out to FSU’s 2-1 and beat Louisville’s 1-2.
The 3 seed matches that of the 2014-2015 Irish team that won the ACC Championship. Despite that, this year’s team has a very different path. The Irish will likely play Virginia in the quarterfinals, unless Georgia Tech or Pitt can drop the Cavaliers. If Mike Brey finally has an answer for Tony Bennett and wins that one, FSU is the likely opponent in the semis (although Wake Forest or Virginia Tech wouldn’t be too surprising). The final is a potential rematch from two years ago, with UNC the favorite to get there from the other side of the bracket. It could also easily be Duke or Louisville. We’ll have more on the tourney this week.
For now, we lament an ugly loss and missed opportunity but bask in getting the double bye for the third straight season. Start building that Mike Brey statue.
Can’t Make Shots
I hate to be so reductive when analyzing a game, but I really think the story from Saturday afternoon was quite simple. The Irish couldn’t hit their shots. 28% from three has to be the worst on the season, and I give very little credit to Louisville’s defense for that number. These looks, especially in the first half, were very open and many of them had potential to be momentum-turners.
The Cardinals, on the other hand, were money in the second half, especially Quentin Snider. Snider hit 4 of his 5 threes with dagger after dagger late in the game. A late three with the Irish in a very ineffective zone defense by Deng Adel all but ended it, fittingly.
Steve Vasturia missed his four attempts, Rex Pflueger missed his two, and TJ Gibbs and Matt Ryan missed their only attempts. Matt Farrell was 2 for 6. Only Bonzie Colson, of all guys, shot well, hitting 2 of 3. VJ Beachem had a fine 3 of 8 from behind the arc but missed some big chances that could have really led to a different outcome.
Is this a trend? Notre Dame shot lower than 35% in each of its two games before this one. Hard to see the Irish making too much noise in either tournament if they are going to struggle from distance. Hopefully they can get back on track quickly.
Return of Geben
Martinas Geben has had a very up-and-down year. After showing some encouraging signs early in the season, Mike Brey abandoned the junior big man midway through the conference schedule. I always thought that was a pretty rash decision, as it’s not like Geben was the only one who had a bad couple games. They could have used him a few times, but Brey seemingly wasn’t interested in giving him minutes.
That changed on Wednesday night against Boston College and really changed on Saturday. Geben played 16 minutes and was outstanding. He was a real defensive force down low after Mangok Mathiang especially was killing Notre Dame early. Geben really shut down their post offense for most of his minutes and was really impressive. Slamming home his two chances on offense was icing on the cake.
It will be interesting to see how Brey chooses to use Geben in postseason play. I thought he should’ve played more minutes on Saturday, but conditioning might have been a factor. Will Geben be used-as-needed or can we lock him in for 10-15 minutes per game? I’d have to imagine the latter.
Same Old Bonzie
Bonzie Colson scored 20 points. Not surprising in the least. He finishes the regular season as the ACC’s leading rebounder and 2nd in PER and win shares. He is pretty much a shoe-in for the 1st team All-ACC. It will be interesting to see what happens with the All-American vote. Does Bonzie land on one of the All-American teams? I’m guessing he will land on the 3rd team.
I don’t have a huge argument to make for ACC Player of the Year. If John Collins or Luke Kennard wins it, I wouldn’t be too upset. I’d be a little miffed if Justin Jackson wins it, and it does seem like he’s going to. I appreciate him finally developing into the player he was hyped up to be and think he’s got a nice NBA future. I’d probably put him on the 1st team. I just don’t think he’s had the season these other contenders have had.
In any case, hopefully Bonzie can get some love in the POY vote and maybe even score the upset victory. Either way, he is probably going to be the pre-season pick next year for POY and should have a shot at redemption.
Now the Fun Begins
I love love love conference tournaments. This one is going to be fun, and I’d bet a little more upset-heavy than it usually is. We’ll be back before the Irish begin play on Thursday with more on this week’s ACC Tournament.
We’re going to get many of those same open, but rushed, looks against UVA. We need to knock them down to have a chance. We need a good Steve game.
Also I feel like I post this after every loss, but Brey has to ditch the zone. We absolutely cannot rebound out of it at all. We were completely abused on the glass, giving up 2 or 3 rebounds on many of the zone possessions.
Ugh, drawing Virginia’s bracket. I am quite scared. I feel like Georgia Tech could win a slop-fest against them so I guess I’ll just root for that.
Yep, I’d really rather not enter the tournament on a 2 game losing streak. Of course, if we could somehow beat UVA, that would be an incredible confidence boost for this team.
If GT wins, that’s a muck-fest too. Either way, we need to shoot better.
It was our 5th worst night from deep, but the highest volume for missing at that rate. We shot worse from deep vs. UVa, Bryant, Miami and Nova. Worst on the year is 3-18 against Virginia and we were 6-22 against Nova which was the highest volume on a night < 30%.
Ugh, don’t feel like either team played that well, but their open 3s fell and ours didn’t. That seems like the difference.
Geben deserves 10 minutes a night going forward unless we are playing an ultra small ball team. Tough night for Rex. Gibbs looked athletic and should be stealing some more minutes. Hopefully Steve got in a little bit of a groove near the end of the game, but it was a tough 1st half.
I’m happy to have the 3rd seed and UVA. This is the most beatable they’ve been in years. They struggle to score, and when they throw Guy in there for offense and he gets hot, they suffer on the defensive end. Of course we already lost to them in South Bend…
I think the shooting will improve. We get more rest time going forward. The jump shots aren’t consistently long or short, they are on target for the most part and rimming out (You could sell me on Steve’s jumper being consistently short though). And we’re not taking bad shots (other than the occasional Farrell heat check).