Welcome to the finale of the ND Basketball’s Missed Leap series, where we’re discussing the causes of Notre Dame basketball’s failure to take advantage of its back-to-back Elite Eight trips in 2015-16 and make a more lasting impact on the college hoops scene at large.
I’ll concede up front that this last thing that slowed the program’s momentum is more in the category of ‘making the failures of 2018-19 and 2019-20 feel worse’ than ‘thing that actually cost the program a chance to knock on the elite door’. But since no good sports fan can talk about things like this without whining about being screwed by the powers that be, the third and last thing that happened to kill the program’s momentum was something that happened in a boardroom and not on the court.
Getting hosed by the committee in 2018
Right up front, I’ll say this: Going into Selection Sunday 2018, I think most Irish fans were resigned to the fact that making the NCAA tournament was probably a long shot. ND had missed several big chances down the stretch for a signature win, even after getting Bonzie Colson and Matt Farrell back from injuries. (They had, however, pulled off a miraculous comeback win over Virginia Tech, after being down 25 points, in the ACC tournament.) Had they missed the dance under normal circumstances, few likely would have complained; the team had had chances and hadn’t earned it. I myself didn’t even watch the selection show because I knew ND wasn’t going to make it and had made my peace with it.
Then the bracket was revealed, and the last four out were revealed, and it was shown that the last team out was Notre Dame, having been bumped by a bid theft in the Atlantic 10 title game earlier that day. “Well, that’s a kick to the cherries.”
But then, even more infuriating, the last team in was Syracuse. Now, I’m sure we beat this to death when it happened, but just so we’re clear, Syracuse was: 1) A team ND had beaten, on the road, without injured stars Bonzie Colson and Matt Farrell, in the teams’ only head-to-head meeting. 2) A team ND had finished ahead of in the ACC (by tiebreaker, thanks to that win). 3) A team ND had advanced further than in the ACC tournament, thanks to that comeback win over the Hokies. 4) A team without a particular differentiating factor on its resumé that could otherwise justify overriding those other three data points.
(Naturally, because everything is stupid, that Syracuse team made the Sweet 16. Two years earlier, an Orange squad had been gifted another undeserved bid under the logic that coach Jim Boeheim missed the team’s worst stretch — logic Boeheim made sure everyone in the freakin’ country knew about in the week leading up to Selection Sunday. This wouldn’t have been so annoying if the reason he missed that stretch wasn’t “suspension for failure to stop, or even be aware of, academic misconduct in the program”. And that team somehow ended up making the Final Four. OK, if I don’t stop now this could become a huge tangential rant. Moving on.)
Losing out on a bid to the tournament was one thing, especially because, again, in a vacuum, those Irish didn’t really deserve one. But having the selectors narrow the last bid down to ND and Syracuse and very clearly choosing the one that had no claim whatsoever to being rated higher…that rankled. In a lot of ways, it still does.
After all, a bid in ’18, almost regardless of how it would’ve turned out, would’ve represented at least something of an accomplishment – after all, it would’ve been the program’s fourth straight at the time, and eighth in nine years, a string that would’ve seemed absolutely impossible when Brey got to South Bend. Especially given the team’s injury apocalypse that year, a First Four exit would’ve been understandable even to more demanding portions of the fan base. And maybe the good feelings from accomplishing that would’ve slowed the negative momentum that defined the following year, when the Irish finished last in the ACC. The fact that that bid was taken from ND due in large part to a run of horrific injury luck, and then taken away again by a ridiculous decision by the selectors, was damaging.
So what’s next?
No one really knows what to expect going forward from Notre Dame basketball, which is kind of an odd place to be. Up until the ’15 season, there seemed to be a pretty clearly defined ceiling (Sweet 16 appearance with a fun team) and floor (whatever 2013-14 was) for ND under Brey that weren’t all that far apart.
Since then, fans have seen the best Irish team in 40 years, followed not long after by the worst Irish team since the John MacLeod days. Things seem to have somewhat stabilized this year as the Irish have settled back into that middle-of-the-conference, borderline-NCAA-team spot that was more common than not in Brey’s early years. But with key starters John Mooney and TJ Gibbs, as well as emotional leader Rex Pflueger, set to depart after the season, next year’s team will again be something of an unknown. Granted, it will be a potentially promising unknown – Prentiss Hubb, Dane Goodwin and Nate Laszewski is a trio many Power 5 coaches would love to have as a base, and Juwan Durham at least will be the start of a frontcourt.
The issue is that that unknown, barring a miraculous run in the coming ACC tournament, is going to be staring down the barrel of trying to avoid a fourth straight missed NCAA bid, which has never happened under Brey. And speaking of Brey, next year, assuming he returns, will be his 21st season at Notre Dame. He’s 60 years old, and he has repeatedly stated his intent to retire here.
Anecdotally, the struggles of the past few years seem to have aged him rather harshly. I’m talking both physically — watch highlights of the 2015 team sometime and marvel at how much younger Brey looks than he does just five years later — and mentally. (After Wednesday night’s latest heartbreaker, against Florida State, he banged his headphones on the table and walked off in his postgame radio interview. The guy’s sick of this. I don’t blame him. Eight losses by five or fewer points is a relentless run of kicks in the teeth.)
If he doesn’t retire this off-season (to be clear, there’s no real evidence he will), he’s got a lot of work to do to build the program back up. It’s been implied in various reports that he knows that. The question is, does he think he’s up to it, and does he want to be up to it? After all, the man’s done more at ND than we could have dreamed possible when he arrived. The Irish basketball program was, at best, an afterthought when he showed up. Now we’re frustrated because the team’s on the wrong side of the bubble for the second time in three years. He could walk away now and the bulk of ND fans would celebrate his good work.
I hope he doesn’t. But I also hope he’s got it in him to pull off one more renaissance. I wouldn’t bet against him. He’s bounced back after rough stretches before. But he’s running out of time to do it this time around.
To me the biggest issue has been roster management. There is nothing wrong with going after some big fish after reaching the Elite 8 two years in a row. That is smart. However, it’s hard to reel those big fish in and when ND didn’t get those elite recruits, we had no fallback plan.
The failure was not to have recruiting misses, the failure that ended the momentum is that the number of players on the roster that could be developed into productive upperclassmen had shrunk. In the last 4 recruiting classes since the Elite 8 runs, ND has brought in 9 recruits only! And 5 of those 9 were in one class!
IMO we should have had some plan B recruits. A top 300 recruit who would come to ND even if they weren’t our first choice. Swing and miss on Cole Anthony, well OK, here’s a 3 star recruit who needs two years to develop but is on the roster and getting better and is ready to contribute by their junior year.
Instead, ND has been forced to play too many games the past couple of years with 6 or 7 scholarship players. The loss to Florida St. the other night happened (IMO) because of tired legs. The defense got porous and the offense settled for way too many jumpers in the final 5 minutes of the game. We played 7 guys while Florida St. trotted out 9 guys. That workload tells over the course of a season.
Injuries and transfers happen of course, but since we have no freshmen on the roster we had no one to step up and fill the role. In addition, this year would be perfect to have a 3 star freshman as the 8th man getting 6-8 minutes a game, getting valuable experience. But, we had no recruits last year and so can’t have that happening at all. Now, next year we will be counting on both 3 star freshmen to step in and play vital roles for us instead of having one of those spots filled by a somewhat experience sophomore who has been developed the past 12 months.
It seems crazy to be playing the last two seasons so far beneath the scholarship limit of 13. This has been the hidden issue that didn’t really come to light until Colson and Farrell graduated and we just didn’t have enough players that had been developing on the roster to avoid having to play a bunch of freshmen last year.
Amen