Saturday marked the end of Notre Dame’s fifth ACC regular season. In a hard-fought battle, Mike Brey’s squad attempted to claw to 9-9 in the league. Sadly, the Irish fell short and top-ranked Virginia prevailed 62-57. In only his second game back from injury, Bonzie Colson put up another heroic performance. In the end, Notre Dame ran out of gas. Too many questionable calls going the wrong way, too many empty possessions late, and too much bad luck in a season that has been defined by it. Notre Dame finishes 8-10 in ACC play and slips to the 10 seed in the ACC Tournament.
The loss keeps Notre Dame entrenched in many bracketologist’s “first four out” bucket. The Irish represent a great talking point for TV producers looking to stir discussion about this year’s NCAA Tournament field. If only crooked ACC officiating had not stolen Notre Dame’s home victory over UNC, we wouldn’t be having this discussion, but here we are.
BROOKLYN BOUND!
🏀@NDMikeBrey gives a quick pep talk to the @NotreDameBand before we begin our journey to the ACC Championship.#NotDoneYet pic.twitter.com/rIWBUmcDRp
— Notre Dame MBB (@NDmbb) March 5, 2018
The Irish walk in to the 2018 ACC Tournament in Brooklyn needing a series of impressive performances to play their way into the dance. Unlike 2014, when a broken and beaten team flamed out on the first day, this Irish squad has a chance to do some damage. Let’s walk through the Irish path in New York…
First up is Pitt. Like BC in 2016, the Panthers failed to win a single regular season ACC game. Sporting a KenPom rating of 236, Kevin Stalling’s bunch has spent the entire season overmatched. While I expect Pitt to put in a lot of effort, the Irish should cruise. Not much has changed for either side since last week’s game. I can see two sides of the coin for drawing the Panthers first. On the one hand, this is a game that has zero resume value. Beating a beaten team on a neutral floor isn’t going to impress anyone. However, it is another game for Bonzie Colson to play his way in to shape. If the Irish can get comfortably ahead of Pitt, Colson can get minutes without having to go all 40. Similarly, there’s no reason to extend Matt Farrell, TJ Gibbs, or Rex Pflueger to 40 minutes Tuesday afternoon. This game also lets young contributors like Nik Djogo, John Mooney, and Elijah Burns get their feet wet in tournament play. ND’s veterans have good feelings in the Barclay’s center. It would be great to help the young guys get some good mojo going early. If ND is going to go far, one or two of the three young guys is going to have to play valuable minutes.
If the Irish perform as expected over Pitt, Virginia Tech awaits Wednesday evening. Virginia Tech managed to escape South Bend 80-75 earlier in the season. Neither Matt Farrell nor Bonzie Colson participated in that game. With the full compliment of contributors, Mike Brey won’t be forced to sit in a zone and let the Hokies bomb away. Buzz Williams team shot 14-25 from deep in South Bend and only won by five. Virginia Tech is a team most prognosticators have locked into the NCAAT field. A comfortable win here would send a great message to the selection committee.
Winning the matchup with the Buzz Williams Coaching Show ™ would set up a showdown with the mighty Duke Blue Devils. The Irish were embarrassed at Cameron Indoor, falling by 22. Neither Farrell nor Colson were available in the first showdown with Duke. Given Duke’s reliance on the 2-3 zone to get defensive stops, this is not a matchup the Irish should fear. The Blue Devils are coming off a stirring home victory against their bitter rivals. It wouldn’t be inconceivable to catch a young Duke team looking past ND. If the Irish, specifically Matt Farrell, can find that Brooklyn swagger and shooting stroke, Notre Dame has more than a puncher’s chance.
A win over the vaunted Duke side and Supreme Leader Krzyzweski would be a major resume builder at the most crucial of times. The most telling statistic on the Irish resume would be their record with and without the heart and soul of the team. Notre Dame would then be 5-1 in games vs. ACC opponents with Colson and 6-9 without. If Bonzie can continue to put up big numbers, the Irish will hopefully pass the eye test.
A win over Duke would also set up a semi-final match-up against either Miami or North Carolina. Technically, Syracuse or Wake Forest could advance to this game, but it is unlikely. Miami was able to steal a 3-point win in South Bend a few weeks back. Of course, that win has to include the standard “without Bonzie” disclaimer. The Irish managed to beat UNC already this season. With fair whistles, the Irish would have beat the Tar Heels with Colson and Farrell both on the sidelines. With a fat stack of house money in front of him, Mike Brey could find a way to rally his weary troops for a fourth night. Win there, and it sets up a battle against Virginia (or Clemson, FSU, Louisville or NC State) to hang another banner. Five games in five days is a lot to ask.
If you’re reading this with an overwhelming sense of this being wildly optimistic tale – you’re right. There’s a ton of fan-talk in there. Notre Dame will be dependent on a guy who’s played in two ACC games in 2018. The Irish partially earned their “first four out” designation with losses to Indiana and Ball State before ACC play began. You’d also be forgiven if you came to the conclusion that this Irish squad is snake bitten and doomed to bad luck.
Let’s look at the KenPom breakdown of the tournament bracket and see how likely his model makes all of this…
For my next trick, the ACC. Let’s make a 6 vs. 10 semifinal game happen. pic.twitter.com/GTDg9eKre9
— Ken Pomeroy (@kenpomeroy) March 4, 2018
We start with a 91% win probability over the Panthers. From there, he’s got us in a coin flip with the Hokies. Remember, the 9% chance we could lose to Pitt factors into the odds for the Wednesday game. The model then gives the winner of that coin flip a 22% chance to beat Duke.
It is fascinating that Pomeroy’s model gives Notre Dame, the ten seed, the sixth best chance to win the whole thing. Keep in mind, the model is purely statistical, based on performances throughout the year. There’s no “Bonzie factor” in there. The fifteen games missed by the preseason ACC PoY skew the model. Nonetheless, I don’t think that moves the Irish from 1.8% to 18% — more like 5%. For reference, the 2015 Championship had an 8.2% probability according to this model.
So that’s where Notre Dame stands. A season where the Irish felt the heights of a top 5 ranking has been reduced to clawing their way through Brooklyn to scratch their way into the dance. Perhaps that’s for the best. Brey’s teams have never been great front runners. They tend to be at their best when backed against the wall and surrounded by doubt. Here’s to hoping the Fighting Irish can make some noise this week in Brooklyn. Rally the sons, shake down some thunder, and hope our Irish jig holds up in the big dance.
Surely a win against Pitt & VT and a competitive game against Duke would be enough to get us in?
Zibby is the better bracketologist than I am, but I wouldn’t say “surely.” Win it, and Sunday is pretty stress free. Lose it, and I think you’re looking at a Sunday coin flip.
beat Duke and you avoid the play in game. FWIW check out UConn from 11-12. Similar record scenario, but have to believe they had better wins. They ended up as a 9 seed.
Heisler did a pretty good round up of media opinions on the Irish quest for a bid here: http://www.und.com/sports/m-baskbl/spec-rel/030518aab.html
If we miss the tournament by 1 game that screw job at home against North Carolina will haunt us. If we beat Virginia Tech I say it’s 50/50. A lot of ESPNs guys like Bilas are talking us up! I hope that has some weight with the committee. If we beat Duke we have to be in!
Beat VT, don’t get too many unexpected teams into the tourney, and I think the NCAA will stick us in the play-in game. I think that’s fair.
Beat Duke, and I think we’re out of the play-in. Win one more than that, and I don’t see how you keep this red hot team with it’s All-American back out of a 10 seed, maybe a single digit seed.
Playing in the ACC is brutal and unforgiving (now that it’s not a major disappointment), but man does it give you some opportunities to make some noise.
So we stink? I dont pay attention to the hoopy ball unless it’s the NCAA tournament
I’m bummed I only have one downvote to give.
I’ve been stewing over this all season, and I know it’s crazy, but does anyone else think we should leave the ACC? Years worth of bad calls and conference award snubs have finally culminated in this season, where close games always seem to come down to 5 vs 8 against us. I don’t know where ND would go, but I’m sick of dealing with the ACC’s passive-aggressive crap and homer calls every conference season.
I’d say no. Recruiting has really picked up since we moved to the ACC. Whether there’s any connection there, I don’t know. But I wouldn’t want to do anything drastic that could stall the momentum that Brey has created.
Obviously, something needs to happen, but I don’t know what. The officiating in the UNC loss was laughable; that can’t happen to a team fighting for an NCAA birth.
There’s a banner in the rafters of the JACC that stands as a reasonable counter to this argument.
I love to scream conspiracy more than most, and we’ve really been jobbed consistently this year, but talk to any long-time ACC program fan and they’ll pretty readily admit that the officiating has never been fantastic, and almost all of them have another school or two they point to as “getting all the calls.”
The crew at the end of the UNC game absolutely hosed us. The phantom offensive foul on the rebounding action in Charlottesville was insane (and was never replayed on the broadcast). There’s ample evidence we’re getting worked pretty badly.
However, do you think if we somehow had this arrangement with the B10 it would be any better? And that would mean we’re in the B10. Yuck. Just eeewww.
Being in the ACC has improved the stature of the program in wonderful ways. I’ll take a couple of games a year where we can blame ref’s and shout conspiracy to achieve the level of play (and recruiting) we’re operating at today. The ACC is home — they just can’t have our football money.
You do know that we are the favorite to win the Big Ten this year starting on Friday night right?
Woof, we made Pitt look like a basketball team. So here’s hoping that we’re like Michigan, who had to go to OT to beat a bad Iowa team last week and then went on to cruise to the Big 10 title.
I’m going to go wash my mouth out now for saying we should be like Michigan.
Well, if we were going to lay an egg in the postseason better for it to be against Pitt than literally any other opponent we’ll face from here on out.
Didn’t play great against Chaminade either, but it worked out pretty well.