Mission number one on Wednesday night for the Fighting Irish basketball team was to secure their 12th ACC victory. Mission number two was to send off seniors Steve Vasturia, V.J. Beachem, and Patrick Mazza in style. Check and check. The Irish defeated Boston College 82-66. The comfortable margin allowed Mike Brey to insert Patrick Mazza, a young man with the distinction of walking on to both ND football and basketball, into the game. The Legion called for him, and the Notre Dame head coach answered. Mazza might not have had the smoothest few minutes on the floor, but his emphatic dunk brought the house down.
We here at 18Stripes will have many more words to spill in appreciation of Steve Vasturia and V.J. Beachem once their illustirous careers finally come to a close. For now, let’s just take a peek at how ND secured 2nd place in the ACC standings.
Slow Start
Just like the trip to Chestnut Hill, Wednesday night started with an uneven Irish performance. At one point, I found myself questioning if Beachem’s flu was making its way around the squad. The Irish found themselves down seven after a Jerome Robinson three with 7:15 remaining in the first half. From that point, Notre Dame ripped off a 15-0 run. Sparked first by a T.J. Gibbs steal and Beachem dunk, the run propelled the Irish to an eight point halftime lead.
Notre Dame pushed the lead to 12 early in the second half, only to see it cut in half by consecutive BC threes. Thankfully, the Irish responded quickly with a run of their own and pushed the margin back over double digits, cruising through most of the last 10 minutes.
Numbers Breakdown
The Irish put up 1.168 ppp against BC’s defense. a tad below their adjusted KenPom rating. Defensively, they held BC to only 0.940 ppp. From a four factors perspective, the Irish dominated all around. They outshot BC by a a healthy 53.7 to 49.2 eFG margin. They turned it over on 10% of possessions to BC’s 22%. They gathered 30% of their own misses to BC’s 22%, and their FTA/FGA rate was 20.6% to BC’s paltry 13.3%. Notre Dame did a good job holding a team under 1.0 ppp without fouling.
By far, the saddest number of the night was ND’s 9-14 (64%) performance from the FT line. There were a number of uncharacteristic misses from the charity stripe. Any hope of catching the Harvard record is likely gone after Wednesday’s 5 misses.
Individual Performances
The Irish story begins with the play of Bonzie Colson. National guys are finally paying some attention:
Strong case for ACC POY https://t.co/uvUSpIE7Ae
— Seth Davis (@SethDavisHoops) March 2, 2017
Again, we’ll be revisiting Bonzie’s case for ACC PoY in a deeper article, but Wednesday was the perfect microcosm. Colson’s stat line is amazing: 18 points on 7-18 shooting, 11 rebounds, 3 assists, 2 blocks and a steal. Bonzie Colson is a warrior.
Colson’s classmate, Matt Farrell, had another very uneven performance. The junior PG scored 14 on 5-11 shooting. Once again, he hit some big 3’s when the Irish needed them most. Once again, he struggled on defense, committing 4 fouls and frequently losing his man on that end. He was only charged with a single turnover, but there were several challenging moments where he had balls defelected or mishandled. Farrell has been a great leader and contributor, and no one can question his heart and effort.
Welcome back to the party Marty Geben. While it was clearly senior night, the junior from Lithuania found ways to contribute in his 10 minutes of playing time. It will be interesting to see if Geben can secure a place in the post season rotation with tonight and another opportunity in Louisville.
Sophomores Rex Pflueger and Matt Ryan also saw extended run. Interestingly, Ryan exceeded expectations on the defensive end with some tough play and good rebounding. Pflueger scored six and contributed an assist and 3 boards.
Freshman T.J. Gibbs was aggressive on both ends. His active hands led to several BC turnovers, and he frequently attacked the rim. You’d love to see TJ finish a little more consistently, but he’s moving the ball and deforming the defense – both of which help the Irish tremendously.
Of course, then you have your two senior captains. Vasturia had another steady, smooth performance. You’d like to see a few more shots go down for the Jersey product, but he still scored 10 and pulled down 5 boards. Beachem was very aggressive hunting his shot and putting the ball on the floor. It looks like the calendar has flipped to March and Beachem rang in his favorite month with a game-high 22. When V.J. is looking athletic and aggressive, it bodes very well for this Irish team.
Final Thoughts
The Irish are now riding a six game winning streak into their final ACC regular season showdown with Louisville. Notre Dame sits in 2nd in the ACC with 12 wins – a number that exceeds preseason expectations. A win in the Yum! Center would guarantee the Irish a double bye in Brooklyn and give ND a chance at sharing the regular season ACC title. A loss in Louisville requires Notre Dame get a little help to secure the double-bye.
On the one hand, you could call ND the hottest team in the toughest league in the country. You wouldn’t be wrong. On the other, 5 of these six wins come against opponents in the bottom half of the standings, and FSU can’t seem to beat good teams away from Tallahassee.
Boston College doesn’t represent a good enough measuring stick to know if the Irish are simply riding an easy schedule or playing great basketball. The true test for Mike Brey and has charges comes Saturday in Louisville.
All we could ask for results-wise from this relatively easy stretch we got, which is great. Brey for President. Unreal that this team is alone in second place in the ACC, especially when the league is having a pretty good year.
With that said: this basketball team is basically the flipside of this year’s football squad. The team has gotten quite lucky or has been extremely well-coached (I think a little of both) to get to this record. KemPom has ND #26, while the football team was #26 in S&P+! Depending on the matchup, I think we’re likely to be a (if not the) popular pick for a 5-12 upset.
While we might be a popular pick to be upset, I’d think there’s also going to be a large contingent that would take us as the 5 (or 4 depending on what happens next) to knock off a 1 seed. After all, we were leading Villanova late, we’ve beaten some good teams at home, and no team (other than UVA, our kryptonite) has blown us out. In fact, we were within 3 more than halfway through the second half in all of our other losses. We’re extremely dangerous, especially when at least 3 of our big 4 are on their game.
Heeeeeeeyy… “MikeyB.” Guys, Mike Brey posts here! He’s clearly using a pen name on 18Stripes to make his case for tourney seeding. Welcome, Coach!
He’s actually MBSRH from our old home, but I like the sentiment.
I think I’ve got this:
If the Irish beat Louisville they’re locked into the 2 seed, can’t jump UNC based on head to head tiebreaker.
If the Irish lose to Louisville to remain in the top 4 they need either:
UNC to beat Duke at home (Irish end up as 3 seed)
Miami to beat Florida State on the road (Irish end up as 4 seed)
http://bball.notnothing.net/acc.php?sport=mbb
That is confirmed. And if both Duke and FSU lose, we win the tiebreaker over Lville and get the #2 seed because of a better record against Wake? Crazy
The fact that Duke could finish as the 7 seed still amuses me too.
If ND and Duke both win Saturday, we’re likely looking at games against Virginia Tech and then either Louisville or Florida State. That’s basically a dream scenario for the Irish right there. If we win but Duke loses, we’re looking at Duke or UVA as our first round matchup, a worst case scenario. So come on Irish and come on Duke.
Man, I cannot wait for Saturday. Going on the road against an elite ACC opponent is never easy. But, if I had to pick one elite ACC team to play on Saturday, it would be Louisville. Almost every game we play against them is competitive, and we really seem to have their number as of late. I’m optimistic, even if it will take a strong offensive performance from the guys who have struggled the most recently (Farrell/Vasturia).
And then you get to Duke/UNC. If Louisville is the elite ACC team I’d want for us on the road, then UNC is the elite ACC team I’d want for Duke on the road. They’ve beaten UNC 2 straight in Chapel Hill (and 4 out of the last 5 there), and they will be fighting for a double bye.
Sometimes I try to be a realist. Normally, I’d be content with just this shot at yet another top 4 conference finish. But screw it, get Brey another banner. I won’t like rooting for Duke, but if Grayson Allen can trip his way to a conference championship for ND, I’ll happily take it.
TJ is really good at getting to the basket in traffic, but I think he is going to get a lot better at having a plan of what to do once he gets there. I think a lot of times he forces shots when he should kick it out, but I think he’ll get a lot better at those decisions as he matures.
Both TJ and Rex have struggled when they get to the rim. TJ doesn’t quite have the springs to finish above the rim, so he’s going to need some of that Tory Jackson old-man game to become a finisher. This is a pretty typical adjustment for a guy getting in to the college game, and I expect he steadily improves over a very productive ND career. Rex is a little different. He’s an amazing leaper, but just hadn’t found the timing to be explosive at the rim. You can almost see him thinking pass first on his drives. Given his coach told him not to f-up the big 4, that’s fine. Next year, hopefully we see Rex take another big step forward.
This feels kinda similar to two years ago. In good position, but seemingly without a good win or strong performance in forever (we went all of February, 2015 without a win over a tournament opponent!). Heading to Louisville the first week of March, need the game for seeding purposes but unlikely to get it.
It’s gonna take a full 40 minutes. I think the biggest thing holding us back is that seemingly every game, we have a 5-8 minutes stretch where we just suck on one end or both. We can’t have that anymore, especially not against this team in their building.
I’m not sure. I think I’m going to go back and forth a thousand times between now and Saturday afternoon.
I was looking at the KP numbers this morning, and we need to hope the weekend doesn’t follow the odds by the book. UNC is 72% to win over Duke at home. Louisville is 78% to beat ND at home. FSU is 74% to beat Miami at home. Our most likely escape is UNC winning and keeping Duke out of the top 4. Most fun would be ND winning to guarantee it and change our evening rooting interest.