Observations: Notre Dame can't keep pace or get stops in 79-64 loss to Marquette
Mike Brey turned off his TV mid-game Nov. 29, perhaps a little spooked. He didn’t need to see Marquette put the finishing touches on a 96-70 win over No. 6 Baylor that evening to know the Golden Eagles were good enough to inflict that kind of damage on Notre Dame.
Sure enough, Marquette came to Purcell Pavilion and put the Irish through a similarly unenjoyable 40 minutes. The Golden Eagles (8-3) beat Notre Dame 79-64 in a game not as close as the score indicates. The Irish (7-3) led for a little less than four minutes and trailed by as many as 20 points.
“I look at these and you’re lucky it counts as one [loss],” Brey said postgame, staring at a box score.
Notre Dame shot 41.8 percent overall and 40 percent on 3-pointers, the latter inflated by a 3-for-6 finish when the game was all but decided. Forward Nate Laszewski led the Irish with 20 points. Guard JJ Starling added 12. Marquette shot 47.8 percent from the floor and 26.1 on 3s.
Here are three observations from the game.
Easier to guard on offense
Notre Dame’s veteran guards met a style of in-your-face defense that veteran guards should be equipped to handle. And at first, they appeared capable. The Irish had just one turnover in the first 13 minutes of the game and broke Marquette’s 1-2-2 full-court press a few times.
That poise was short-lived, though. So was the offensive flow.
The Irish guards were a combined 5-of-15 from the field in the first half and ended the game with a 6-to-5 assist-to-turnover ratio. Notre Dame ended the game with 13 assists and 10 turnovers. Everything looked laborious in the final 30 minutes. It felt like every third possession ended with the student section counting down the shot clock. The Irish had two shot clock violations.
“The physical, athletic defense pushing you out sets the tone,” Brey said.
Notre Dame was 7-of-19 on layups and dunks. Many of the shots near the rim were in a crowd with a low likelihood of success. That gave a five-point halftime deficit the feeling of a double-digit hole. Starling was an early source of offense, but ended the game just 4-of-12 from the field. His usually sound decision-making with the ball in his hands was spotty.
Marquette only unfurled that 1-2-2 after a made field goal of its own. In the half-court, the Golden Eagles were clogging passing lanes and denying passes on the perimeter. Notre Dame attacked a few mismatches on switches, but otherwise couldn’t find anything in Marquette’s defense to exploit. They didn’t beat Golden Eagles off the dribble or make the defense rotate with much frequency.
In short: They weren’t too difficult to guard.
That was despite the Irish playing the slower-paced game they prefer and Marquette normally doesn’t. They had just 60 possessions to Marquette’s 61 – well below Notre Dame’s average tempo of 63.7 possessions per game, which is among the 20 slowest in the country.
Couldn’t protect the paint
The other end might of the court might have been even more troubling. Notre Dame allowed its second-most points of the year and a season-high 1.3 points per possession.
Marquette often found what it wanted near the basket. The Golden Eagles scored 50 of their 79 points in the paint and took 35 layups or dunks, making 22 of them.
It wasn’t just a lack of post defense. Marquette rarely went to post-ups and back-to-the-basket shots as a source of offense. The Golden Eagles’ guards got into the paint without much trouble. Containing dribble drives was a thorn. Pick-and-roll defense was leaky. Marquette’s forwards had easy layups and dunks at the basket because of breakdowns in ball screen defense, whether it was simply being a step slow following the roller or ineffective help defense.
Notre Dame survived its weaknesses containing the dribble and defending the rim last season because it could make 3-pointers and limit opponent 3-point attempts. Trade 3s for 2s, basically. But the Irish’s offense isn’t producing points at the level it needs to make that trade-off work, and the 2-pointers are coming too easily.
“You can only play the 2 vs. 3 game so much,” Brey said.
Brey and staff have a week off to figure out how to help the defense, or at least mask its deficiencies. It simply has to be better, or the ACC season will likely be a rough one. The Irish are now 197th in adjusted defensive efficiency, per KenPom. They have finished below 180 twice (2013-14 and 2020-21). The combined records those years: 26-32.
Defensive rebounding letdown
Notre Dame made its first-shot defense less impactful because it couldn’t corral enough defensive rebounds. Marquette grabbed 15 offensive rebounds and had 22 second chance points. It had an offensive rebounding rate of 39.3 percent.
The Irish didn’t allow many second chances in their first nine games. They entered play Sunday ranked 15th in opponent offensive rebounding rate, at 21.9 percent. Marquette nearly doubled it.
There were rebounds that the Irish fought for and lost. Those happen. Tap-backs and an inability to grab loose balls after a miss are more frustrating.
Marquette had two tap-back offensive rebounds on one second-half possession, which ended in a Kam Jones 3-pointer. A loose ball gaffe snuffed out what might have been Notre Dame’s best comeback opportunity. Two Irish players had their hands on a missed shot along the baseline, but neither secured it and it went out of bounds, staying with Marquette. Jones made a 3-pointer off the ensuing inbound play, stretching the Golden Eagles’ lead back to 44-35 with 16:46 left. The Irish never came within six points again.
