What to make of Notre Dame men’s basketball 10 games into the 2022-23 season
They were surely loud enough to hear through the TV and unavoidable if you were there in person. A cacophony of “We are! Mar-quette!” chants reverberated through Purcell Pavilion Sunday afternoon, adding insult to injury. Not only did an old Big East rival run Notre Dame out of its own gym in a 79-64 loss, but its fans also invaded and let the home faithful hear it in the final minutes.
Irish fans trudged for the exits or hit the off button on the remote to that unwelcomed soundtrack as the final seconds bled off, having watched an opportunity for a résumé-building win on John Shumate’s Ring of Honor induction day turn into a dud that raised a question.
What should be made of the 2022-23 Irish?
It’s not asked out of enthusiasm, but rather concern.
Notre Dame is 7-3 with losses to Marquette, Syracuse and St. Bonaventure and an 18-point dusting of Michigan State. Not the end of the world on paper. It’s a confusing concoction, but not one that’s an affront to the taste buds. (They’re making the latter four hours south of Notre Dame, though, where the Louisville Cardinals are 0-9). Not time to yank the fire alarm yet, right?
But not time to turn away from the alarm either. Because while Notre Dame hasn’t passed the point of no return for making an NCAA tournament case, it hasn’t inspired much hope. You can’t scrub the stretches of uncharacteristically stilted offense and an oft-leaky defense from your memory. Four close calls against lesser competition? Can’t erase those either, and the more they pile up, the less fluky they feel.
The dud against Marquette followed an 81-75 win over Boston University, a team ranked No. 246 at KenPom as of Monday. Before that? A 62-61 loss to Syracuse, which has dropped games against Bryant and Colgate. The romp over then-No. 20 Michigan State was a shot in the arm, but it followed a 63-51 loss to St. Bonaventure on Long Island. Since then, the Bonnies have lost to Buffalo and Iona by at least 15 points.
All of that came after five home games against mid-majors, three of which featured tense late-game situations. Notre Dame needed a go-ahead bucket in the final minute to skirt disaster in two.
Maybe there isn’t a consensus on the level of concern, but it sure isn’t zero. Watch even a couple games, and you’ll see some legitimate issues. Among them:
• The defense has regressed from a year ago, and sharply enough to wonder if there’s more to it than losing guard Blake Wesley. This roster isn’t ripe with elite defensive personnel, but it’s better than the missed assignments, miscommunications and shaky discipline that have popped up too often through 10 games.
• The offense is missing its usual crispness and flow. The Irish are 268th in assist rate, at 47.1 percent. That means more than half their buckets are unassisted.
For a team that won’t lock down opponents even with its best defense, 3-point shooting is key. Good 3-point looks are usually assisted. The last time Notre Dame finished a season with a sub-50 percent assist rate was 2015-16.
“At times, we run into problems when we play from the ACC [logo in the paint] up,” Brey said.
• Paul Atkinson Jr.’s post presence was a staple of Notre Dame’s offense last year. The Irish don’t have a similar back-to-the-basket scorer to play through. Outside of some Dane Goodwin turnarounds and a few sprinkles of freshman forward Ven-Allen Lubin and grad student Nate Laszewski, post-ups aren’t a source of offense. That’s an adjustment from last season.
Now, it’d be unfair to ignore the positives, which include:
• Laszewski, averaging 14.3 points and 8.4 rebounds per game, looks like an all-conference player. He has delivered on the promise of more assertiveness and has remained an efficient 3-point shooter (38.7 percent). Ten games in, he has taken seven fewer free throws than he did all last season (47). He’s also third in assists.
• Cormac Ryan, after a shaky first six games, has recaptured his late-season and NCAA tournament form. He’s averaging 13.1 points per game and shooting 45.2 percent on 3-pointers.
• Freshman guard JJ Starling, even while mired in a 3-point slump (4-for-22), looks like a dynamic shot creator. He is Notre Dame’s best off-the-dribble threat and a stronger finisher at the basket than Wesley was a year ago. His decision-making has been beyond his class year, save for some wayward moments against Marquette.
• For all the concern about rebounding problems, Notre Dame is 38th nationally in defensive rebounding rate even after Marquette gobbled up 15 offensive boards.
So, where does that leave Notre Dame? A team with a skilled freshmen duo and a group of old guys who tasted March success a year ago, but one that has to pull the wheel around quickly. Last year’s team, with a lot of the same characters and a healthy mix of old and young, recovered from a 4-5 start and ended up with two NCAA Tournament wins. Patience proved wise.
At the same time, this isn’t last year. This is a team with a seven-man rotation nearly as old as a couple iterations of NBA teams’ starting lineups. The defensive issues are particularly troubling. Notre Dame is No. 198 nationally in adjusted defensive efficiency, per KenPom, after Marquette rip-corded through it. That includes a No. 239 ranking in 2-point shooting percentage (51.9). Brey’s best adjustment to stop the Golden Eagles would have been to find that fire alarm and tug it.
“I told them, ‘Guys, I’ve got to figure out how to help you get better, and we’ll keep working on that as a staff,’” Brey said.
It’s not all coaching, though. The team knows it just has to play…better. Stay in front. Be quicker in ball-screen defense.
“We have to step out on some of the screens, have a strong chest, just execute better defensively,” Laszewski said.
Notre Dame enters a slower stretch that should lend itself to introspection and experimenting. The Irish don’t play until Dec. 18 at Georgia. They’ll play at 2-9 Florida State three days later, then take six days off before a home game against Jacksonville Dec. 27. They still have time to sort themselves out – 21 regular-season games, to be exact. But there’s much sorting out to do.
“We are who we are right now,” Brey said. “We’ll figure out later in the week after a few [final] exams how to help our group get better.”
