Observations: Notre Dame scrapes past Radford 79-76 in season opener

On3 imageby:Patrick Engel11/10/22

PatrickEngel_

This game wasn’t supposed to set off heart rate monitors of Notre Dame fans at Purcell Pavilion or those watching from home. The Irish opened the season at home against Radford, a team from the Big South Conference that went 11-18 last season. On paper, it didn’t scream stressful test.

Instead, Radford nearly left South Bend with a win in addition to its paycheck. Guard Cormac Ryan made a go-ahead layup with 9.5 seconds left and helped force a stop on the ensuing defensive possession to give Notre Dame a 79-76 win. The Irish survived after trailing for more than 29 minutes and facing a nine-point deficit in the second half.

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“The timeouts we had under 10 minutes, in some of those timeouts, it didn’t look very hopeful,” head coach Mike Brey said.

Forward Nate Laszewski led the Irish with 28 points, tying a career high. Guard Trey Wertz added 18 on 7-of-9 shooting, including 4-of-5 on 3-pointers. Notre Dame shot 52.1 percent overall and 36.4 on 3-pointers.

Here are three observations from the game.

BOX SCORE

Too close for a veteran group

In the end, Notre Dame won because it was poised like you expect a lineup with four grad students to be. Wertz seeing a 5-on-4 and waiting for Ryan to get down the court before passing to him on the layup was a fifth-year senior being a fifth-year senior. So was Ryan locking in and forcing a miss on the final defensive possession.

But the first 35 minutes had too many lapses that old teams shouldn’t make.

Notre Dame initially seemed sped up by Radford’s ball pressure and traps up top. The Highlanders were pressing well beyond the 3-point line. There were overzealous turnovers, such as a Ryan pass in transition that never had a chance of getting to Lazsewski and a Wertz giveaway when he pushed the ball too far despite negative numbers.

All told, Notre Dame had 11 assists and 10 turnovers. It committed two live-ball giveaways on intercepted passes that led to a pair of Radford transition 3-pointers. A JJ Starling pass on the perimeter was deflected, stolen and led to a layup in the second half.

A usually reliable shooting team also missed its first seven 3-point attempts of the second half. Each one felt crushing with Radford steadily scoring on the other end.

Defensive leaks

Above all, Notre Dame found itself in a white-knuckler it didn’t want against an opponent it should handle because it couldn’t string together stops. Radford shot 52.1 percent from the field and went 8-of-20

Radford wasn’t shy about its second-half plan of attack on offense. The Highlanders wanted to put Notre Dame in ball screens and drive one-on-one. Winnable one-on-ones were available. Radford exploited them and led 53-44 with 12:38 left.

“They got out of the gate on us,” Brey said. They got to our paint. We got screwed up trying to go over the top, and then we started to switch. We probably didn’t help our guys as a coaching staff enough with all the action in the middle of the floor, ball screen, dribble handoff and the big guy rolling.”

Notre Dame began the second half by hedging the screens on the perimeter. The Irish then started switching, which often led to Laszewski ending up on a guard. Radford hunted the switch matchups with Laszewski, spread the floor to isolate it and attacked. The Highlanders three primary guards – Josiah Jeffers, DaQuan Smith and Kenyon Giles – combined for 51 points. They also exploited situations when guards switched onto a forward who rolled to the basket.

Notre Dame opened the game in man defense, but quickly scrapped it for a 1-3-1 zone when Radford took a 9-4 lead. That didn’t fare much better. The Highlanders ripped off an 8-1 run to tie the score at 35, a stretch that included a transition 3-pointer off a turnover. Radford found open 3s against it, going 6-of-14 from deep in the first half.

The silver lining in the second half was Radford only went 2-of-6 on 3-pointers, with the low volume carrying the most significance. The frequent points in the paint made Notre Dame sweat. A few 3s would have buried the Irish.

“We were absorbing 2s,” Brey said. “They made 6 3s in the first half. If they make another 5, we can’t score that much.”

Nate Laszewski carries the load

Laszewski and Brey touted a more aggressive mindset from the grad student forward this offseason, an emphasis when Laszewski was going through the NBA predraft process in the spring. Brey said he had taken more shots than anyone in summer practices. Notre Dame needed him to go from role player to focal point.

He looked the part of a centerpiece Thursday. Laszewski took a team-high 11 shots. He drove at defenders off the dribble. He hit catch-and-shoot 3-pointers. He drew 11 fouls and went 12-of-15 from the free throw line.

Laszewski’s first basket was a left-hand layup after driving from the wing. He had another layup when he ball-faked and made a defender fall for it. He had an assist on a freshman forward Ven-Allen Lubin layup when he noticed from the wing that Lubin was alone under the basket.

A quieter second half turned into a takeover in the final minutes. His layup with 1:28 to go cut Notre Dame’s deficit to one point. He made a 3-pointer with 3:59 left that also brought the Irish to within one. His free throws with 0.4 seconds left were Notre Dame’s final points.

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