How Texas Tech defense presents a challenge – and an aspiration – to Notre Dame
Notre Dame stripped its defense to its core this offseason, a full-scale rebuild with a new teacher who only offered 100-level classes at first.
Newly (re)hired associate head coach Anthony Solomon littered the Rolfs Hall practice gym with tape lines and X’s to emphasize basic principles that, surely, every player on the Irish roster learned long ago. The prior season offered no proof, though. This program needed a hard reset on defense – in teaching and in scheme. Solomon brought the needed meticulousness and a new identity.
To teach the “no middle” defense he wanted to install, he had to start with the basics. The very basics. Stances. Positioning. Closeouts. This is, remember, a group with seven seniors or grad students.
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Any initial skepticism evaporated, though, and the result was a 126-spot jump in KenPom’s adjusted defensive efficiency rankings as of Sunday morning. The Irish had the ACC’s No. 2-rated defense in league play.
Notre Dame was always going to go as far as its offense could take it – if it could provide something resembling resistance on the other end. How far, exactly?
Not just back to the NCAA tournament for the first time in 2017, but advancing in it. The Irish have already won two games in March Madness, most recently a 78-64 defeat of No. 6 seed Alabama on Friday. It sent them to the second round and a Sunday meeting with 3-seed Texas Tech (7:10 p.m. ET, TBS) in San Diego.
Fitting, in many ways, for this season of defensive revival to pit Notre Dame against the team that stuff opposing offenses in a straitjacket better than anybody.
They teach only 500-level defense in Lubbock, Texas these days. Tape was ripped off the practice gyms long ago. Chris Beard brought the defensive pride and the no-middle philosophy when he took over as Red Raiders head coach in 2016, and first-year successor Mark Adams has upheld the standard. It’s sink or swim. Can’t grasp it? You won’t play. Their roster that includes four “super seniors” has soaked it in.
Texas Tech doesn’t just have KenPom’s No. 1-rated defense, it’s on pace to finish with the best adjusted efficiency on that end of the court by any team since…its 2019 outfit. Not since Kentucky in 2015 – yes, that team – has someone other than Texas Tech finished with a better defensive efficiency than the Red Raiders’ this year (84.8 points allowed per 100 possessions, adjusted for opponent). Notre Dame head coach Mike Brey has watched it on film and in person in awe.
“The bodies and their stances – I have been so impressed,” Brey told reporters Saturday in San Diego. “You’re talking about getting them in a stance, you do that at basketball camp. Some guys grow up, come to college, they can be in a stance and they stay down. Everybody they play is in a great stance. And it’s a great body in a great stance, with strength and height and length.”
Maybe Notre Dame never reaches the Red Raiders’ statistical heights on defense, but it’d like to make that kind of buy-in the norm. This year was a strong start and a building block. Of more importance than emulating Texas Tech, though, is scoring on it Sunday evening.
Texas Tech switches almost every screen. It will press about 12 percent of the time, per Synergy. It rates in the 97th percentile in transition defense, forces turnovers on 23.6 percent of possessions (10th nationally) and is allowing opponents to make just 44.2 percent of two-point attempts (13th).
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One way to beat it? Don’t let it get set.
“If we could get some transition buckets,” Brey said. “We got a couple yesterday. If we could not play against a set defense, that would really help.”
Over on the other side, Texas Tech views Notre Dame’s offensive capability with similar admiration. Not long after Texas Tech disposed of No. 14 Montana State, Notre Dame went 10-of-16 from three-point range on the same Viejas Arena to knock off Alabama. Guard Cormac Ryan poured in seven of ‘em.
“They’re so good at shooting threes,” Adams said. “That’s always the very first thing I look at box scores when I’m scouting a team.
“Certainly, a sleepless night for me last night.”
If there’s one hole in Texas Tech’s defense, it’s allowing three-pointers. Its opponents have taken 45.5 percent of their shots from beyond the arc, a volume bested by only 14 Division I teams. Notre Dame, a high-volume three-point shooting team itself, will take anything the Red Raiders give them.
“There’s no question we’re going to have to shoot over the top of that,” Brey said. “It’s jammed in. It’s really jammed in on the help side. When we make double-digit threes, we’re pretty good. And I think we’re going to get some looks, the way they play their defense. We’re going to have to make some, a good amount, to win.”
No. 11 seed Notre Dame (24-10, 15-5 ACC) vs. No. 3 Texas Tech (26-9, 12-6 Big 12)
When: Sunday, March 20 at 7:10 p.m. ET
Where: Viejas Arena, San Diego
TV: TBS
Radio: Notre Dame basketball radio network (local), Westwood One (national)
Line: Texas Tech -7.5
KenPom prediction: Texas Tech 69, Notre Dame 62
Series history: Notre Dame leads 1-0
Last meeting: Notre Dame won 88-63 on Dec. 6, 1975
Leading scorers:
• Notre Dame: guard Blake Wesley (14.5 ppg), guard Dane Goodwin (13.6 pgg)
• Texas Tech: forward Bryson Williams (13.9 ppg), guard Terrence Shannon Jr. (10.8 ppg)
Other notes:
• Texas Tech is the antithesis of Notre Dame’s seven-man rotation. The Red Raiders have 10 players who average at least 10 minutes per game and six players who score between 8.0 and 14.0 points per game.
• Adams was promoted in April to replace Beard, but this roster is largely his doing. Texas Tech took seven transfers this offseason, six from another Division I school and one from a junior college.
• Notre Dame committed turnovers on 25.1 percent of possessions against Alabama, its worst rate of the season. Guard Prentiss Hubb, though, has played 79 minutes across two tournament games and turned the ball over just once.
• Ryan is shooting 55.3 percent on three-pointers over his last 10 games.
