Observations: Notre Dame beats Xavier (La.) in exhibition game
Notre Dame played its lone preseason game Wednesday, beating Xavier University of Louisiana 67-52 at Purcell Pavilion. The Irish will open the regular season Nov. 10 vs. Radford having played two opponents, Xavier and DePaul in a secret scrimmage Oct. 23.
Grad student guard Dane Goodwin led Notre Dame with 21 points and 10 rebounds. Grad student forward Nate Laszewski and guard Trey Wertz had 12 points each.
Here are some observations from the game.
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Sluggish on offense
Maybe Notre Dame needed a tune-up more than it realized, and if so, Wednesday might prove to be beneficial in hindsight. But it wasn’t the crisp outing you expect to see from a veteran team that plays five fifth-year seniors, even against a trap-heavy defense that Xavier plays. Notre Dame missed shots it normally makes and didn’t take care of the ball as it usually does. The Irish turned the ball over 12 times and had just 13 assists. They shot 41.5 percent overall and 26.9 percent on 3-pointers.
Notre Dame missed seven straight shots to end the first half and opened the second half 1-of-4 with 3 turnovers. The Irish turned the ball over on two overzealous long transition passes. There were a few forced feeds into the paint that didn’t get through defenders.
If you were hoping an exhibition could make you feel better about Notre Dame’s rebounding, this game didn’t deliver. The glass likely won’t be a strength for the Irish this year with their frequency of four-guard lineups and without a lot of size. But they should handle it better than they did vs. an NAIA team.
Xavier grabbed 22 of its 43 misses for an offensive rebounding rate of 51.1 percent. Seven of those were loose balls that Notre Dame touched but couldn’t corral, instead bouncing out of bounds.
There were a couple good signs on the glass. Notre Dame needs Goodwin to rebound well in four-guard lineups, and he was feisty on the glass all night. He pulled down 6 offensive rebounds. Grad student guard Marcus Hammond had 7 total rebounds.
Lots of Laszewski and Goodwin
Notre Dame started four guards around Laszewski and ran lots of its first-half offense through him. There were several isolations called for him, and when he posted up on those, he often drew double teams. He passed to shooters out of the post a few times. He hunted shots there when he had a one-on-one.
On his first touch, he caught the ball in the corner, backed down a smaller defender and scored in the paint. He drove at a guard from the wing for a layup early in the game, dusting his defender after giving a ball fake.
Laszewski scored 10 of his points in the first half. He was a focal point early, but Goodwin took over in the second half. He did a lot of his work in the paint, drawing three second-half fouls. He attempted just one 3-pointer in the second half.
Notre Dame won’t have the same post-up presence it did with Paul Atkinson Jr. last year. Neither Laszewski nor freshman forward Ven-Allen Lubin are back-to-the-basket scorers with an array of post moves. But the Irish still want to use post-ups as a way to create offense. Goodwin posted up on multiple occasions and kicked out to Hammond for a 3-pointer when he drew two defenders.
Tight rotation
All 10 available scholarship players saw action in the first half, but this remains a seven-man rotation with Goodwin, Laszewski, Hammond, Lubin, Wertz, grad student guard Cormac Ryan and freshman guard JJ Starling.
None of the next three off the bench – freshman forward Dom Campbell, sophomore wing JR Konieczny or junior forward Matt Zona – came into the game until the final two minutes of the first half. Campbell was the only one of those three to play in the second half, and he logged just 35 seconds of action to end the game. He appears to be ahead of Zona in the frontcourt pecking order.
Notre Dame put Lubin on the floor to start the second half, but head coach Mike Brey went back to the four-guard lineup about four minutes into the half. Lubin didn’t return until just over five minutes remained.
Freshman impressions
Notre Dame’s freshmen looked their ages at times Wednesday. Starling was 1-of-7 from the field with 2 points and missed all five of his 3-pointers. It felt like a bad shooting day more than anything else. Starling didn’t force shots and simply missed open 3s he will make more often. He had 2 assists, including one where he split a double-team and jump-passed to Lubin in the lane for a layup. He didn’t turn the ball over in 32 minutes on the floor.
Lubin played with a plastic face mask because of multiple hits to the face this preseason. He had 4 points, 3 blocks, 1 assist and 2 turnovers in 15 minutes. He made an ill-advised pass to a cutter from the top of the key that was picked off, but saw Goodwin making the same cut with more space in the second half and found him for a layup. He blocked two shots from behind and was called for a foul on what looked like a clean stuff of a jumper.
Campbell’s three minutes were action-packed. On his first possession, he drew two defenders on a post touch and took an awkward jump-hook. He committed a foul when he shoved someone going for a loose ball. But he ended the first half with a post bucket against single coverage and came up with a steal in the final minute of the game.
