2016-2017 Notre Dame Men's Basketball

ozzman

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Wtf! They come back to make it a game and the refs absolutely rape them two calls in a row. Unacceptable.

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Free Manera

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Any big guys on the recruiting radar for next year? Need a presence in the paint desperately
 

military_irish

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FT shooting turning into a complete disaster. The team is officially in free-fall.

Agreed, their FT shooting has been completely off. There are many other issues with this team right now but if they can at least correct that. They will be in a better position in these games.

Hopefully this is just their mid season slump like the last two years, hopefully.
 

NDgradstudent

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Going from 5-0 to (assuming we lose to UNC) 6-5 in the league is deeply worrying. Admittedly, some of that is playing better teams, but our play has seriously regressed. Losing to UVA and UNC is one thing, but we should not be losing to GT or even Duke (given that it's on our court and given how they've played this year). At the very least, this game should have been competitive late, and it was not.

We were thinking 13-5 was the ceiling for the league...alas, I think it's now 11-7 with those last two losses that should have been wins.
 

NDGOLDEN

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Bad lose. We are in a bad slump.

After the game brey said he is contemplating on taking Geben out of starting lineup for either pflueger or gibbs
 

Ndaccountant

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SV will get some blame for this game but while his offense wasn't there, he still is invaluable on defense. VJ scored to make up for his defensive woes and so did BC. Can't say the same for MF. Personally, I think he played a shit game and his overall court control has been regressing since the UofL game. SV will score again, but if MF doesn't get right, there isn't much hope for a team that is relatively average defensively and sub part rebounding.

I mentioned the prospect of a late Jan and early Feb funk, which has been a pattern the past two years. This team is in that funk and I think MF is the key to breaking it.
 

Redbar

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SIAP but the officiating in this game was borderline criminal, and why people hate Duke. They really took the steam out of our run in the second half. Coach Brey's halftime comment about being mentally soft and not playing D when they miss shots is spot on. But I think we don't have the automatic shooters we had the past few seasons. These guys miss a lot of shots. Other shooters seem to get very comfortable in The Pavillion but our guys can't seem to make open looks and the offense as a whole has been disjointed.
 

irishfan

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We seem to be playing 4 on 5 pretty much at both ends of the court when we have Geben or Torres in there. At least Torres moves around and shows some hints at athleticism, even if he's useless scoring unless it's an uncontested layup/dunk.

I think a lineup change with Rex or Gibbs coming in is the only move, but it really can only be successful if we're firing on offense....otherwise there's no point in teams matching us and going with a small lineup as well.

At the end of the day, 6-4 isn't pretty for where we were a couple weeks ago, but when ACC play started we all just wanted to be around .500 after these first 11 games before the schedule eased up.

I haven't seen much of UNC this year to know if they're the same nightmare match-up as they were last year. Either way, we are due for a classic Brey WTF win.
 

Blaise

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This team defied expectations the first few weeks of ACC play. They have come down to earth and it sucks, esp the GT loss, However, we are still in good shape with the schedule. I think we can still get a top 4 seed in ACC tourney... We just have to shore up these droughts of not scoring
 

RDU Irish

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Still can't beat a ranked opponent. Offense came out of the half with much better movement and flow - and the results followed. Seems we have been pounding the ball into the floor a lot more the last four games and our offense has stagnated as a result. Flow and embrace open looks instead of forcing the ball to any one player. Vasturia was just off all night, nothing close from deep but at least he didn't push it.

Can't remember the last time I was so pissed at officiating. Easily an 8 point swing with the BS blocking foul on SV that was the most obvious offensive charge in the history of the game. Then Gibbs makes the and-one only to be called on the floor - literally in the air shooting when contact is made. Brey gets T-ed up (which is damn near impossible to draw out of the guy but fully substantiated) and they make both FTs. 8 points in total and totally deflating. Not to mention reviewing Harry Giles elbow Bonzie on the screen only to ignore it. Oh, and seeing Grayson Allen clip today stomping on TJ's foot away from the action for really not reason other than he is a complete douche. ACC officiating is an embarrassment to the sport - probably the worst in CBB and I see it in all their games, not just as a homer.

All that said - if they shoot +80% instead of -60% from the free throw line they are in this thing at the end. Not good enough to leave that many points at the line, especially against oversized teams. I would say they did a good job drawing fouls but Duke is the grabbiest, hackiest bunch out there - and they whine about everything. Pretty pathetic given their raw athletic ability across the board.
 

NDGOLDEN

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So no game tomorrow! Team isn't even traveling to UNC. Apparently they have a water shortage.
Unofficial but tom noie said game is looking to be moved to Greensboro on Sunday at 1pm
 
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clashmore_mike

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Absolute killer turnover by Farrell in a 4 point game trying to dribble through traffic. VJ came to life in the second half, Vasturia has been better but had a bad TO late too. Carolina size too much to overcome.
 

NDgradstudent

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The main problem is the same as always...no true big man. It hurts our defense and destroys our rebound ability.
 

clashmore_mike

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Gonna end up a double digit loss but they battled back to 2 down late in the game. If the same effort is there the rest of the season they'll be fine.
 

Woneone

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Yea, we're through that disaster of a stretch. THe GT loss is the one that hurts.

We finish up with the bottom half of the ACC, with FSU thrown in at home (that last game at Lville could be rough).

If we go 4-3, I'll take that. Would probably get us a bye in the ACC tourny.

I think we'd need to go 6-1 to get a double.
 

Blaise

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I just think this team needs to get a W... Break this losing streak, get some confidence back and go on a little run
 

Irish#1

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Water finds its level and I think we're seeing that with our guys.
 

NDGOLDEN

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The last 7 games set up perfect for us to make a run. 4 games at home. Even the FSU game we should be favored. We played them tight when we played at their home so I can see us winning that game. And the road games against BC and NC ST. 2 of the worst teams in the league. Ill take that all day. And the last game against Louisville is a toss up/give them a slight edge. We play them tough every time we play them so I can see that going either way and if we are one a winning streak I'm sure our guys will be feeling pretty confident going into Louisville.
 

Ndaccountant

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With that loss, ND's tourney picture is becoming much more clear. As of right now, ND has 1 win against the top 25 in both Kenpom's rankings and the RPI. Two more opportunities left for big wins against FSU and Lville.

In both the RPI and Kenpom, ND is sitting around 30 in the rankings. That feels about right and ND is going to need to win one of those games versus FSU/Lville if they want to avoid the 8/9 seed. The game against Wake is, IMO, a must win for ND. Wake has great statistical rankings and a win will help sure up what is currently an average tourney resume.

One thing I am really interested in watching is how/if Brey reacts to this losing stretch. With no adjustments, ND is going to have an extremely tough time beating anyone in the tourney that has an above average front court. ND is currently ranked 254th in the country (out of 351) on defensive rebounding %, at about 70%. The last three games have been 62% and for the season, the average is 64% away from home. Puzzling numbers when you consider that Mooney is your most efficient rebounder on the team statistically and you have to believe he can add more value than Geben. You can view this as glass half empty or glass half full.

Half full - those numbers are not really much different than last year and the team made a run to the E8.
Half empty - ND is unlikely to have another favorable draw and does not have the athleticism of Djax and Auguste this year.

There are also a few notable offensive differences between last year and this year. First, ND is much more reliant on the 3 point shot this year. Their 3 point rate is close to 40% this year, while last year was 34%. Next, despite being a fantastic FT shooting team, they are ranked 312th in the country if FT per offensive play and have fallen 3% points from last year in the same category. In fact, they are making less FT per game this year than last year. This prevents the other team from getting in foul trouble and limits opportunity for easier points.

I personally think the big difference is swapping Djax for MF and loosing ZA on the screen and roll game. MF is averaging 2 FT's per game less than Djax and is also more reliant on the 3 ball. While he is still scoring, teams are more or less copying the UVA blueprint on how to defend. They are flashing high and forcing MF to penetrate. The wings fan off to the shooters while a 4/5 plays the middle of the key essentially daring MF to try and finish. He isn't and he essentially dribbles out and rotates the ball hoping to find a defender caught in no mans land. Last year Djax was a threat to finish and teams simply are not respecting MF on the drives. That leads to point #2 that ND really misses ZA on the roll game. He wasn't that spectacular on the post up game, where Bonzie excels. They used him on the high ball screens and he could simply follow the ball and threw down countless dunks on the roll game. Even if he didn't get the ball, he was a big threat to grab a rebound (ND is down 4% on offensive rebound rate year over year). This year there is no such threat as the screens tend to come from Geben/Torres who don't have nearly the athleticism of ZA or Bonzie, who doesn't have the foot speed and is better with his back to the basket.

I really think they need to get Mooney in game and use him like the did Carleton Scott. If you can remember, Nash and Scott were the "bigs" and would be the ones setting the ball screen for Hansbrough. Scott would set the screen and roll off to the 3pt line, where he would spot up. I think this is a perfect spot for Mooney and also Ryan (but only when he is spelling VJ, since you can't afford to have them on D at the same time). This would be a great adjustment and would open up quite a bit on offense and could actually improve rebounding too. I am interested to see what happens because if no adjustment is made, ND's tourney run is completely match-up dependent and most likely a first weekend exit.
 
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