I am not any more/less concerned after that game last night.
The positives:
- SV hit some shots down the stretch that he had been missing for the last few weeks. That was refreshing and I am happy for him.
- Starting Rex gives us an extra shot in the arm defensively and he was a big reason why ND didn't fall behind more in the first four minutes of the 2nd half.
- Bonzie played very, very well
The negatives:
- Brey has seemed to double down on going small and chucking 3's. Last night, ND shot 3's 46% of the time and that number is over 43% for the last 3 games. It worked last night to get a win, but ND shot 48% and came away with a 7 point win. Yikes.
- Wake Forest attempted eleven more shots than ND, despite having 2 more TO's. Based on WF's averages for the game, that was worth 10 points. If ND shoots 40% from 3 for the game, we might be talking about another loss.
- If you take away the 6 FT attempts in the last 50 seconds of the game (garbage FT's), ND had 15 FT attempts on 59 FG attempts. That is what relying on the 3 pointer will do to you. If that is the recipe for the rest of the year, ND would be in the bottom 5 teams of FT attempts per FG attempt.
Overall it was good to get a little positive feeling back. That said, I do not see a way ND beats either Lville or FSU without shooting ~50% from 3pt range if they play the style they did tonight. I would love the see more of Gibbs and his attacking style on offense and I would love to see Rex drive to score, instead of driving to dish. Nobody is playing help on him anymore since they know he is kicking it out.
One last note - I know this still could be another fun March ride, but I get the feeling that this will be the worst ND team in a five year cycle (last two years, this year, next two years). The future is very bright.
