Hello friends.
What a start to 2017 for Irish hoops, huh? I was traveling all last week, so I wasn’t able to watch the entirety of either Louisville or Clemson in real time. I’m finally got home and was digging in to KenPom numbers this morning. Both the Louisville and Clemson games are testaments to how Brey has built the program. Both teams have significantly more length and raw athleticism, but the Irish produced the most efficient offensive performance the Cardinals and Tigers have surrendered all season. Even better, they did it in two totally different ways.
Brey knew Pitino would hug up on shooters and run the Irish off the line, so he planned to let Vasturia and Farrell pick them apart with flat sets and ball screens designed to limit rim protection. This got ND to the line at the 2nd highest rate of the entire season, where they cashed in for 22 points. The twelve 3’s attempted in that game is the fewest for ND this season, but all five makes were critical in securing the victory.
💪 TOUGHNESS 💪
The title to @JayBilas‘s book – it was also on display in Purcell Pavilion tonight.
No. 23/21 ND 77, No. 9/9 Louisville 70 pic.twitter.com/JQupPjZqzz— Notre Dame MBB (@NDmbb) January 5, 2017
Brey knew Clemson would not sit on that same strategy. The Tigers were much more content to rotate and help off to ensure Notre Dame couldn’t get easy looks at the rim. This led to the Irish bombing away 32 times as draw-and-kick looks and transition opportunities opened for Beachem and others. Scoring 45 points from beyond the arc was critical as the Irish were only granted 6 trips to the charity stripe.
When you’re 3-0 in the ACC.#GoodVibesOnly👌👌👌@NDmbb 75 | Clemson 70 pic.twitter.com/t0QTStnlAP
— The Fighting Irish (@FightingIrish) January 8, 2017
So in two HUGE league wins, you have the two polar opposite ends of the Irish offensive spectrum. In one game, the Irish score 22 from the line and 15 from behind the arc. In the next, it is 4 from the line and 45 from deep. Pick your poison. Moreover, both games featured pretty impressive post defenders, which should have neutralized double-double master Bonzie Colson, but they didn’t. While he had lower point totals than he did versus Pitt, Colson still managed 18 and 13. If a future opponent decides to play the Irish either of the two ways Pitino and Brownell selected, but lacks their elite post defenders, Bonzie could easily go off for 30+ on his own.
I’d give my right arm to be in the scouting sessions as an opponent’s staff tries to break down the film and the numbers. I believe outside of UVa and FSU, no one has the combination of defensive coaching and athletes to hope to push the Irish below 1.0 ppp. Those two, plus Syracuse, have a defined defensive identities that have produced effective results vs. ND in the past, but others do not. Seven times in 19 games, the Irish have put up the most efficient offensive performance that opponent has seen all season. Only twice (St. Peters and Pitt), have the Irish fallen out of the top 5 that opponent has faced. This belief will be put to the test with upcoming trips to Miami and VT. Both have capable defenses that can frustrate the Irish.
Of course, the story with the Irish will always be the offense, but the defense bears mention in this analysis. The Notre Dame defense is among the best we’ve had in recent memory. In particular, the shooting percentages against the Irish have dropped dramatically. Notre Dame’s opponent eFG is currently 46.2%, good for 57th nationally. The final Irish rankings in opponent eFG in the last 2 years: 153rd and 115th. The overall defense is hanging at 1.004 adjusted PPP, 87th nationally, but compared to last year’s 158th ranked defense, this is a marked improvement approaching 2015’s final 0.985/102nd effort that was far worse at this stage and improved sharply late in the season. The 2015 teams slightly better DE numbers were driven by a slight advantage in rebounding over this group, but 2017 is doing a much better job limiting shooting percentages and is turning teams over at a higher rate.
For fellow addicts of KenPom numbers, it bears looking at the difference between the raw defensive efficiency and the adjusted results. In the case of the Irish, they’re currently holding teams to 0.976ppp, which Pomeroy adjusts to an efficiency of 100.4. The 2015 team had a much higher raw 1.020ppp, that adjusted to 98.5. In other words, the Pomeroy model was highly valuing the strength of Irish opponents in a year where they played Duke three times, UNC twice and Kentucky.
The numbers, of course, are only part of the story. The 2015 team improved dramatically as the season wore on and put in some good defensive performance against really tremendous teams that drove their postseason success. If this group can follow that arc, they look to be a very dangerous team that could once again make some noise this spring.
Good stuff. Once Farrell proved himself against Northwestern and Colorado, I knew the offense was going To be good. Not this multifaceted though. Very impressed thus far.
The defense is really surprising me though. Farrell doesn’t appear to be a great defender and Geben spent all nonconference glued to the pine with foul trouble. With no DJ this year, I definitely thought the defense was going to be a trainwreck. Kudos to this squad (especially the energy bench guys) for proving me way wrong.
Brey has said that this team communicates and helps better than teams in the past, so it is possible the whole is better than the sum of the parts. Farrell has done a much better job staying in front of his guy, and Geben has been solid inside. More minutes for Onions, Rex, and TJ help the defense as well. All 3 of them are excellent on that end. The guys we were worried about: Bonzie and VJ have both been OK. They’re not lock-down guys, but VJ is spending a lot more time in his stance, and Bonz locks in when it counts. Both make up for footwork mistakes with long arms and disrupting shots – which is another reason opponent eFG is low.
The only thing that worries me is that we need more than 1 guy controlling the defensive glass. I look at a team like NCState, that is mostly an awful basketball team, but has bigs they can send to play volleyball on the glass versus the Irish. Even if our first shot defense is good, if we’re letting teams get 3-4 looks at the hoop every possession, we’re in deep stuff. Who cares if you’re shooting 25% from the floor when you get 4 looks every trip.
Yep, the rebounding is my biggest concern as well (although it always is every year). One other area that continues to be strong defensively is our ability to defend without fouling. Outside of Geben (who has improved as the season has gone along) and Torres (who I don’t really care if he gets 5 fouls in his 5 minutes of action), we’ve been fantastic at defending without fouling. I know Brey has preached this for years, and this year we are around the top 10 in fewest free throws allowed per game.
At some point Brey made the conscious decision to sag off a bit on defense and give opponents a little more space. That has always hurt us defensively as far as opponent shooting goes, but it was a safe way to keep free throws down. In the college game, where many teams don’t have great shooters, this was a great strategy for beating the bad and mediocre shooting teams (although we often got lit up by teams that could knock down shots).
Now, Brey has guys who can really defend on the perimeter. He still doesn’t have them gamble or play more aggressively than they can handle. But no longer are teams just getting consistently uncontested jump shots. I’m very impressed by how well this team has contested shooters this year while keep the foul rate down. Hopefully they can keep it up.
Maybe we’ll beat Miami a 3rd way, with a bunch of mid range jumpers. Bonz, VJ and Steve are certainly capable.
Bah, Virginia, Syracuse and Florida State, what’s our record against those teams since joining the ACC? 1-12? Beating Virginia is the highest one on my list, as at least we were able to occasionally beat the Cuse in the Big East and beat FSU last year.
At this point I’ve basically penciled UVA in as a loss. At least we only play them once this year.
Syracuse looks bad this year. I don’t think we should have a problem with them. I can’t envision them scoring enough.
It would be great to take 1 of 2 against FSU. Getting that home win against them isn’t a must for me, but it would be big.
So, I’m basically hoping for 2-2 against that group. If we only got 1, I would be a bit disappointed but OK with it. 3 would make me absolutely ecstatic, and 0 would be a major failure in my eyes.
The worst part is that Bennett has beat down Brey consistently all the way back to Wazzu. They have such total compliance to their system and recruit to it so well, that it is the one case where great offense can’t neutralize great defense. I’m not hopeful we’ll ever crack that code without getting some injury luck or having both VJ and Ryan ruthlessly bombing at the same time. If it is ever going to happen, it is going to have to happen at home. I also like our chances a little better once Perrantes completes his 7 year program.
The few wins we have over FSU have been against pretty bad FSU teams, but this one is really good. They won’t commit the stupid turnovers and they have guys who can both knock down shots and be productive off the bounce. This is easily Hamilton’s most efficient offense. If it wasn’t for the head scratcher where Temple caught them late, I could make a case for FSU being the best team in the country right now. They scare me a hell of a lot more than Nova did – mostly because we play Nova’s style, FSU is another animal.
As you said, splitting FSU would feel like a win, and I agree that Syracuse should be manageable, esp in the JACC. This 3-0 start is GREAT, but don’t get caught moving the goalposts too far. There’s a looooong way to go.
The 2 Elite Eight teams went 1-5 vs. FSU, Syracuse and UVa while going 7-3 vs. Duke and UNC in that same time frame. Overall, we’re 1-9 vs. that trio since entering the league.
Thanks for doing the research. 1-9 still doesn’t fill me with joy. It probably just feels worse because we have that lost to Bennett’s Wazzu team and then the thrashing we took to FSU back when we had the 2 seed in the tourney, and pretty much every game in the Carrier Dome for the last 17 years.
Given the fast start, I fully expect this team to finish in the 12-6 to 10-8 range in the league. Heck 10-8 means we have a losing record for the rest of the conference schedule. Love to snag one of those byes at 12-6.
Yep, I’m also thinking 9-6 the rest of the way. I won’t be terribly disappointed if we finish worse than that, because preseason that would have exceeded my wildest expectations. But based on what we’ve seen this year, I think this team is good enough to end up 12-6.
I’m trying to pretend I have Mike Brey behind me whispering, “One game at a time.” This is a team that deserves to be appreciated for what they’re doing on a game-to-game basis. We tend to expand our thinking and build #narrative threads across games (exactly what this post does), but in reality, this is a group that can stand toe-to-toe with anyone in the country. If they get hot, they could go on another thrilling run. They also could crap the bed and crash out of relevance against a meat grinder of a schedule. I said to someone the other day that the success of this team so far has raised my ceiling for them, but hasn’t gone a long way to raise my floor. I might feel differently if they can get 2 or 3 of the next 3, but rather than focus on that, I’m looking forward to seeing them play. No matter what happens from here out, they’re definitely a fun group to watch.
Rebounding has not been good tonight. Ugh…ly.
Onion! This team just finds a way to win.
We won a road ACC game against a team on a 20 game home winning streak while scoring less than 70. Just like Brey drew it up.