You couldn’t have dreamed a better start to ACC season for the Irish than this. Notre Dame is 2-0 after defending their home court on Wednesday night against the Louisville Cardinals.
Much like Saturday’s thriller in Pittsburgh, this was just a great college basketball game. Notre Dame led for all but about two minutes of game time, but this was an intense back-and-forth battle with a clash of opposing styles that just made for a great battle.
The Irish find themselves on the top of the ACC standings along with Florida State at this early point in the season. More than that, they have just about answered every preseason question we all had of them. This team has been really damn fun so far this season.
Still lots of work to be done, however. The second you start feeling good about yourself in this conference, you’ll find yourself on the wrong side of a 20-point beatdown (see Virginia Tech).
Here’s my thoughts on this one:
Steve Vasturia is the best
Do I need to explain anymore? The senior guard scored a career-high 24 points, including a crazy fall-away floater with just under a minute left to ice this one. He shot 9 of 14 and added 6 boards. He played with more bounce than I think I’ve ever seen. It was an amazing performance coming off one of the clutchest games of his life. I don’t even know what else to say. This was a big-time performance in a big, big game.
Finally a resume-builder
Most have accepted that this is a good Notre Dame team that could compete this March, but they were still missing that marquee win at this point in the season. Not so anymore. This was a top ten win that completely solidifies the Irish in the top 20 nationally.
Just for more perspective, Notre Dame scored 77 points, or 1.13 points per possession against the best defensive efficiency in the nation. I can’t even describe how good that is. Louisville rated a ridiculous 86.2 AdjD according to KenPom entering Wednesday night, and the Irish offensive attack thrived anyway.
This Louisville win is the headliner, but Pitt beating Virginia on Wednesday makes that win look stronger, and Northwestern looks like a bubble-and-in team as well. Obviously, you need more than that for a compelling tournament resume and a top 4 seed line, but the Irish have plenty of opportunities to build on that the rest of the way.
This is also fun because Mike Brey keeps beating Hall of Fame ACC coaches:
Here’s a fun fact that doesn’t seem possible: Mike Brey is 8-1 against Pitino and Coach K in ACC games.
— Chris W. (@rakesofmallow) January 5, 2017
Bonzie scored how much?
I didn’t look at the box score all game and must have missed on the broadcast whenever they talked about it, but I half-expected to look and see a disappointing game from Bonzie Colson. I was way off. Bonzie had another double-double, 18 points and 14 rebounds, despite struggling from the field (5-14) relative to his usual efficiency.
8 of those points came from the free throw line, which might explain why he sneaked up on me a little bit, but those game-high 14 rebounds were an undeniably big performance. Another thing I didn’t expect to see in the box score? Notre Dame out-rebounded Louisville 38-35, with tiny advantages in both defensive and offensive rebounding rates.
The Irish just keep winning games like this, especially at home, and find a way to ugly things up down low to at least neutralize superior rebounding attacks. Colson was the biggest reason for that by far, but it is impressive how this team can do that, even though rebounding is almost always the biggest concern Irish fans have entering any given season.
Austin Torres sighting
If you told me Austin Torres would be the fourth-leading scorer for the Irish tonight, I’d ask you how early the Cardinals put this game away. While Torres’ 6 is a very low total for a fourth-leading scorer, his energy off the bench tonight was excellent.
It started right away with a steal and put-back on the other end of that breakaway. He had a couple blocks and a steal. He made both his field goals and, get this, BOTH HIS FREE THROWS.
I’m not the biggest proponent of Torres getting many minutes off the bench, but he certainly showed his worth on Wednesday night and made massive contributions to the win. Unofficially, he only played 4 minutes, but his presence felt like he was out there more than that. Whatever the case, he sure made his minutes count.
Other Thoughts
Matt Farrell had 22 points, but I’m not sure the film would show this to be his best game. His four turnovers often came at inopportune moments, he struggled defensively, and I’m not sure he had the best handle on the offense against admittedly a tough opponent. Others may disagree. Still, complaining about a 22-point performance is a long way away from where I thought we’d be with him.
VJ was the most invisible he’s been, which 1) at least he didn’t force shots but 2) likely means that he is battling mentally right now. He was still valuable because the Cardinals allowed Notre Dame to space things out nicely inside by hanging tight on the outside shooters. The Irish only attempted 12 threes but were prolific inside as a result.
Small steps back for Martinas Geben and TJ Gibbs, neither of whom made much of an impact after really nice performances in Pittsburgh. Very curious to see how Brey uses them and how they bounce back on Saturday against Clemson.
Rex Pflueger had only three points, but it might have been the biggest (or second biggest) shot of the game. Notre Dame saw its lead close to just 1 at 61-60, and Rex hit a three from the corner to give the Irish a bit of breathing room. Also, Rex Pflueger is good at defense.
Notre Dame awaits the Clemson Tigers on Saturday afternoon (3pm, ESPNU). The Tigers will be looking to bounce back from their home overtime loss to North Carolina. The Irish will look to maintain their hold on first place in the ACC standings with a monstrous 3-0 start.
Steve, my god! Unbelievable. (Also Farrell’s one handed shotput 3 on the 2nd possession of the game let me know that this was going to be one of the classic, wild, goofy ND Louisville games we’ve had lately).
I really hope we can get to a point where Bonzie can get a little more rest in the first half. He always seems to come out strong, but then his touches go down in the 2nd half because he seems to be too tired to be able to get good post position.
I think Beachem only took two shots. Good for Brey for not riding him 40 minutes when he wasn’t having a strong game (most coaches would never consider pulling a guy who was supposed to be his leading scorer this year). Beachem just isn’t aggressive enough without the ball to get himself open for shooting or driving opportunities. I hope Brey really focuses on his cutting/use of picks during practice.
Finally, I know Geben didn’t have a great game, but it was good to see him not get frustrated out there. He didn’t go and commit a bunch of weak fouls, and I think he actually drew 2 or 3 charges. We need his big body out there to at least present a defensive threat, and he did just enough to help slow down Louisville’s bigs.
I did forget the drawn charges. That’s a good point. Definitely made an impact there.
Great game. I actually thought Farrell played great. Louisville’s success is predicated on their D, so for him to have done as well as he did was really impressive…they gave him NO space, and he was still able to finish at will.
I NEVER thought I’d say this, but Farrell may be the MVP of this team. We have a lot of talented guys, but he is the one guy who can score at any point…really, anywhere on the floor.
I would personally give my vote to Bonzie, but I wouldn’t argue too hard against any of Vasturia, Bonzie, or Farrell. I would be curious how others weigh in on this and who they would vote for.
I think I would also lean slightly toward Bonzie. I was going to say definitely Bonzie, because it feels like he always steps up with a clutch bucket when we need it; but then I remembered that Farrell has also been doing that all season, and Vasturia just went Onions in back-to-back games. So slight lean toward Bonzie at this point. We’ll see if he struggles to defend bigs in the ACC this year though. If he does, I’ll probably end the year pushing my MVP vote toward Vasturia (assuming he stays in this groove and keeps up his solid defense).
I think you also have to look at what the team would look like without each of them on it. Without Farrell, Gibbs has shown me enough to think the overall drop off wouldn’t be that bad. You would take a significant hit on the scoring, but the defense and rebounding would get a bump.
Without Bonzie…that would be scary. Torres would try and step in, but that would be a precipitous drop off.
I’m just glad we have both of them…trying not to tempt the injury gods that have avoided this team the last couple of years.
I really think Ryan would be the guy to take Colson’s minutes…or Beachem would have to have more of an interior presence than he does now. Regardless, I don’t think it would be pretty either way. What do we have planned for when Colson leaves, for that matter?
Entertaining game. Much better 2nd half performance than we saw against Purdue or Villanova, the lead dwindled like we knew it would but we never allowed the Cards to take a lead.
If you need some good reading, go check out the 700+ comments on the game thread over at the Card Chronicle.
The Farrell giveth and the Farrell taketh away. Some of his layups were amazing, some were ill advised. He’s allowed a heat check or two at this point though, that flip 3 was crazy. His turnovers were killer though. Also has he ever passed the ball on a 2 v 1 fast break before? It’s frustrating.
Beachem…little movement, didn’t look like he wanted to fight for any rebounding, you need to keep him out there but he should be around 25-30 min with his current play.
Vasturia…welcome back. So crafty, so steady. Turnovers were the only negative from him.
Bonzie, 14 rebounds were huge, also thought his defense was effective at times.
Geben, was okay, charges were huge but at least one of those he was sliding on, got a little lucky. Definitely struggled with the size and strength of Lville, he lost some rebounds he should have had.
Rex and Gibbs were solid, would have liked to see more of Gibbs. Torres! What a spark, he even finished well at the rim against all that length.
Would not be surprised with a letdown against Clemson, we’re due.
Good pickup on the Card Chronicle site. Lot of angst over there.
Actually, it looks a lot like our threads for football this season.
Thanks alstein. That’s the 4th time I’ve watched Louisville this year, scoring 77 against that D is a major accomplishment.
Saturday would be a great time for VJ to break out of his funk.
Weird thing with regards to the lack of VJ last night– in his 3 career games against Louisville, he has scored 2, 5, and 2 points. They might just be a bit of a bogey-team for him. VJ usually doesn’t seem completely comfortable under heavy ball pressure, and that’s exactly what Louisville provides. It seems like the guys who can usually exploit the Cards for us are guys who can take defenders off the dribble, exactly like Farrell and Vasturia did last night. Hopefully Beachem can get some more looks from deep against Clemson.
That’s a good observation. I don’t think it’s a coincidence at all.
And I’m not sure Pitino is wrong in how he defends us. Force the shooters off the arc to drive and finish among all his trees down low. It just so happens Vasturia and Farrell were more up to the task than anybody thought. We only shot 12 3s on the night, that’s gotta be well below our average.
Beachem seems to handle the ball decently well, but only really likes to drive when he has an open path. Guy is a mystery. If he had ½ of Farrell’s confidence, he would be shooting it 20 times a game.