Notre Dame men’s basketball has fight, but needs more than just that
SOUTH BEND — Predictability finally paid a visit to the Notre Dame men’s basketball program Saturday to Purcell Pavilion.
Hello, darkness my old friend...
For the first three Atlantic Coast Conference games this season, we didn’t know what to expect from Notre Dame, which has looked like an OK outfit and also the most rag-tag of groups. Sometimes, both inside the same game.
At Miami last month to open league play, we didn’t know what we’d see from Notre Dame. Last week in the conference home opener against Virginia? Didn’t know we’d see that from Notre Dame. North Carolina State four nights later? Same story. Didn’t know.
On Saturday, with one of the league’s elite in town, we knew. We came. We saw. We left. We knew.
We knew that Notre Dame (6-9 overall; 1-3 ACC) was going to compete, because that’s something first-year head coach Micah Shrewsberry promised in October that his team would bring every night. For the most part this season, they have. He said it again post-game Saturday. He and his team aren’t afraid of anybody. Especially not big, bad Duke. That’s not to dis Duke. That’s the mentality you must have to survive in this league. To win in this league.
We knew they were going to defend, because when you’re as offensively challenged as the Irish (and they are), you have two choices — dig in and defend or get your doors blown off. Their choice. So, the Irish defend.
We also knew that Saturday’s game would reach a point of no return for Notre Dame. A point when the other team would shift into another gear — a go-get-one-on –the-road gear — and the Irish would be left behind. Maybe way behind.
Notre Dame competed and defended and followed the game plan for 40 minutes, but all of it wasn’t enough, not against that program and for where this Irish program is as Notre Dame dropped another getable ACC home game, 67-59.
“We gotta be disciplined for 40 minutes full time,” said sophomore forward Kebba Njie. “We can’t take any plays off, no times out. We gotta be disciplined the whole entire game.”
That discipline sometimes fades as the Irish get flustered. It faded against North Carolina State. It faded against Duke. Notre Dame cannot afford those lapses — not the way this roster currently is constructed — and then try and get it back on track when the train jumps it.
“We’re really close to being there,” said freshman guard Braeden Shrewsberry. “We just have to finish. We could’ve won both of these.”
So close, but so far. Afterward, with his team’s first true road win secured, Duke coach Jon Scheyer — like his predecessor — went out of his way to praise Notre Dame. He used three words – physical, tough, disciplined. All true.
“We,” said Njie, “were fighting with them the whole time.”
Scheyer didn’t include two other words – scorers and decision-makers.
The Irish continue to struggle in both areas, finishing 39 percent from the field, 26.3 percent from 3 and 50 percent (oof!) from the foul line. They also turned it over 14 times and finished with five assists, four of those from Markus Burton.
“We want to move it we want to do stuff,” said head coach Micah Shrewsberry. “Sometimes people guard us in certain ways that we just can’t. That’s where our execution has to get better.”
That the Irish have played better than expected four games into league play doesn’t offer any solace. Shrewsberry and his squad aren’t into moral victories. That they hung with Duke, that they led Duke for 18:04, that they were up by as many as nine in the first half, none of that matters. Because as was the case three nights earlier against North Carolina State, this was a league game that was seemingly there for the taking.
Notre Dame couldn’t do enough to take it. Grab it. Run away with it. The Irish want to win, but they don’t have the necessary parts and pieces and poise to win. To put the ball in the hands of someone other than a freshman point guard who might be ground down by February and say, go to work. Get us an and-one, get us a 3 that’s going to quiet all those fans in the stands wearing Duke blue and turn the place into a true homecourt advantage.
This Notre Dame team isn’t that good, but this one competed. This one led. This one did some good stuff, just not when mandatory. Too young. Too inexperienced. Too many missing pieces, or pieces that don’t fit. This roster aches for another big body. For another guard. Maybe a wing. Really, for someone who can say, (forget) this, I’m going and getting us a bucket.
Notre Dame had none of that in Wednesday’s second-half collapse against North Carolina State. It had none of that Saturday, when the Irish were cooked by a 19-3 Duke run that started late in the first half and ended early in the second. None of that maybe for the rest of the season. Maybe next year it will start to turn and look the way it’s supposed to look.
“We’re limited in who we are as a team offensively currently as constructed,” Shrewsberry said. “We’ll grow. We’ll keep getting better, but that’s the thing. I don’t know how much that changes this year.”
Duke’s roster carries four McDonald’s All-Americans. Notre Dame’s roster carries at least four who ate at McDonald’s
—haven’t had a Big Mac in a long time during their AAU/high school days.
Shrewsberry said it best afterward about his guys.
“They gave us everything,” he said. “Those dudes were hurting after this, because they put everything into it.”
Everything is not enough. Everything about this season has been hard for the Irish. Everything is a grind. Everything is a struggle, sometimes for extended stretches. That’s not going to change. Predictably.