Beginning tonight, Notre Dame plays five straight games against teams ranked worse than 100th by kenpom. Here’s the next month of action, with current kenpom rankings to go with them:
- H – Boston College (195th)
- A – Syracuse (112th)
- A – Virginia (136th)
- H – Georgia Tech (103rd)
- A – Miami (139th)
- A – Florida State (66th)
- H – Virginia Tech (161st)
- A – Boston College (195th)
It’s an advantageous stretch of action, and while Pomeroy’s famously strong predictive system has the Irish going just 5–3, our guys are favorites in seven of the eight games. It doesn’t end with these eight, either. After the trip to Chestnut Hill, Notre Dame enjoys a three-game homestand, and after one admittedly difficult visit to Clemson, it’s three likely non-tournament teams to end the year. From now until the end of the regular season, Notre Dame plays 14 of its 15 games either at home, against teams not currently expected to make the tournament, or both.
It probably isn’t great for Notre Dame in the long term that the ACC’s affording these kinds of opportunities. There will be times in the future where a stronger ACC would be to our benefit. But for this specific year, before the talent really revs up in South Bend? We’ll take what we can get.
The performance in Durham was not as encouraging as the final score would have you believe, but it wasn’t a bad day. Notre Dame shot the lights out, as we hoped Notre Dame would, and while we couldn’t defend Cooper Flagg, I don’t really care that we can’t defend one of the two best college basketball players in the country. One day? Yeah, that’d be cool. This year, let’s just make sure we sweep Boston College.
The issue against Duke—the reason Notre Dame’s comeback wasn’t enough—is that Tae Davis and Markus Burton had a hard time finishing. That’s it. Each had an uncharacteristically tough game inside the arc (they were a combined 6-for-8 on threes, which salvaged a lot), so Duke’s lead got too large for even the late 15–1 run to be the difference. There’s no counterfactual here—had Burton and Davis seen more shots roll in, Duke might not have let up the way they did—but the point is that outside of some weird misses, Notre Dame played a great offensive game against one of the best defensive teams in the country. That piece is encouraging.
Also encouraging is the emergence of Sir Mohammed. Mohammed played only fourteen minutes, but that’s his highest total since opening night, a sign that both 1) his leg’s fully recovered and 2) Micah Shrewsberry trusts him. He also played well. Mohammed’s presence allowed Notre Dame to stretch the floor more, sliding Tae Davis to the five and taking Kebba Njie off the floor. Njie had a really good first half against NC State, and we retain hope that he could hit his stride against programs like BC. But Davis needs to be on the court as much as possible, and Mohammed allowed that to happen in a way that opened up more space for Burton to make noise off the dribble.
The discouraging parts? It took a 15–1 run to make things anywhere close to competitive in the end. Duke was never in any sort of danger. We got punked on the glass again. Matt Allocco continues to look like he doesn’t know how vulnerable he is defensively.
Aside from Burton, Allocco is our best offensive weapon. He’s an excellent shooter, one we should be getting more shots. (You won’t believe this, but Braeden Shrewsberry, a 38% shooter from deep, has taken almost exactly twice as many threes as the Princeton transfer, a 47% shooter from beyond the arc.) Allocco is a major defensive liability, though, and we’re not hiding him effectively. Meanwhile, J.R. Konieczny—a savvy defender who very much does seem to understand his limitations—burns a hole in the bench for too much of every game.
Micah Shrewsberry knows what he’s doing. These are minor complaints, and the biggest issue facing this program is still just how hard it was to acquire talent until recently (alongside how little talent was there when Shrewsberry showed up). But they’re things to watch for, tonight and beyond.
What to Know About Boston College
Well, they’re 9–7 overall, but a promising start (beat Boise State in the Cayman Islands) came crashing down fast (lost to Dartmouth three days later at home), and they, like us, are 1–4 in ACC play. It’s Earl Grant’s fourth year in Chestnut Hill, and last year’s progress has dissolved as Quinten Post graduated and his supporting cast dissipated to Clemson, Mississippi State, and Vanderbilt. Simply put, Boston College is bad, and we should beat them at home.
The one thing to be wary of is Boston College’s rebounding. We’re not a bad rebounding team, but they’re a good one. That is, again, the one thing to be wary of. If we can’t beat Boston College at home, we can all say those things we said after the twenty-point loss to The Citadel last year.
It’s Ohio State
Pivoting to football:
We’ll play Ohio State.
The Buckeyes beat Texas. They’ll be our opponent next Monday night.
I thoroughly enjoyed the postgame analysis on Friday, the one where every talking head employed by ESPN referred to Ohio State’s loss to Michigan as something equal in embarrassment to that time we lost to NIU. Finally. They get it.
Besides that? We’ll talk more about Ohio State on Friday, but the bottom line is that they’re probably the best team in the country. Thankfully, a lot of signs point to us as the second-best team in the country, and very few signs point to us being anything worse than third, but Ohio State’s better than we are. Nobody is seriously calling us anything but an underdog. The question is one of degree.
Anthonie Knapp is officially out for the national championship, and as of now, it’s unclear whether Rocco Spindler and Beaux Collins will be good to go. Collins is decently straightforward to replace. I like him, but all our wide receivers are kind of interchangeable, at least to a layperson like me. Spindler’s potential absence is concerning. Partly because he’s done a good job, partly because continuity’s a big deal for an offensive line, partly because he thins our depth that much more if someone else goes down, and partly because it’d be really cool if we could put Charles Jagusah at left tackle instead of Tosh Baker. Baker is mostly capable. He should always be a hero for how he held his own against Penn State. But Jack Sawyer is one tough motherfucker to block, and Jagusah’s raw physical power gives us the best chance of either holding our own against Sawyer or getting in that big dumb head of his.
The only other football note for today is that Tom Pelissero got NFL Network some clicks yesterday by mentioning that the Bears would be interested in hiring Marcus Freeman. I have no doubt that the report is accurate—why wouldn’t the Bears be interested in hiring Marcus Freeman, he’s a young, brilliant culture-builder who fits their defense-first identity while still being palatable to Caleb Williams—but there’s no indication that it could actually happen. For one thing, the Bears are cheap, and the Bears are supposedly trying to use whatever money they do spend on a new stadium. Reporting indicates Marcus Freeman has the biggest buyout of any of their prospective candidates. For another, reporting from Pete Sampson, Adam Schefter, and others indicates Freeman is very happy with his current situation. Great work by Jack Swarbrick, Pete Bevacqua, the biggest boosters, and the rest of you for making that the case.
Hannah Hidalgo Hurt?
Hannah Hidalgo, the Player of the Year favorite in a sport which includes Paige Bueckers, missed Notre Dame’s win yesterday at Clemson. This wasn’t an issue for Notre Dame—the Irish held the Tigers at arm’s length the whole afternoon—but it’s concerning going forward. Thankfully, the injury’s billed as a minor ankle problem, and with the ACC what it is (yes, it’s a problem in women’s hoops too), Notre Dame could reasonably be asked to win out until the NCAA Tournament even without our best player. But we would rather Hannah Hidalgo be fully healthy. Especially in the event a genie grants us the option to see her play one drive at quarterback against Ohio State in exchange for one quarter of Riley Leonard dunking on Dawn Staley’s best players in April.
