Happy New Year, and Happy Sugar Bowl Day. We will talk about it below. First, the Markus Burton-less Fighting Irish lost to Georgia Tech yesterday, and it was ugly. Let’s take stock.
The problem was defense.
Notre Dame scored the ball just fine, especially in the second half. Braeden Shrewsberry turned in a good shooting performance, at least outside the arc. Tae Davis matched his career high, pouring in 27 and spending a lot of time on the free throw line. Matt Allocco had a nice stretch highlighted by a dunk (!) and a three when Notre Dame cut the Yellow Jackets’ lead to single digits late. Notre Dame scored the ball just fine.
Georgia Tech had no problems scoring against the Irish.
Georgia Tech, who had yet to crack 70 against power conference competition, dropped 86 on our guys. And this was not a fast-paced game.
I’m not sure we’ve appreciated Markus Burton’s defense. Our fear, when he went down, was that Notre Dame wouldn’t have a capable man to run point. That hasn’t been the issue as much as Notre Dame missing Burton’s ability to slow down opposing point guards, disrupting offenses at the point of attack. Javian McCollum carved up Micah Shrewsberry’s unit yesterday. There are better point guards in the ACC than Javian McCollum.
Part of what makes this such a nut shot is that defense kept Notre Dame in a lot of games last year. Last year, the shot-making was terrible but the defense managed to keep teams like Wake Forest, Virginia, and Clemson in line. Of the conference wins, only one came with the opponent scoring more than a point per possession, and in that one, Virginia Tech scored 66 points on 65 trips up the floor. Hardly a defensive breakdown from the victors. This year? Javian McCollum carved us up yesterday. Against Georgia last month, Asa Newell took it to our big men. Elon torched us, and that was with Burton still fully healthy. Burton’s absence makes it worse, but the problem was there before Burton. The only thing Notre Dame appears to be doing better this year, statistically, is defending the three. That is a stat which needs a larger sample than most to be predictive.
From a personnel standpoint, an argument could be made that this has to do with Julian Roper’s decreased role and Carey Booth’s departure for Illinois. Allocco is Notre Dame’s best offensive weapon, and Braeden Shrewsberry is productive enough to justify his minutes. Both of those players, though, are defensive kryptonite, which puts a lot of pressure on the big men. Schematically, it’s harder to parse what might be going on, which might point back towards personnel as the answer. Burton’s eventual return will help, but Notre Dame does and will miss Booth at that end of the floor.
I’d imagine we’ll publish one of these again tomorrow or Friday, following the Sugar Bowl but ahead of Saturday’s UNC game, so we’ll deal with that matchup then, as well as the women’s team’s great big game on Sunday, also against the Tar Heels. I’m hoping we get at least some sort of update on Burton on Saturday. With him, Notre Dame was a potential bubble team. Without him, Notre Dame’s struggling to hang onto the NIT bubble. That’s not the worst second year for Micah Shrewsberry, given how bare the cupboards were, but if it slips further, we’re admittedly getting into disappointing territory.
Is Notre Dame Better Than the SEC’s Best?
It’s possible this year to be better than the SEC’s best without being the best team in the country. That’s what Movelor, our model’s power rating system, says is true of all three remaining Big Ten teams, plus Notre Dame. Joe Stunardi wrote more about this yesterday—how it might be right, why it might be wrong—and also broke down the Notre Dame–Georgia matchup in more detail than I’ll offer, at least on the football side. Sticking to the higher level, this is what tonight’s game means. This is not the national championship. This is Notre Dame’s SEC Championship. Either Notre Dame is better than the entire Southeastern Conference, or Notre Dame isn’t.
Texas is a complicating factor. It’s possible Notre Dame could win tonight and not, in fact, be better than the entire SEC. Given how many things must happen for Notre Dame to even meet Texas, though, there’s little risk of calling this the wrong thing. From everything we know, this is Notre Dame vs. the SEC’s best. Is Notre Dame better than that best SEC team?
The fact we’re at a point to seriously ask this question is half a breakthrough in itself, given what we’ve seen over the last 25 years of college football. Notre Dame needs no reminder of what happened against Alabama twelve years ago, and again against Alabama four years ago. We did hang with Georgia twice, in games between those Alabama playoff bookends, but the 2017 and 2019 Georgia teams didn’t win the national championship. Those Georgia teams were not the SEC’s best. Those Alabama teams were. If Notre Dame is to retain credibility in college football’s medium-term future, the SEC’s best is who we need to at least occasionally beat.
Notre Dame is, as of this morning, waffling between status as a one-point favorite and a one-point underdog in a game on SEC FieldTurf against the SEC champion. That, again, is half a breakthrough in itself. We’re a less talented team than these guys, smaller, weaker, slower and—crucially, with Rylie Mills joining Benjamin Morrison and others on the injured list—not nearly as deep across the board. The fact we’re expected to play at Georgia’s level speaks to the ingenuity of Notre Dame’s long-term approach, one which has addressed the school’s recent recruiting disadvantages by investing in assistant coaches. It’s a market inefficiency, or at least we’re hoping it’s one. Mike Mickens is worth more than Deuce Knight. He’s probably worth more than Bryce Underwood.
Based on players alone, Georgia should be a lot better than we are. Maybe both teams will take the field tonight and we’ll find out that this is, unfortunately, the case. If they aren’t, though, if the most accurate prediction vehicles available turn out to be right, it’ll be a triumph for Notre Dame’s staff, one that’s taken limited bodies and maximized potential while programs like Georgia struggle to turn first round draft picks into the lethal whole they should be. That, ultimately, is what this game is about. It’s talent vs. culture. It’s athleticism vs. preparation. It’s pure football force against some of the best minds in the sport. We’ve closed the talent gap since 2012, but not as much as a lot of talking heads will say. You can only create so much speed and size and strength. What Notre Dame’s done instead is harness those resources more efficiently than perhaps any other team in the nation this year. We’ll find out if it’s enough.
