Notre Dame Hoops Aiming High In \’12-13
By DOUG GRIFFITHS
ISL Correspondent
Notre Dame coach Mike Brey has high hopes for his 13th Fighting Irish men’s basketball team and they’re warranted.
Coming off a 22-12 2011-12 season, which included a third-place finish in the mighty Big East with a 13-5 record, the Irish return all five starters and enter this season ranked 22nd in the Associated Press poll and one spot lower in the USA Today Coaches poll.
Those preseason rankings come on the heels of the Irish advancing to the second round of the 2012 NCAA Tournament after getting to the quarterfinals of the Big East Tournament.
This season the Irish are aiming higher and would like nothing better than to get to at least the Sweet Sixteen of the Big Dance for just the second time since 1987.
Brey is embracing those expectations. So much so, in fact, that he’s put the phrase, Work to deliver, up in his team’s locker room.
Work to deliver on those expectations, but those expectations are our expectations, said Brey, the third-winningest coach in program history with a 260-132 record. He’ll have plenty of opportunity to add to his win total as this past summer, Brey agreed to a new 10-year contract extension that will take him through June 30, 2022.
We’re honored by some of the things people say about us.
Senior guard Scott Martin, who transferred from Purdue after his freshman season, added, I don’t think we worried too much about outside expectations last year or the years before, and I don’t think we’re worried too much about outside expectations again. I think we know what we are capable of and what kind of talent we have.
We want to come out and play our best basketball right away, but then keep improving. I think improving is going to be key for us, and trying to get better everyday.
Brey, the 2011-12 Big East Coach-of-the-Year and Jim Phelan National Coach-of-the-Year, has guided Notre Dame to eight NCAA Tournament appearances and another trip to the Big Dance come March looks like a certainty.
But Brey and his Irish won’t just be satisfied with making the NCAA Tournament. They want to build on last year’s post-season experience and advance further this time around.
When we came back from the Xavier loss, we talked about chasing a regular-season championship in the Big East, said Brey, whose team fell to Xavier in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.
I think it’s very key for me and our leaders to keep talking about our expectations, and that starts with trying to chase down a regular season (Big East) title.
With the draw we have in league play that’s going to be a challenge, Brey added. We play Louisville twice, Cincinnati twice, St. John’s twice along with our other road games. But we’ve been pretty darn close to that and we’ve been in the mix before, so it’s a realistic thing that we talked about in the spring and summer.
As Brey pointed out, the Irish schedule is brutal.
The nonconference schedule is filled with challenges.
Defending national champion Kentucky, ranked third in the preseason, visits Purcell Pavilion Nov. 29.
A Nov. 17 date with No. 25 Florida State could material, too, in the CVC Classic championship game in Brooklyn, N.Y.
The Irish also play Matt Painter’s young Purdue Boilermaker squad in the Crossroads Classic Dec. 15 in Indianapolis, a game that both teams’ fan bases have been eagerly anticipating. It will mark the first regular-season men’s basketball game between Notre Dame and Purdue since 1966.
And the Big East season will be grueling per usual.
Rick Pitino’s Louisville Cardinals are ranked second nationally, while Cincinnati is 24th. The Irish will also face No. 9 Syracuse once this season in the Carrier Dome.
Notre Dame, however, appears to have the talent to handle such a demanding slate.
Forward Jack Cooley returns for his senior season after leading the Irish in scoring, averaging 12.5 points and a team-high 8.9 rebounds per game a year ago.
The 6-foot-9, 244-pound Cooley, who reminds many of former Irish standout Luke Harangody, was a second-team All-Big East selection last season. Cooley was named the Big East’s Most Improved Player as a junior after hitting a conference-best 62.5 percent of his shots. Needless to say, he’s a handful in the paint.
I’m really pleased with the way Jack has evolved as a leader, Brey said. He’s become a big voice in our locker room. It’s something I would not have expected a couple years ago, but like our players, I have a great deal of respect for Jack and how he has really taken ownership of this team.
Like Cooley, Martin has plenty of experience.
At 6-8, the Valparaiso guard is a matchup problem for the opposition. Martin, who has started all 66 games he has played in for the Irish, was a granted a sixth year of eligibility by the NCAA after averaging 9.5 points and 5.7 rebounds per game in 2011-12.
Martin, who has career highs of 23 points and 13 rebounds in an Irish uniform, is nominated for the 2012-13 Senior CLASS Award, which strives to honor the attributes of senior student-athletes in four areas: community, classroom, character and competition. He has already graduated from Notre Dame and is enrolled in graduate school.
Scott’s the ˜glue’ that holds us together and his maturity and leadership both on and off the court keyed our success last year with such a young team, Brey said.
Martin, along with Cooley and Eric Atkins, are Notre Dame’s captains this season.
Atkins, a junior, will run the point again for the Irish.
A year ago, he handed out 4.1 assists per game to go along with scoring 12.1 points per outing and led the Irish in minutes played at 37.9.
The other double-figure scorer back is junior guard Jerian Grant. He averaged 12.3 points and a team-high 5.0 assists.
Atkins and Grant can both run the point for Brey, giving the coach some nice flexibility in the backcourt.
I’m 100 percent Jerian can handle the point if I’m out or even if he (Brey) moves me to the two, Atkins said. Bringing up the ball is the easiest thing with someone in front of you. It is tiring doing it every single play.
Grant said, I like having the ball in my hands and being able to make plays for myself and for others so I feel like for me the more I have the ball in my hands, the more I can get done.
The Irish boss wants his guards to be more consistent and more confident than they were a year ago.
I’ve said before, our young guards played older than they were in the regular season, but in the post-season they kind of played their age again, Brey admitted.
I think both of them (Atkins and Grant) have a little chip on their shoulder to want to get off to a good start because they weren’t happy with the post-season.
The final starter back is sophomore guard/forward Pat Connaughton. He started 18 games as a rookie and his a threat from three-point range, plus is a very good rebounder for a guard (4.4 boards per game).
Newcomers Garrick Sherman and freshman Cameron Biedscheid are expected to make Notre Dame even better this season.
Sherman’s 6-10, 240-pound frame will be a welcomed addition as will 6-7 Biedscheid, the Missouri high school player-of-the-year last season.
Sherman sat out last season after transferring from Michigan State. The junior started 29 games for Tom Izzo’s Spartans.
Brey believes Sherman benefited greatly from facing Cooley after day in practice last season.
Garrick is hard to defend, said Brey, who is referring to Sherman as a sixth starter.
Although exhibition games aren’t always a great barometer of how a player’s season is going to go, it was a good sign for Irish fans to see Biedscheid showcase his ability to score.
In Notre Dame’s two exhibition victories, Biedscheid averaged 11.5 points per game.
It’s the aforementioned seven – Cooley, Atkins, Connaughton, Martin, Grant, Sherman and Biedscheid – that Brey seems comfortable playing right now.
Those are our seven, said Brey after his team’s 70-56 win over Cardinal Stritch, an NAIA Division II team, who gave the Irish about all they could handle Nov. 2.
Brey is hopeful at least those seven can score more and shoot the basketball at a better clip
Last season the Irish ranked 14th our of 16 Big East teams in scoring offense, averaging 66.4 points per game. They knocked down 43.4 percent of their shots, including 33.2 from three-point range (both stats ranked 10th in the league).
This is a team that excelled at assist to turnover ratio, leading the Big East in that department with a 1.5 ratio (497 assists compared to 342 turnovers).
As the season moved along, the Irish became a good defensive team. They finished second in the Big East in scoring defense, allowing a mere 59.2 points per game in the 18 league games.
One area that is almost certain to improve is rebounding.
With eight players 6-foot-8 or taller on the roster, including six 6-9 or taller, Notre Dame should dominate the glass.
Our team is gigantic, Cooley said. I look around and we could have four people above 6-8 on the court. It’s a big team. We’re going to control the boards. It’s going to be a lot easier for me to have more help out there this year.
And don’t be surprised to see Brey play Cooley and Sherman along with three guards at the same time.
Sherman likes the idea of being on the court with Cooley.
I believe that will work to our advantage, Sherman said. Coach Brey is a master at managing his players. I feel comfortable with whoever I am on the floor with. The players on this team are not hard people to play with. Everybody is pretty versatile and everyone knows each other’s strength.
This could be Brey’s best team yet, which is saying a lot.
Last year the Irish were a surprise. They started the season 8-5 following the nonconference season and were just 3-3 after six Big East game. But the Irish got hot, winning nine straight league games en route to 13 conference victories total (the second-most regular-season league wins in program history).
This year the Irish, who are 49-19 overall, 27-9 in Big East play over the past two seasons, won’t sneak up on anyone. They’re picked to finish third in the Big East preseason coaches’ poll.
The Irish officially begin what they hope is a special season at 2 p.m. Saturday when they host Evansville, a team that is expected to finish in the middle of the pack in the 10-team Missouri Valley Conference.
