Saturday, January 30, 2010

Rutgers 74, Notre Dame 73

No excuses for this one. Rutgers is AWFUL. Harangody showed some terrible leadership with his shot selection and the rest of the team was dominated on the boards and played really poor defense. Give Rutgers credit for winning this one, they deserved it. The only positive aspect of this outcome may be a change in the future of the program. Time will tell.

The most frustrating aspects of this game come down to hustle. While the Irish certainly display really poor fundamentals with regards to boxing out and switching on defense, much of Rutgers' success on the boards and getting to the foul line just came from the fact that they wanted this one more. Don't tell me that Fred Hill is some coaching genius or that Rutgers has a strong talent advantage. This team will be lucky to win more than one or two more Big East games this season. All that mattered last night was that they outworked the Irish for 40 minutes on both ends of the floor.

Tory Jackson played the entire contest before fouling out with 19 seconds remaining. He was one of the four starters to be on the floor for at least 37 minutes. That's an insane distribution of playing time. He performed fairly well, with 11 points and 6 rebounds, but you cannot possibly convince me that a tired Jackson in crunch time is worth avoiding playing a freshman for 5 or 6 minutes in the middle of the contest.

Ben Hansbrough had a very impressive night statistically. 18 points on 6-12 shooting, 5 assists, 5 rebounds, 4 steals. Unfortunately, two of his three-pointers did nothing more than reduce the margin in the final ten seconds. The high number of steals was due to Rutgers' poor decision making and ball handling ability (that's been a real issue for them all year) and Hansbrough's surprising talent for on-the-ball D. His real Achilles heel, however, comes when we need a guy to chase a shooter around get a hand in his face. Hansbrough may force the most turnovers on the team, but he isn't the guy you can call on to lock down someone like Mike Rosario.

A double-double for Abromaitis. He played 39 minutes and earned 4 fouls while going for 17 and 10. Again, I really have to question the intelligence of keeping so many guys in foul trouble on the floor. While most of Jackson's fouls came at the end of the game, Abromaitis picked up two in the first eight minutes of the contest. Most coaches would sit a star player for much of the rest of the half after that, but Mike Brey needlessly risked our number two scorer in an asinine attempt to keep a six man rotation.

Ty Nash had 6 points, 1 rebound, and 4 fouls. He is the biggest reason why Notre Dame was so dominated on the glass. Of course, my biggest beef with this has less to do with Nash's playing time (he only was on the floor for 26 minutes), but who replaced him when he came out of the game. Instead of turning to the second-best rebounder on the team, Coach Brey put in a backup point guard whose rebounding average barely bests Jack Cooley's. Carleton Scott's per-minute rebounding average puts him just below Harangody. Though he is abysmal on offense, he could hardly have performed worse than Peoples last night. Awful coaching by Brey.

If Luke Harangody plays like that for the rest of the year, Notre Dame will be better next season without him. I truly believe that. I like the comparison to Chris Thomas after last night's performance. Brey will never take the big man out for poor shot selection, which just allows him to continue to waste possessions and keep the Irish from performing to their potential as a balanced attack. He had twice as many attempts as any other player for Notre Dame, yet managed just two more points than Abromaitis and one more than Hansbrough. There were plenty of other problems with the Irish last night, but our All-American was a huge reason for why we lost to the worst team in the conference.

Off the bench, Peoples somehow earned 16 minutes. He didn't do much of anything but foul when he got the chance. I didn't catch the postgame quotes, but if there was an honest reason for why Carleton Scott didn't play until the final minute, please let me know. If this was simply an attempt to show Scott we could win without him, Mike Brey should be fired on the spot.

A lot of times, I try to diffuse some criticism after bad losses. It is a long season, but sometimes the team performs so poorly that I cannot disagree with the conclusions of many. Last night was the final straw. Though I like him a lot as a person and believe that he has done a tremendous job in bringing the program out of the mess of the '90s and putting us back on the college basketball landscape, there is no further doubt in my mind about what needs to happen at the end of the year. With any hope of the NCAA tournament gone and one of the best players in program history turning into a shadow of his former self, let me finally say it.

Fire Mike Brey.

23 comments:

Anonymous said...

What a pile of CRAP.....

Bob said...

That's got to be the last straw. Been supportive up until now but there's got to be a change after losing to a team that had been totally demoralized.

Carl Flecker said...

Tell me about it. That was ridiculous.

Anonymous said...

That defines "bad loss". I guess Mike's ploy to show Carleton Scott that they could win without him (against a winless team in the BE) didn't quite work out. To add insult to injury he plays him for 20 seconds at the end. That is right out of the d#*&head coach 101 manual. Thanks Mike. It is obvious that there is no chemistry on this team. Again, bringing in transfers to take minutes from 4 year guys will do that to a team. Somebody please explain to me how we can expect to win a game with Peoples, Hansbrough and Jackson in the game at the same time. There are many high school teams with bigger lineups than that. Let me tell you what I see on this team - guys playing for stats, and not just Harangody. I'm not going to name names but if you know the game you can see it. I saw an ND guy fight his own teammate tonight for an uncontested open floor rebound. Plays like that should, but are obviously not, be addressed by the coaching staff. The substitution patterns are beyond moronic - what else is there to be said about that? I feel bad for Luke and Tory - they deserved better for their Senior year.

Michael said...

Year in and year out, Mike Brey continuously talks about “getting his team ready for the brutal 'Big East Marathon' ”. Well here's how he prepared his team this year with his out of conference schedule.

Notre Dame??? NO A SINGLE ROAD GAME... and North Florida (RPI...224) Saint Francis PA (RPI...323) Long Beach State (RPI...118) Liberty (RPI...243) Kennesaw State (RPI...268) Northwestern (RPI...63) Saint Louis (RPI...132 ) Idaho State (RPI ...253) UCF (RPI...156) IUPUI (RPI...88) Loyola Marymount (RPI... 218) UCLA (RPI...143)
Bucknell (RPI...293)

Now look at these Big East team OOC's.

Georgetown OOC schedule played road games @ Tulane & @ Savannah State. Played Temple, Butler and Washington...oh yeah and Duke today.

Syracuse OOC schedule played @ CAL and @ Florida. Throw in North Carolina and Memphis.

Villanove OOC .. G.Mason, Dayton and Ole Miss in the Puerto Rico Classic and then @ St. Joe's and @ Temple (road games although close to home).

UCONN OOC ... LSU & Duke in NIT Semi's, Kentucky and @ Michigan.

Louisville OOC...Arkansas, @ UNLV, Kentucky, W. Kentucky, W. Carolina, Charlotte (all strong to decent RPI)

Pitt OOC ... Texas & Indiana, Eastern KY (RPI 153)

West Virginia OOC... Texas A & M, Charleston, @ Cleveland State, @ Purdue, Ole Miss, Ohio State, Marshall.

The out of conference schedule comparisons speak for themselves. The leaders of the Big East prepare themselves for the Big East and help their tournament resumes along the way. Mike Brey thinks he has this “magic formula” to get his team to the dance...pad your OOC with 12-14 non-quality wins and then go 9-9 in the Big East. Well he's missing some ingredients in this flawed formula and will no less visit the NIT once again. He is a joke!!! By the way, Rutger's RPI is 148.

Stop drinking the cool-aid hoops fans. Notre Dame and Mike Brey are frauds.

Anonymous said...

Hey Jack S., people aren't buying what your selling with the Men's hoops program. How come Muffett can get it done, year in and year out? Stop with the excuses. We all know that college sports is a bottom line business - no more so than at ND. In my business performance like that is dealt with by changing the leadership. Please don't defend it Jack because you know it is broken.

Anonymous said...

Memo to Mike - They moved the 3 point line back - you will no longer get 3 poiunts for routine jump shots.

Mike B. - Please hold, I'm on the phone with SC Upstate trying to schedule a game for next year, Brown Mackie is already booked.

Craig said...

Michael, you might want to give some thought to who really bears the blame for our out-of-conference schedule. How much of a budget is Brey being given to bring in better opponents? How many home games is he being told he has to play? I'm not going to completely absolve him of blame, but I think a lot of the responsibility lies higher up the organizational chart.

Anonymous said...

So far I have seen no mention of why Scott did not play. The question begs to be answered, however, their is no rational answer. If I was Swarbrick I would have Brey in my office at 8:00 a.m. tomorrow asking that question. The decision to not go with Scott when Nash picked up his 4th is one of the worst coaching decisions I have ever seen in 50 years of watching basketball. Also, getting beat down the court after a made shot is inexcusable and it happened multiple times. Huggins, Pitino, Calhoun and Boeheim would have put 5 subs in at that point. That is simply desire and the boys showed only a desire to get back to South Bend and end another disappointing season last night.

David said...

Well written.

I am no fan of Carlton Scott, but at least he has height. Brey must've been trying to send some sort of message.

Just a horrible, horrible loss.

Anyone else excited for our home game in the first-round of the NIT?

Fire Brey.

Fred Benson said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Fred Benson said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

I am done with this team for the rest of the year. The absolute apathy by the administration at ND is clearly showing. They don't care who they play, they don't care who coaches the team, they don't give a shit about the results. It's like the Macloud era all over again. Clearly Brey is not an effective coach. Carleton Scott rebounds and sits on the bench, Ty Nash fouls and can't grab rebounds if they fall in his lap and he starts. He's got Luke firing up 15 foot fade-away jumpers. He benches Abromitis and the most insane times. I don't know why Scott Martin came here, I don't know why anyone would want to play for a school that clearly doesn't care about the team.

Fred Benson said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Fred Benson said...

This was embarrassing losing to a winless RU squad. I remember the Irish were knocked out of the 1st round by Winthrop, a school out of the anemic Big South Conference back in '07, and in 2003, the Irish lost in the final seconds to Central Michigan, which were the other embarrassing losses in the Mike Brey era. The only embarrassment Digger ever had was in '84 or '85 when Arkansas-Little Rock shocked the Irish in the first round of the NCAAs. Saturday was an embarrassment, but I think for 'Gody it was a rare bad day, Luke will still be a 1st rounder/lottery pick in the '10 NBA draft. Let's focus on the future, we can beat Cincy and USF at Purcell this week, but we still have UConn, U of L, the Hoyas and 'Quette on the horizon, and Pitt is on the schedule, but they're not the Panther team that made the elite 8 last year. If the Fighting Irish win at least 20 games and reach the Big East semis, Saturday's loss to the Knights will sting, but will put the FIGHTING back in Fighting Irish.
Thoughts, anyone?

Fred Benson said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

I'm fairly certain that Digger wasn't thrilled losing to Lafayette by 15 in '88. Otis Ellis dropped 35 on them that night.......

Brendan O'Brien said...

It is painfully obvious to anyone watching that the NBA scouts told Harangody last summer, "Look, you're 6'7' and you're not going to be able to guard Dwight Howard on the block. You NEED to develop an outside shot." We're all taken aback because it never seemed like Harangody was the kind of player selfish enough to compromise a team's entire season just to improve his draft stock from late second round to middle second round. Apparently, we were wrong. The onus for this, of course, falls on Brey just as much as it does Gody. Unfortunately, even taking 10 ill-advised turn around jump shots per game he is still the team's best player.

biggreen23 said...

The weak pre-conference schedule (I think Pomeroy was around 300), continued short rotation and lack of trust for any young guys while underachieving at bringing top 100 guys who can contribute right away have doomed the program.

The Caleton Scott situation has become a simple "who's in charge phenomenon" attempting to show Carelton and his family that Coach will not be criticized about his sub patterns. This is remarkable when the BE athletes are consistently beating ND to loose balls and rebounds--the effort factor which Carleton can address with his fresh body.

But we must not let appearances get in the way of anything resembling a proper rotation. When the young guys were getting table scraps during the non-conference schedule, you knew this was shaping up to be another wasted year on the strength of some pretty exhausted players averaging over 33 minutes a game.

Ahh but we forget the need to let Chris Thomas play the entire 5OT game against Georgetown without subbing because ND won.

I've been predicting a 6-12 year because of these obvious factors, but the Irish Nation apologists continue to take coach's bromide about this great "senior leadership" and "love of sharing the basketball".

Can you really believe Gody came back for this nonsense?

Anonymous said...

I agree with Brendan that 'gody is giving up on the team for a better shot at the league. Brey is just standing around letting him fade away and flick the ball up there rather than pounding down low, getting fouls, and making lay ups. ND could easily have 3 to 4 more wins if Luke would play to his strenghts, instead he is trying to show he can play outside to improve his draft stock. Here's a prediction: You're a second round player. You will never make it in the NBA. I'm sorry you have to hear that. Now GO DOWN LOW, SCORE POINTS, AND STOP FLOPPING LIKE MANU GINOBLI!!!!!!!!

Anonymous said...

Coach Brey has more problems than the basketball team.

1-800-callTiger

Fred Benson said...

Let's forget about Saturday, and let's give USF and Cincy old-school beatdowns this week. GO IRISH!

Craig said...

The Winthrop loss was unfortunate, but it sure as hell wasn't embarassing or even shocking. Winthrop was considered by most observers to be underseeded that season, easily the toughest of the 11-seeds, and in consequence, ND was a popular upset pick.