2014-15 Notre Dame Fighting Irish Men’s Basketball. Photos/Evan J. Thomas
[dropcap]I[/dropcap]t’s November, meaning the college basketball season is about to be in full force. And for the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, a return to their old ways is what the team is hopeful for.
“I think we’ve gotten through talking about last year,” Brey said during the team’s media day earlier in the month. “I think it’s a nice chip on our shoulder, for all of us to come back and come off the mat. We’ve been put in that position before in my tenure here.”
Last year, the Irish finished with an overall record of 15-17, finishing their first season in the ACC with a 6-12 record. Notre Dame ended their season with a 81-69 loss to Wake Forest in the first round of the ACC Tournament. The season was seen as a disappointment with not only a losing record but the Irish failed to make an NCAA tournament appearance.
“We look and we say, lets fight back into the mix of an NCAA bid,” Brey said. “The one thing that we’ve created around here, which I’m proud of, is that when we don’t get an NCAA bid, we’re really disappointed. I love that that’s kind of been what we’ve created, so that’s never really changed for us.”
Saturday, Notre Dame hosted Minnesota Duluth in the first of two exhibition games at Purcell Pavilion before the regular season is set to begin Nov. 14 against Binghamton. The Irish won the exhibition, 88-71.
In the win, Notre Dame seemed to be firing on all cylinders with four players putting up double-digit figures in scoring in Zach Auguste, Demetrius Jackson, Jerian Grant and Pat Connaughton while also hitting more than half of it’s field goal attempts.
Notre Dame head coach Mike Brey during the men’s basketball media day in October.
“Demetrius could not wait to get the ball in his hands, and he has a great feel for this system,” Brey said following the contest. “I did not know he had that in him because he wasn’t at the throttle last year.”
Jackson was 6-for-10 in field goal attempts while also sinking 6-of-7 trips to the line. He secured 2-of-3 3-pointers shot in the contest to lead the Irish in scoring on the day with 20 points.
Auguste was 8-for-10 shooting with 3-of-9 free throws made for 19 points while Grant was 4-of-10 in attempts with one successful three made on four attempts. He was also 3-of-5 from the line for 12 points on the day. Finally, Connaughton was 6-for-11 on field goal attempts and shot 50-percent from beyond the arc (3-for-6) for 15 points.
The four contributed for 66 of the 88 points the Irish scored in the contest. If this trend can continue, the Irish could see big leads throughout the season.
“We’ve got a lot of pieces,” Brey said. “One of the things that would encourage me the whole off season was Grant and [Connaughton] are two of the better players, maybe two of the 10 best or 12 best returning players in the ACC. That’s a great place to start.”
Brey mentioned in October that the team would need to find its identity in order to succeed with a tough ACC and non-conference schedule. Saturday proved that they are on their way.
“When I look at the league, Carolina, Duke, Virginia, Louisville. I think those guys are locks,” Brey said. “Right now on paper they’re locks. And then you get past those four there’s a lot of people floating around in that next level trying to figure it out. I think we’re one.”
Notre Dame will enter the season ranked seventh in the ACC Preseason Poll, lost in the middle of the pack. Duke is ranked first with North Carolina, Louisville and Virginia rounding out the top four spots in the conference.
Brey wants to not just Notre Dame back into the NCAA tournament mix, but thinks that the ACC can get a high number of bids.
” I believe we’ll get to that and we’ll be right there at it again this year,” Brey said. “That was one of the saving graces coaching in the Big East. It’s tough but we were getting 8, 9 bids. You could look in the off season and go, ‘wait a minute, if I get through the top eight I’m in. Alright, I can work with that, that’s a realistic shot.’ If this league continues to get 5 or 6 bids it’s not good for coaches. I’ll be back at the Mac teaching history.”
Notre Dame has a realistic shot of nearly winning out in non-conference play. The season begins for the Irish with a trio of home games between Nov. 14 and 19, with Navy on Nov. 17 being the first possible challenge.
The Irish will face the likes of Purdue, Northern Illinois, Chicago State and Providence in the first half of their season. Florida State will be Notre Dame’s first conference test Dec. 13, a full three weeks before ACC begins regularly for Notre Dame. In the first half of the season, the Irish will also face a perennial favorite in Michigan State on Dec. 3 at Purcell.
“When you’re coming off a year like us, the exhibition has my attention,” Brey said in October about the schedule. “When we play UMass and Providence on the road — and they’re NCAA tournament teams last year — that’s going to be a heck of a barometer for us. Michigan St. and Florida St. here before Christmas. This group could get some things under their belt that could really make them feel goodabout themselves and start to create a resume.”
Brey continued, saying that Notre Dame didn’t have that resume last year. He mentioned that there have been other years that the team didn’t have that resume either and still got a bid, but that was because it was done through the league.
“We’d like to get back to holding serve [at home],” Brey said. “We had an unbelievable run for seven years. I told one of the national writers yesterday, before last year, during [that] seven-year stretch, the best home winning percentage was Kansas. The second best was us. So we’ve got to get back to holding serve here, because it’s hard to win on the road in this league.”
Notre Dame will finish exhibition play Friday against Lewis at 7 p.m. at Purcell Pavilion.
