The Future
February 13, 2008 8:58 pm by Big Willie StyleIn a game that was free flowing, full of offense, and very un-Big East, tonight’s Notre Dame @ UConn game was a preview of the 2009 Final Four. This game was an absolute pleasure to watch, and these are two very good teams. After an impressive win, UConn now has a fairly slick road the rest of the way, and they’ll likely be challenging Georgetown for the Big East lead. The Irish are still fine as well though, and will be playing for the lead of the conference down the stretch run.
And both have pretty much EVERYONE coming back next year (as long as Thabeet stays), and if everyone is back next year, both UConn and ND will both be Top 5 teams nationally in 2009.
4 Responses to “The Future”
A great game, no doubt. UConn is truly on a roll and should now ease their way into a first round bye for the BE tourney.
ND, on the other hand is showing a weakness that surfaced early in the season. The inability to finish a game. Early on, ND led both Baylor and Georgia Tech by double digits with less than 1:30 remaining and lost both games. It looked like the Irish had corrected their late game collapses until this past week. The Irish led Marquette by 12 with 6:22 left and didn’t score a basket for the rest of the game, winning by three due to great free throw shooting. Last night the Irish went 1-19 from the floor over the last 7:45 to lose a lead and the game at UConn. If ND is to challenge for a bye, with the likes of Syracuse, Louisville, and Pitt among the last seven games they must learn to finish when having a lead late in games. Harangody had a monster game which may have boosted him up to POY honors barring a collapse. If that happens….how about A.J. Price for BE POY?
By the way…. the Irish will miss Rob Kurz next year. His absence has been felt during the last two games as he battles the flu and has made only token appearances.
UConn and Notre Dame will be powers next year. But so will several other Big East teams. Louisville has championship potential, only losing Padgett and Palacious. They bring in a top 5 recruiting class and look to Samardo Samuels (#1 ranked Center in HS basketball) to fill in nicely for Padgett and make Louisville’s frontcourt potentially better next year. With Sosa, Mcgee, and Smith coming back along with some good frosh Louisville will be a Final Four contender once again. Syracuse, Pitt, and Nova are all pretty young and could have top 25 squads next year. Im not even mentioning teams like Cincinnati, who are bound to improve
No doubt Tony. Next year’s edition of the Big East will unquestionably be the best it has in years.
The end of this game was very different from other contests where ND has struggled offensively. In a number of games this season, the Irish have had a lot of trouble getting open looks, usually through a combination of stepped up defense from their opponent and ND slowing the game down to try to run clock.
However, in the UConn game, the Irish got a *ton* of open looks in that 1-19 stretch (which was actually an effective 3-19 thanks to made free throws on drawn fouls) — I tracked every possession after reading about the cold stretch before I watched it. McAlarney had two or three open looks from three in circumstances where I’d say he normally makes about half the shots he takes. Luke Zeller got an open look from three. There were several other open shots as well, but they just didn’t fall.
I just don’t think you can draw any conclusions about ND’s ability to finish a game from the game at UConn.
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