Home › Sideline Forums › Notre Dame Football › The 2011 NDFB Season › ND Hoops is on Fire
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| January 29, 2012 at 2:15 pm #10076 | |
 SDI
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I’ve been critical of Mike Brey in the past, and will continue to be critical if his teams continue to collapse in the post season. But right now this team is on a roll. This 3 game winning streak, including two wins on the road, and two wins against very very good teams, is extremely impressive. Atkins, Grant, and Connaughton are light years ahead of where they were in November and Brey deserves some of the credit for that. I think Grant is a future star and Atkins is a great floor general. If the incoming recruiting class is as good as advertised, ND hoops might be in store for some great years ahead with these young players maturing. Man, I hope Brey can figure out how to win in March. |
| January 29, 2012 at 11:34 pm #10080 | |
 OderName
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Abro and Martin both are expected to apply for 6th years (I thnk by that time it will be Dr. Abro), Atkins is maturing into one of the best points in the BE, Grant and Connaughton are showing huge potential, and I am thinking about changing my 2 week old son’s name to Jack Ccoley. This year is a fun ride so far with wins over Pitt and Cuse in the JACC, and at UConn and over UofL in the Bucket, but next year could be another top 10 or top 5 run like last year. Mike Brey is really a godsend and a bastion for Our Lady. |
| February 4, 2012 at 3:10 pm #10122 | |
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SDI
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Now it is getting ridiculous. They just thrashed a team that had won 7 straight and was headed for a top 10 ranking. Connaughton was the man today–kid couldn’t miss. This back court is going to be great the next couple of years. |
| February 6, 2012 at 1:47 pm #10123 | |
 Erik 04
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This team, especially at home, can beat anyone in the country. Unfortunately, this team, especially on the road, can also lose to anyone in the country. We’ll need to fix that side of things in order to have a long run in the tourney, but for the the time being, I’m just going to enjoy beating these highly ranked teams along the way. |
| February 8, 2012 at 11:00 pm #10126 | |
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SDI
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Tonight was maybe their most impressive win. Winning @ WVU, on a night when you don’t play particularly well, is incredibly difficult. Coming into this season, I really doubted that they had anyone on this team with the juevos to take and hit the big shot with the game on the line. I thought that without Hansbrough this squad would lack grit. But tonight, with the game on the line, back to back to back threes by Atkinson, Grant, and Martin to seal the game. Never saw this coming. Grant played pretty poorly tonight by his recent standards, and yet he didn’t hesitate to take that bomb of a 25 footer with their crowd in a frenzy–nothing but net–silence. I’m telling you, that kid is about to arrive. |
| February 9, 2012 at 8:31 am #10127 | |
 kyndfan
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If they keep this up, they’ll get a decent seed in March. What they do from there will be the big question. I think they have the ability to reach the sweet sixteen, possibly further. While Brey is a good coach, I think he needs to make a deep tourney run to validate himself. |
| February 9, 2012 at 11:31 am #10128 | |
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SDI
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Someone else posted on another site that every year they say they aren’t going to follow ND hoops closely. Then as the team gets hot, they get sucked in to believing this is the year for a deep run in the tourney, and then inevitably the Irish collapse in March. I feel the same way. I can’t understand how Brey can consistently do so well in the regular season and then under-perform in the post season. I think part of it might be that the Big East is a bit overrated. The top tier teams are usually good, but the league as a whole maybe isn’t what some people make it out to be so we shouldn’t assume that a solid season in the Big East should equal March success. But it’s hard not to get excited about this team given how young they are (the guards at least) and given the good recruits that are coming in next year. I agree, Brey will never be considered a great coach until his teams make some deep runs in March. And after a decade plus at the helm of this program, I think it’s reasonable for ND fans to expect more from his teams. |
| February 12, 2012 at 1:18 pm #10129 | |
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SDI
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Considering how young this ND team is, and considering how bad they started the season, they are playing with house money from here on out as far as I’m concerned. I am not at all concerned about rankings or tournament seeding and I admit that the Big East is not anywhere near as good as it is most seasons. But having said all of that, I have trouble believing there are 57 teams in the country that are better than ND right now: West Virginia is currently reeling, has a losing conference record (ND is 9-3), and ND beat them at WVU this week, and they are ranked 17 spots higher than the Irish. Someone at ESPN please explain that to me. The same could be said for UConn, and they are 21 spots higher in the poll. ESPN needs to seriously reconsider whatever goofy metrics are factored into their rankings system. |
| February 18, 2012 at 11:54 pm #10149 | |
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OderName
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Awesome win tonight. The first half was so frustrating, not because we were down by as many as 20, but because we weren’t playing ND ball. We wasted way too many possessions trying to beat the other team off the dribble drive. Beating teams with athleticism does not work for this team, and hasn’t since I started paying attention my freshman year in 1996. We weren’t battling for rebounds, weren’t making the extra, extra pass to get the wide open shot, and weren’t simply playing pressure defense, beating the other team with smarts like we have all Big East season. Then in the second half, Brey turned in one of his classic Brey coaching performances. Suddenly we looked like us, and it was a fun second half to watch. After about the first three minutes, I knew we would win. Awesome win for an awesome team and its great coach. |
| February 19, 2012 at 12:28 pm #10150 | |
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SDI
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Great win, props to Brey and the squad. I have to admit that during the first half I was thinking, “well, this has been fun, but I knew they would revert to their old ways–no defense, no rebounding, slow footed..”. I think that the difference was the guard play. As you point out Oder, in the first half Jerrian Grant (and to a lesser extent Atkins) were over-aggressive and trying to drive the ball all the way to the bucket and getting stuck when Villanova collapsed on them. In the second, they played much more disciplined ball, ran the offense, and got much better shots. Their D was much better in the second half also, and rebounding was much better, but it really helped when Villanova cooled off a little bit. Nova was punching way above their weight in the first half and I’m not surprised they couldn’t keep it up in the second. But Atkins and Grant really impressed me last night–again. They just seemed to have that spirit that champions have–they refused to back to down, refused to give in, and they kept pushing and pushing without any real breathers and eventually Nova just collapsed under their pressure and the barrage of 3 balls. This team may not have any sure fire NBA draft picks like some of the teams ND plays, but they have all the components necessary for a good team. Good guard play including some athleticism at that position, good post play, rebounding and defense (mostly from Cooley but also Martin), spot up 3 point shooting (Connaughton, Atkins, Grant, and occassionally Martin), unselfishness, and they hustle on defense even when out-athleted. They are really fun to watch lately. |
| February 24, 2012 at 2:09 pm #10173 | |
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Erik 04
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Completely agree. When they are playing within their scheme, they really are unflappable. Brey deserves COTY just for keeping this team together after the injuries at the beginning of the year. My only concerns come tourney time are depth (as usual) and that we tend to live and die by the 3 pointer. If we’re hitting them we’ll be tough to beat. If we aren’t, then we’ll need some help from the other team. |
| February 27, 2012 at 3:42 pm #10179 | |
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SDI
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Those are legit concerns. I really hope that Brey can get Atkins, Grant, and Martin to focus on their mid range games, because I think that Atkins and Grant have the quickness to penetrate and get good, higher percentage shots, and Martin has some really nice fade away post moves. They can’t allow themselves to fall in love with the 3 ball, because as you point out, you’ll be hosed on cold shooting nights if you don’t have other ways to score–see the St. John’s game for example. |
| March 1, 2012 at 5:56 pm #10183 | |
 Mr. Wednesday
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Trouble is, you still need to be a threat to hit the occasional three ball, or else the defense will sag hard toward the paint and it will get much more difficult to make two-point shots. |
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