It was the biggest Notre Dame basketball game in years, the JACC’s first matchup of top 10 teams since 2003 (and before that 1980), so big that Dick Vitale was assigned to the game.
“That lived up to the hype, didn’t it,” Notre Dame Head Coach Mike Brey said as he walked into the press room after his Fighting Irish defeated Duke 77-73 last Wednesday.
Indeed, it was a big win for Notre Dame, a statement that the Irish are a contender for the ACC title and a contender for a high seed in the NCAA Tournament. Those are lofty aspirations for a team that was 6-12 in the conference a year ago. It was a big game… unless your interests lied with Duke.
“We do this every game. For 25 years. They’re always prepared for it,” Duke Head Coach Mike Krzyzewski responded to my query about preparing his team for big games. “Our guys weren’t afraid to play here. We would rather play where people are interested in seeing us play. They’ve been really interested in us playing for about 25 years.”
That response struck me as arrogance at the time; but with a few days to consider it, K’s answer reflected well earned arrogance. Regardless of tone, it stood in stark contrast to Brey’s answer to the same question.
“I’ve talked about game situations we’ve done where we have a tie score, down 1, up 3,” Brey said “The game situation we did yesterday… I put 20 minutes on the clock and started with a center jump; and we played until about 14:00 on the clock.”
Brey wanted to rehearse his team’s initial reaction to the moment whereas the only significance for Krzyzewski was that big game atmosphere is “good for the ACC” and “good for Mike (Brey),” but otherwise it was just another game for Duke.
The Right Attitude
There’s a fine line that goes with such arrogance. It’s healthy when an opposing coach can say, as Brey did, “Duke was loose tonight. We were uptight at times because the moment was big.” It’s unhealthy when a team decides it only has to show up to win as Notre Dame learned on Saturday at Pitt and as Duke has learned with recent NCAA tournament losses to Lehigh (2012) and Mercer (2014).
Every coach has an emphasis he considers the key to success in big games. It’s adaptability For Michigan State’s Tom Izzo. Lou Holtz used to say that nervousness is what happens when a team is not prepared. Izzo wants his team to be prepared for any style or tempo it sees.
“Over the years, I think one of the successes we have had as a program is we could play racehorse or smashmouth,” he told Bob Wojonowski of the Detroit News last March.
Florida’s Billy Donovan has a different emphasis. He likes to cite the themes in Spencer Johnson’s book The Precious Present, most notably the concept of being in the moment. Donovan doesn’t want his team to dwell on what has happened, good or bad, in a season, a week, or even the last few minutes of game time.”Right now” is his catchphrase.
“He says that almost every day, in practice and games,” Gators center Vernon Macklin told Rachel George of the Orlando Sentinel in March, 2011 as Florida prepared for its run to the round of 8 in the NCAA Tournament. “And it’s the truth,” he continued. “We gotta live in the moment. We can’t think about the past, can’t live in the future.”
During a game, Donovan admonishes his team to focus on execution, to focus on the play it’s running now, not the one that failed or succeeded a few minutes ago; and that’s akin to Brey’s message when his team is behind.
“We need a couple of stops now,” Brey told his team when it fell behind Duke by 10 points. “I need three stops. We call that a kill. Let’s see if we can get a kill. If we can get a kill, this thing is going to get interesting. And we did.”
The missed shots, turnovers, and defensive lapses that led to Duke’s lead didn’t matter, nor did the ultimate outcome. The moment was about getting a kill and making the game “interesting.”
So let us review the how the 2014-15 Fighting Irish fare in the three keys to success in big games highlighted above:
- Be in the moment – check
- Adaptability to different kinds of games – check
- Reaction to hype – TBD
Ask me for an update in late March.
Slump Buster
ACC bottom feeder will be in South Bend for a 7:00 game tonight. The Eagles are 1-7 in conference games.
Notre Dame needs to regroup after its surprising loss at Pittsburgh on Saturday, especially on defense. Brey spoke about the need to focus on improving defense throughout the month of February during his weekly press conference on Tuesday.
“There are some things we can do better and be more committed to,” Brey said when asked about defense. He went on to note shortcomings both in execution and effort.
Boston College is a good team to play if you want to rededicate to fundamentals. It is scoring just 59.4 points per game, 14th out of 15 ACC teams. The Eagles have made a shade under 40% of their shots from the field, about 7.5 percentage points less than Notre Dame’s make rate. If the Irish have, as promised, focused on defense since the Pitt game and can’t stop BC, their fans will have every right to be concerned.
Not in on Their Own Joke
Notre Dame students have resurrected the old routine of reading the newspaper during opponent introductions. The gag is that they are ignoring the other team which isn’t worth the energy it takes to jeer.
One small problem. The students yell “sucks” after each opponent’s starter is introduced.
Don’t they teach about mixed metaphors in freshman Comp and Lit anymore?
Welcome Back
Speaking of the students, Alex Dragicevich was roundly booed when he returned to Purcell Pavillion in 2014 after transferring to Boston College. Please don’t do that again.
Alex was a hard worker and a good teammate when he was at Notre Dame. I found him to be polite, engaging, and thoughtful during postgame interviews when he was here. A nice cheer the first time he is announced would be great. Then we can honor him with the same disdain we have for every other opponent.