Four thoughts while watching from the couch as Notre Dame men’s basketball opened a three-game Atlantic Coast Conference road swing Wednesday in a place it has never won, and still hasn’t following Virginia’s 65-53 victory at John Paul Jones Arena:
There was fight in the Irish, just not enough
No way Notre Dame (7-14; 2-8 ACC) was sneaking up on Virginia, sneaking into JPJ and sneaking out with a how-the-heck-did-that-happen-again league win. Not after it dominated Virginia in ways that Virginia has rarely been dominated when the teams met in South Bend in late December.
Hand up if you were too busy basking in the afterglow of a Sun Bowl football win the day before to notice Notre Dame’s best basketball win to date. It’s OK. It happened.
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Tony Bennett was going to have the Cavaliers ready for this one. It would take an A++ effort from Notre Dame to sweep the series. The Irish are still too young, still too inexperienced, still too everything to deliver that kind of effort in that kind of environment.
A B-/C+/C- effort won’t get it done. It didn’t.
Notre Dame battled. Notre Dame fought. The Irish just aren’t good enough to get a game like Wednesday, get a game like a lot of them in this streak of five straight losses and seven of nine. The first time these teams met, the Irish led for a staggering 39:25 and by as many as 28 points. On Wednesday, the Irish never led, trailed for the final 33:55 and by as many as 15. They got within eight twice in the final 10-plus minutes.
Getting that close against that team is about as good as it’s going to get for these Irish. That they didn’t get blown out/embarrassed gets lost in another league loss, but it also says something about where this is all headed for the Irish.
They’re on the right track.
“We’re going to keep competing,” said coach Micah Shrewsberry. “That’s the only thing I’ve got in my DNA. Right now, we’re going to find out who else is going to compete that same exact manner. These dudes are starting to show me.”
Notre Dame doesn’t have a Jacob Groves
Imagine the luxury of leaning on a veteran reserve big man who can come in and dial it in from distance, give you buckets in a hurry and blow up the scouting report. What would Shrewsberry do with a guy like that in his rotation? His head might explode.
Virginia backup big Jacob Groves (6.8 ppg.) attempted eight shots from 3. He made six. He scored 18 points − more than any Irish scored. He gave the Cavaliers some serious offensive life — and some breathing room — by hitting 3-pointer after 3-pointer in the first half. Virginia isn’t that good on offense, but when the big man is doing what the big man did, it opens up everything for everybody.
“He just got free,” Shrewsberry said. “Once you hit one, you start feeling good. Once you let a guy get in a rhythm, it makes it really tough.”
When the big man eats, everybody eats. For Notre Dame, too many guys (bigs, guards) go hungry.
Imagine how much smoother Notre Dame’s still clunky offense would look with someone like Groves in the rotation. Note to the Irish staff — go get a guy like that. Or go grow a guy like that. Having someone like Groves do what he did can make a massive difference. It did Wednesday.
Turnovers are still soul-crushing
Taking care of the basketball continues to be a migraine-sized issue for the Irish, who came into the contest ranked 298th in the nation in turnovers per game at 13.5. The Irish had windows of opportunity to do something Wednesday but were again too loose with the basketball. In the open court. In the halfcourt. Heck, even coming back from timeouts, Notre Dame turned it over, turned it over, turned it over.
These are habits that have been hard to break. Until they do, this is what we get. Turnovers.
“It may not seem like it, but I thought we executed a lot better than we have,” Shrewsberry said. “It is Virginia. They do that to people. They just squeeze the life out of you defensively and make it really hard for you.”
We’ve seen Virginia be really good defensively. This is not that. This is more Notre Dame being to careless with the ball at critical times. Again.
Notre Dame finished with 18 turnovers, one shy of its season high (low). This game never got serious because every time the Irish got close, they’d fumble the ball away. They’d turn it over and Reece Beekman would be off to the other end with one of his four steals.
There’s a reason Beekman was ACC defensive player of the year last year. There’s a reason Beekman may be ACC defensive player of the year this year. Somebody in blue and gold must know that.
They also must understand that the point of an ATO (after timeout) play that Shrewsberry designs isn’t … to give it to the other team. That happened Wednesday and continues to happen too often.
Notre Dame plays like it doesn’t know much about big-time college basketball, but it better know this – now would be a good time to start valuing the basketball. The Irish don’t. You might get away with it in, say, the Big Ten. That doesn’t fly in the ACC. It hasn’t.
Charlottesville might be nice to visit, but …
Veteran Notre Dame teams, ranked Notre Dame teams, Notre Dame teams that have gone on to play in the NCAA tournament Elite Eights haven’t done it.
One of the youngest teams in college basketball, one that leans hard into four freshmen, wasn’t going to do it.
“It was a tough task for us coming in here,” Shrewsberry said. “It’s a tough environment for Notre Dame in general. We knew it would be a tough task.”
Dating back to 1992, Notre Dame has played nine times in Charlottesville — eight in John Paul Jones Arena and once at old University Hall. The Irish have lost nine times.
John Paul Jones Arena is still the only visiting ACC arena where Notre Dame hasn’t won as a conference colleague. It has won at Duke and at North Carolina and down Interstate 81 at Virginia Tech. It can’t win on The Grounds.
Maybe it will happen next year or the year after depending on what the league schedule will look like. The Irish aren’t ready to win there yet, not with this group. When they do, it will be a major victory for Shrewsberry as a head coach.
It will happen. Watch. Wait.
Follow South Bend Tribune and NDInsider columnist Tom Noie on X (formerly Twitter): @tnoieNDI. Contact: (574) 235-6153.
Boxscore: Virginia 65, Notre Dame 53
At Charlottesville, Virginia
NOTRE DAME (53): Davis 1-4 0-0 2, Njie 0-1 0-0 0, Burton 6-10 4-5 17, Imes 1-4 0-0 3, Konieczny 1-6 0-0 3, Shrewsberry 6-11 0-0 16, Zona 1-1 0-0 3, Roper 2-3 0-0 5, Booth 2-3 0-1 4. Totals 20-43 4-6 53.
VIRGINIA (65): Minor 2-4 1-2 5, Beekman 7-13 3-4 21, Dunn 0-1 0-0 0, McKneely 4-10 0-0 11, Rohde 0-3 0-0 0, Groves 6-10 0-0 18, Murray 2-6 0-0 4, Harris 2-4 0-0 4, Buchanan 1-2 0-0 2. Totals 24-53 4-6 65.
Halftime: Virginia 38-23. 3-Point Goals: Notre Dame 9-18 (Shrewsberry 4-8, Zona 1-1, Burton 1-2, Imes 1-2, Roper 1-2, Konieczny 1-3), Virginia 13-25 (Groves 6-8, Beekman 4-7, McKneely 3-5, Harris 0-1, Murray 0-2, Rohde 0-2). Rebounds: Notre Dame 25 (Konieczny 7), Virginia 23 (Minor 6). Assists: Notre Dame 10 (Burton 4), Virginia 21 (Beekman 6). Total Fouls: Notre Dame 6, Virginia 9. A: 13,947 (14,593).