Hurricanes Blow Through Irish
Frank Vitovitch
January 26, 2000

South Bend, Ind - Coming off a rather easy win over the Pitt Panthers on Saturday, the Irish needed a win Tuesday night to aid them in their quest for a NCAA tourney bid.  A win would have put the Irish at 13-7, but instead they are now 12-8 and only 3-3 in conference play and now need to get on a hot streak down the stretch in order to get an invite to "the Big Dance."

As usual, Notre Dame's leading scorer was Troy Murphy.   Even though he was the leading scorer, he was held to a season low 14 points by Miami.  Miami did the best job of covering him so far this season last night.   He did however collect 13 rebounds which is just about 3 more over his average of just over 10 per game.

The Irish were the exact opposite from the way they performed Saturday when they hit 14 three-pointers while shooting over 50% from behind the arc.  Last night however, the Irish managed to just hit on 5 of 22 three's and only shot 32% overall.  Miami however had the hot hand last night as they converted on 47% of their shots.

This game was much like most of Notre Dame's loses this year.  When they don't shoot well, they usually loose and loose pretty big.   Notre Dame lacks a true dominant center who can get the tough points inside.   When teams force Notre Dame to win by hitting three's, the Irish either win easily or lose handily.  Notre Dame needs to develop an inside game to compliment their outside game.

Troy Murphy is really the only member of the team who can go inside and muscle his way to the basket for the short, easy baskets.  Harold Swangan occasionally can get inside and be effective, but he is not consistent in doing so.  Ivan Kartelo may be able to develop into that type of player since he is just a freshman, but for this season it seems Notre Dame will live and die by the three.

While they lack inside muscle, the team is full of skillful shooters.  Martin Ingelsby can hit a three at any moment, freshman Jere Macura and Matt Carroll both can stroke the three as well, and sophomores David Graves and Troy Murphy can both also bury a three pointer consistently.  The problem is, no one, no matter how good they are it is very unlikely that they are going to hit 50% or more of their three pointers every game.

When you look at the leaders in the NCAA in three point shooting this season, only 11 are shooting over 50% from three point range.  Of them, only one has shot over 100 three pointers (Jason Thornton, Central Florida 53.1%) with the rest shooting around 60 or so three pointers.  Notre Dame has two players who have shot close to 100 three pointers - Matt Carroll  (29 of 91 - 41.8%) and David Graves (42 of 96 - 43.8%) and as a team they are only shooting 37.5% which is good enough for 4th overall in the Big East.  They have also shot the most three pointers and have 65 more three pointer attempts than second place Boston College.

While the Irish are 4th in three point shooting, they are only 8th in the Big East in field goal percentage at 40.9%.  For the Irish to become a truly competitive team, they are going to have to start pounding the ball inside more.   Troy Murphy does this a lot, which is why he leads the Big East in free throw attempts with 177 which is 59 more than second place Troy Bell from Boston College. 

Having a strong inside game gets players to the free throw line more.  Free throws can win or lose a game for a team.  If a team is good at free throw shooting, they can win every close game since a lot of times it comes down to who can make more free throws.

Notre Dame has made HUGE strides this year in its basketball team and Matt Doherty has brought back some excitement and enthusiasm to the program, but until the Irish develop the inside game to compliment their outside game they will continue to shock teams like Ohio State and UConn if they are on fire and loose to teams like Miami of Ohio and Miami when they are cold.

Go Irish!