The 3-4 record will fool you, but keep in mind, the losses for Notre Dame are: #17 Michigan State (80-70), #25 Ohio State (90-85), #20 Duke (75-65) and Purdue (88-78), which somehow isn’t ranked despite being 7-3.
Them’s bona fides.
Note how I’m not mentioning that one of the three wins is Kentucky.
Not the biggest deal to beat Big Blue Nation right now.
Mike Brey has, as usual, a short rotation – seven guys averaging 17+ minutes a game, four of them going for 33+ per night.
And they’re all old guys – juniors and seniors.
6’3” point guard Prentiss Hubb (16.4 ppg, 4.0 assists/g, 38.4% FG, 37.5% 3FG) is the featured guy.
The book on Hubb: a bit turnover-prone (3.0 per game), and doesn’t get in the lane much (just 20.2 percent of his shot attempts are at the rim).
Couple of odd things from Hoop-Math.com about Hubb: 56.6 percent of his shots are threes, and 61.9 percent of his threes are unassisted.
So, he’s a point guard who doesn’t get in the lane and gets most of his shots on spot-ups.
6’6” small forward Dane Goodwin (16.1 ppg, 5.4 rebs/g, 51.9% FG, 44% 3FG) is the team’s best spot-up shooter – Synergy Sports has him at 52.2 percent this season on spot-ups.
Goodwin will get minutes at two, three and four, which is where Brey has some depth – with 6’5” swingmen Trey Wertz (12.7 ppg, 3.3 assists/g, 47.8% FG, 46.2% 3FG) and Cormac Ryan (10.3 ppg, 4.3 rebs/g, 3.6 assists/g, 32.8% FG, 34.1% 3FG), and athletic 6’8” stretch four Nikola Djogo (4.2 ppg, 58.3% FG).
6’10” power forward Nate Laszewski (14.6 ppg, 8.4 rebs/g, 64.8% FG, 57.1% 3FG) is the one that worries me, because he does a little bit of everything.
Synergy has Laszewski as Notre Dame’s best spot-up shooter (61.1 percent), their best post-up guy (83.3 percent), and best guy on cuts (88.9 percent).
He’s a tough matchup for just about everybody. Tony Bennett will likely rotate between 7’1” Jay Huff (DRtg: 88.8, according to sport-reference.com) and 6’11” Kadin Shedrick (DRtg: 94.4) on Laszewski.
6’11” center Juwan Durham (6.3 ppg, 5.3 rebs/g, 42.5% FG) has come off the bench the past two games for Brey, and you’d probably expect him to do the same for this one, with Tony Bennett being able to run out 6’8” Sam Hauser and 6’9” Trey Murphy III at three and four.
At a glance
- Offense: Notre Dame 110.8 (24), Virginia 109.3 (48)
- Defense: Notre Dame 101.8 (185), Virginia 89.2 (11)
- Tempo: Notre Dame 67.9 (293), Virginia 60.9 (357)
Efficiency data from KenPom.com
Details
#23 UVA (4-2) at Notre Dame (3-4)
ACC Network, 6 p.m.
- ESPN BPI: UVA +5.4, 72.6% win probability
- KenPom.com: UVA 66-61, 66% win probability
- BartTorvik: UVA 66-62, 68% win probability
Story by Chris Graham
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