Are you kidding me?

St. John's: 71 

# 7 Notre Dame: 65

It's almost laughable that this could happen.  St. John's is not by anyones standards a good basketball team.  They are not bound to make the tournament or even the NIT.  There's no excuse that a team coming off a 3 game losing streak (including a blow out loss against Providence) should be able to even compete with the #7 team in the country.  Every decent team that they played they lost bad, until today.  Ridiculous.  You can't afford to lose games like this.  

I have to think there are 4 main reasons why the game was lost today:

Reason #1: REBOUNDING

Out rebounded by 11.  It's hard to find anybody on the team but Gody who had any rebounds. No boxing out.  They just worked harder, simple as that.

Reason #2: DEFENSE

The Irish played defense worse than a high school JV team this game.  I mean they let everyone in the lane and didn't check any cutters.  One time really made me angry was that one of the St. John's players got an offensive rebound around 7 feet out, the Irish players just looked at him and he takes an uncontested jump shot from like lay-up range.  He missed it but still,  I didn't think it was possible against a division 1 basketball program to have time to collect yourself after a rebound and then shoot a 7 foot jumper uncontested.  Terrible defense. 

Reason #3:  NO SCORING

Aside from Harangody, no one did much.  I find it hard to believe that 65 points were even scored.  I said this after Ohio State and will say it again.  When one of the Irish stars (Gody and K-Mac) is shut down the team has a hard time winning.  Kyle McAlarney finished with 10 points but went 1-5 from deep.  Gody had 28 points and 14 bounds, obviously this loss was not one him.  

Reason #4:  Outworked

Once again aside from Luke, the team was outworked.  It seemed that Harangody was the only Irish player bringing any energy to the team.

Harangody is excused from all of the reasons but defense.  He needs to work on his defense.  The guards of St. John's were driving in and challenging him all day and kept scoring over him. 

Monday's game is now even more important than it already was.  Georgetown is also coming off a loss so they should be hungry for a win as well.  One advantage for the Irish is that the game is at home, where the 43 game in a row streak is being threatened by the strong Hoya team.  Pending the final outcome of BYU vs #6 Wake Forrest, the Irish could come home to defend the longest active home-court winning streak.

To end this embarrassing day on a good note,  practically every top 25 team lost this week so there might not be as big a drop in the polls as their normally would be.

DePaul falls to the Irish, 92-82

# 7 Notre Dame: 92

DePaul: 82

Zach Hillesland was the star of the game tonight.  He contributed a career high 17 points and provided a lot of energy from his unexpected performance which is 11 points over his season average.  Typically, the Irish get their points from Gody down low and from the long ball.  However, Hillesland's 17 tonight came mostly from slashing and taking his man off the dribble.  The new way of scoring for the team really fired up and excited the team.  The game was very fast paced which worked in Hillesland's favor as well.

Harangody provided the usual, 26 points and 16 rebounds.  Harangody had a few nice hustle plays to get some of his hoops.  He was one of five Irish players to score in double figures tonight.  The other 3 starters scored in double figures,  Jackson with 12, K-Mac with 13, and Ayers with 14.  Tonight was an overall balanced attack from the team.  

The depth of the team is not great and looking at the box score tonight you can see that.  All but 10 points for the Irish came from the starters.  Luke Zeller had 5 and so did Jonathan Peoples.  Teams that want to go deep into March need their bench players to contribute more than just 10 points combined.

  

Enough negatives, the Irish have won their first Big East game.  With a look forward,  it is essential that the team capitalizes when it plays teams like DePaul and upcoming St. John's.  The road is going to be tough ahead and you can't afford to lose to teams that you are better than in this conference. 

Against St. John's I would personally like to see Tyrone Nash and Charleton Scott get more minutes.  St. John's is awful, so give them a chance.  I still have trouble understanding why Peoples gets more playing time than either of them.  All I really see Peoples do is turn it over and miss lay-ups.  And also, the starters need a break.  They were used a lot against DePaul and when you play in a league this tough they are not many chances to get a break, but when you do get one you have to take advantage of it.   

Big East Play is Here

Well it's here,  the conference games are finally starting.  And this year it is going to be an even tougher and more competitive than ever before.  Depending on which poll you look at (AP or ESPN) there are 9 teams from the Big East that are ranked in at least one of the polls.  Luckily for the Irish they kick off their Big East play with DePaul, a team that will be much easier to play than the conference elite.  The Irish should be able to secure an early victory going into what will be a very tough stretch ahead.  

A lot of people are questioning the Irish home-court winning streak, which is now at 43 games.  No one thought two years ago that the Irish would still have their winning streak after Big East play, and they thought the same thing last year.  And guess what, they think the same thing this year.  This will certainly be a test for the team, but I think they can do it.

The biggest test of all for the Irish will be keeping up with the teams that hurt them in the past.  Notre Dame usually has trouble with the more physical and athletic teams in the conference, such as Georgetown and UConn.  The keys for these games will be to stay composed and to not try to play the fast-break running game that these teams like to play.  

 Today was the Big East opening night for two teams and the game was a dandy.  The #2 team in the land Connecticut took on the the #8 team Georgetown at their home court.  However, that did not stop the Hoyas from out playing and out working the Huskies to earn a huge win for the team.  Final Score: Georgetown- 74 Connecticut- 63

The Irish opener at DePaul will be on ESPN 2 at 8pm on New Years Eve.

Irish Blow By Savannah State, 81-49

Luke Harangody scored 23 points and had 13 rebounds to carry the team vs the un-ranked Savannah State.  This however, will be last game the Irish will just win easily.  Big East play opens up with DePaul on New Year's Eve.  The streak now stands at 43, but with the Big East coming up it's going to be real test to see if the team can keep the longest home-court winning streak in school history in tact.  

And congratulations to Kyle McAlarney for scoring 1,000 points in his career.  He broke the threshold with a 3 pointer last night.

Back in the Top 10

With a big win over Deleware State and a few upsets this week, the Irish have managed to get back in the top top 10.  The Irish come in at 8 in this weeks AP poll.  However I believe this week is the biggest difference in the ESPN and AP poll.  The Irish come in ahead of Texas, Georgetown, and UCLA in one poll but behind them in the ESPN/USA Today poll at 11.  And I have to admit I didn't think it was going to happen after the loss to un-ranked Ohio State, but it's all good.  

The squad will take on one more cream puff before the exciting games of the Big East get underway.  The Game is against Savannah State.  You can watch it online at UND.com.

Update

We were experiencing technical difficulties that last few days, but I am sure you know what has happened since.  The Irish defeated the Boston University Terriers in a game that was 20 points closer than it should of been.  Harangody once again carried the team and stayed composed late to ensure a Irish victory.  

The Homecourt winning streak now stands at 41, still the second longest current streak.  

The next game should be easy for the Irish, however if you look at the BU game maybe not.  The Irish will face Deleware State on the 20th.

Irish upset by Ohio State

Harangody carried the team even with his sickness, yet it was not enough to stop Ohio State from winning.  Kyle McAlarney was shut down offensively, he didn't make one 3 pointer.  He finished with 6 points in a very frustrating game for him. 

Today's game showed a major flaw in the Irish.  If your a decent team, all you have to do is shut down either K-Mac or Gody.  If you can stop one of them, you will have a reasonable chance to win the game.  They are no other consistant scorers on the team.  Ayers sometimes will have a 6 point game and then a 20 point game.  The same thing goes with Hillesland and Jackson.  Zeller and Peoples hardly ever score more than 10 points a game.  Someone needs to step up when one of the scorers are being shut down and it didn't happen today.

The Irish had a chance to tie the game with 12 seconds to go and down by 3 points.  Ohio State called time out and gave the Irish a chance to come up with something.  However, the Irish used the "classic Chris Quinn play" to try to tie the game.  If you remember, 3 seasons ago when Chris Quinn was the point guard, the Irish would always be in a close game (and always lose) and it usually came down to the final play.  Quinn would end up taking a deep 30 foot 3 pointer and it would bounce off the rim to end the game.  That's exactly what Kyle McAlarney did today.  He hoisted up shot just like Quinn would and it missed, causing the Buckeyes to win.  I don't know if that was Mac's or Brey's call, but you would think with the timeout, a better play would be drawn up.  

This was the last tough game for the Irish until the Big East starts up, so unless something crazy happens, the Irish should look to go in to Big East play with 2 loses.