With so much uncertainty surrounding the sports world these days, Notre Dame men’s basketball head coach Mike Brey does have one assurance about his 21st Fighting Irish team that he hopes can take the court for the 2020-21 season.
“Everybody coming back knows it’s Prentiss Hubb’s team,” Brey said during a Wednesday afternoon Zoom meeting with the media.
That leadership began to take hold the second half of this past season, which coincided with the Fighting Irish bouncing back from a 2-6 start in ACC play to even the league ledger at 10-10. They then opened the ACC Tournament with an 80-58 blowout of Boston College before NCAA action was cancelled because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Whether long shot Notre Dame could have snuck into the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2017 will remain unanswered. Next year, however, it’s NCAA Tournament or bust.
“We came off the mat this year and showed a surge that got some momentum back,” Brey said of improving from 14-19 with a 2018-19 rebuilding team to 20-12 this past season. “The natural progression is to be an NCAA Tournament team and get back into that rhythm of that.”
Excluding this past season, Notre Dame has advanced to the NCAA Tournament 12 times in 19 years under Brey, highlighted by consecutive Elite Eight appearance in 2015 and 2016.
The only other times the program had such back-to-back tourney success were 1978-79 (Final Four and Elite Eight) and 1952-53 (Elite Eight both times).
The 2020-21 projected starting lineup, plus potential sixth man Robby Carmody, would be replete with players ranked anywhere from No. 47 to No. 110 players by Rivals.
The Leader
Hubb is not only the top returning scorer with a 12.1 average, but as a sophomore he easily paced the team in assists (162), placing fifth in that category in the ACC plus seventh in assist-to-turnover ratio at 1.9 (162/85).
Often forgotten is the former top-100 prospect missed his senior year of high school with a torn ACL. Especially notable is his freshman year shooting marks of 26.2 percent from three-point range and 32.4 percent overall were dramatically upgraded to 34.4 and 38.5, respectively, as a sophomore.
Hubb often thrived more in hostile road environments, which speaks to his fearless personality. Even the graduated trio of first-team All-ACC pick John Mooney plus T.J. Gibbs and Rex Pflueger deferred more to Hubb, especially in team huddles, as the season progressed.
“He was becoming a leader over the second half of the season,” Brey said. “His voice is out there, there’s no question about it.”
Winging It
The combination of junior wings Dane Goodwin and Cormac Ryan, who sat out the past season after transferring from Stanford, should be at least as effective, if not more so per Brey, than the graduated tandem of Gibbs and Pflueger.
Like Hubb, the 6-6 Goodwin’s shooting improved appreciably from his freshman to sophomore campaign while becoming one of the ACC’s top sixth men, averaging 10.8 points per game to go with 3.8 rebounds per contest.
Goodwin’s overall shooting percentage rose from 37.6 to 43.3 percent from his first year to the second, while it also ascended from 34.3 to 37.7 percent beyond the arc.
The bonus with the 6-5 Ryan — Rivals’ No. 79 player overall in 2018, the highest among current Irish backcourt men — is he also can work at point guard. A starter in 17 games as a Stanford freshman, Ryan averaged 8.7 points and 3.5 rebounds per game while leading the Cardinal in made three-pointers (49).
“Our fans will be very excited about watching Cormac Ryan, who’s got some Ben Hansbrough/Steve Vasturia in him,” Brey said.
The first similarity with Hansbrough, the 2011 Big East Player of the Year after transferring from Mississippi State, is not trying to go from 0 to 60 miles per hour in a flash. Eventually he learned, while Vasturia was masterful from the outset at playing within a team concept and facilitating everyone else’s game.
“The biggest thing we have to get on Cormac about — because he is the whole package — is just slow it down a little bit,” Brey explained. “He can put it on the floor, he can shoot, he’s athletic, can get to basket, good passer — have to be better with assists-to-turnovers ratio.
“He’s learning in our culture you don’t throw that ball away. That’s an area where a lot of new guards have to adjust.”
With both Ryan and Hubb, developing more physically will be crucial under strength and conditioning coach Tony Rolinski, but that is less possible now given the current conditions.
Like Hubb, Ryan also possesses intrinsic leadership traits.
“Cormac Ryan has a great voice,” Brey added. “He has been such a great supporter [of teammates], I see him emerging once we get back on campus as well.”
Another transfer from the Bay Area, Santa Clara’s 6-4 Trey Wertz, could provide instant impact with what Brey says is a 6-11 wingspan that helped him average 12.0 points per game last season.
With the NCAA trending toward allowing first-time transfers not to sit out a year (to be voted on in late May), Wertz could even help sooner rather than later.
Carmody, who has missed the past two seasons with shoulder and knee injuries, fifth-year senior Nik Djogo, and incoming 6-7 three-star freshman Tony Sanders Jr. provide varying skill sets to the lineup and should enhance competition for action.
‘Big’ Expectations
While Brey is confident about not having drop-off at the wing slots, replacing Mooney’s school single-season record-tying 25 double-doubles, particularly the 12.7 rebounds per game that were second nationally, will be a formidable task.
Still, yet another junior in 6-10 Nate Laszewski — the No. 56-ranked player nationally by Rivals in 2018 — is primed for the Brey “Junior Jump.”
Laszewski might even be ahead of pace after averaging 21.0 minutes last season, and producing 7.4 points and 4.6 rebounds per game. Consider this data from previous Brey big men in the past decade who would become all-league players:
• Mooney averaged 5.6 points and 3.9 rebounds as a sophomore.
• Zach Auguste was at 6.7 points and 4.3 rebounds as a sophomore.
• Jack Cooley finished with 3.7 points and 3.1 rebounds as a sophomore.
• Martin Geben took a little longer, but as a senior MVP averaged 11.1 points and 8.0 rebounds per contest.
“Does Nate Laszewski roll in and have a junior and senior year like Johnny Mooney?” Brey asked. “I totally believe he can.”
As for the 6-11 graduate student Juwan Durham (ranked as the No. 47 prospect in the country as a high school senior by Rivals), his numbers were nearly identical to Laszewski’s 7.8 points and 4.6 rebounds per game.
More at issue is whether he can stay out of foul trouble and possess the stamina and durability to play more than the 17.5 minutes per game he averaged this past season.
“I have every reason to believe that Juwan can have a really good senior year — because that’s what we’ve done with our program,” said Brey, who believes Durham can be especially effective rolling down toward the basket on ball screens.
Two freshmen will arrive without the previous fanfare of the players in front of them, but supply height or bulk: 6-9 Matt Zona and 6-8 Elijah Taylor.
“I am frustrated that I probably won’t get to work with them in the summer, as I wanted to get them jump-started,” Brey said. “We’re going to need one or both those guys.”
Brey coached a team this season that led the country in fewest turnovers per game (9.8) and assist-to-turnover ratio (1.68). It’s the sixth straight season Brey’s Irish have finished among the top 10 nationally in assist-to-turnover ratio.
He expects that to remain in the program’s DNA. More pivotal will be rebounding, specifically on defense, and inside scoring.
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