Making The Case: Notre Dame And The NCAA Tournament

It’s been a long couple of days for Notre Dame fans already awaiting the fate of the Irish on Selection Sunday.

The Irish had a chance to bolster their resume with a win over top five Duke in the quarterfinals of the ACC Tournament, but fell 88-70 to the Blue Devils.

Several factors will play a role into Notre Dame’s potential selection in the NCAA Tournament outside of its resume.

How the committee factors in the injury to senior forward Bonzie Colson, a preseason All-American, will likely be the determining factor. Colson returned for the final two games of the regular season and immediately proved to still be a double-double threat.

If the committee looks at a healthy Notre Dame team, like the one that won the Maui Jim Maui Invitational, then the Irish will be dancing. But the overall resume may not be enough on the surface to stand alone without the first factor weighing into the decision.

Notre Dame’s near upset of Virginia in Charlottesville should give the committee a lot to think about. It’s fairly evident that when healthy the Irish are a tournament team and potential top 25 group.

It was early in the season, but the Irish picked up a quadrant one win over Wichita State (67-66) in Maui along with a quadrant two blowout victory over LSU (92-53).

Notre Dame has picked up quality wins without Colson including Syracuse (51-49) on the road, a game point guard Matt Farrell also missed, Virginia Tech (71-65) in the ACC Tournament and a dominant win over NC State (88-58).

The one area that hurts Notre Dame is its 2-9 record in quadrant one games. But the wild card is the Irish played seven of the games without Colson and one without both him and Farrell.

Notre Dame lost six of those seven games with five of the losses coming against teams that finished in the final AP Top 25 (average ranking of 14.4).

Take away the best player from a top 25 team and face that slate and it would be tough sledding for most programs.

During Notre Dame's seven-game losing streak, the Irish were missing Colson for all seven and Farrell for four of those seven contests. That's 37 points of production on top of leadership missing from the lineup.

How many teams could withstand losing its top two players and nearly 40 points of production facing a seven-game stretch that featured potentially six tournament teams and three top 25 programs? It would be a very, very small number.

Yes, the Irish did have a couple of bad 80-77 losses to Indiana and Ball State when healthy, both falling in quadrant three. Notre Dame isn’t alone. North Carolina lost to Wofford at home. Duke fell to St. John’s on the road, a team that had lost 11-straight leading into that matchup. Alabama, who has played its way into the field, is also 6-3 in quadrant three games like Notre Dame.

Had the Irish defeated one of Indiana or Ball State out-of-conference and one of North Carolina or Louisville in South Bend, which both came down to the wire, Mike Brey’s group likely is sitting okay heading into Selection Sunday.

In reality, Notre Dame’s overall resume may not be enough to get into the tournament even though the team’s Basketball Power Index (BPI) is 33rd nationally. The BPI, according to ESPN, “is a measure of team strength that is meant to be the best predictor of performance going forward. BPI represents how many points above or below average a team is.”

Notre Dame’s strength of record rank, which measures how difficult a team’s W-L record was to achieve, is No. 53.

The BPI and SOR both indicate Notre Dame is a tournament caliber team. However, the team’s resume, which includes a 7-11 mark in quadrant one and two games, and an 8-11 record against RPI top 100 teams blurs the line a bit more.

Colson’s injury should play a role into the final decision for the committee. It would be a different conversation if the star senior had not returned and proved he can still impact a game offensively, defensively and with his hustle plays.

It helps Notre Dame's tournament bid that Colson not only came back for five games, but came back to play 31.6 minutes per game, 17.0 points per game, 9.2 rebounds per game and 2.0 blocks per game.

Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski made his case for the Irish after his team’s win in the ACC Tournament.

When arguably the top coach in men’s college basketball is lobbying for a team to land a bid, that says a lot in itself.

“I don’t want to hear about best 68," Brey said recently. "When I have my guys back, we’re a top 20 team — and I think the committee knows that.”

Notre Dame proved when healthy it can play with anyone. Ask Tony Bennett. The Virginia coach would likely agree that his team took down a top 25 team at home to end the regular season.

The Irish pass the eye test easily at full strength. When healthy and it plays like a tournament team and looks like a tournament team, it's a tournament team. What the committee must decide is if Notre Dame's success with a complete roster is good enough to overcome what it accomplished when it was without its best player and at times without its two best players.

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