Mike Brey earlier this week referenced a moment from mid-January when the Irish head coach wasn’t sure which direction this season was heading, or how bad things might get.
Notre Dame had lost four of its previous five games, it was flailing in the ACC quicksand at 1-4 in league play, and it was loading a flight to Atlanta for a game against Georgia Tech.
“I’m thinking, this could get real interesting,” said Brey, admitting that a glass of wine or a cocktail might be nice upon wheels up.
But in the same way Brey has bucked the odds almost every time they’ve been stacked against him during his 20 seasons here, here we go again.
Using a sudden offensive outburst, and perhaps some opportunistic scheduling, Notre Dame departed Atlanta a night later with a resuscitating road win, a victory that sparked a 4-2 run that has lifted the Irish to 5-6 in ACC play, and alone in seventh place in the league standings.
And while seventh place may not sound like prime real estate in a conference not likely to earn more than five or maybe six NCAA Tournament bids, the Irish are only one game in the loss column from fifth place, and two games behind Virginia (7-4) which sits in fourth place.
Outside of front runners Louisville (11-1), Florida State (9-2) and Duke (9-2), the ACC standings are jumbled.
“We’re all within striking distance, especially after getting these three,” Brey said Wednesday night after completing a three-game winning streak at home. “So if we can keep plugging along, picking some off, we can be right there.”
So while hopes are renewed, the toughest stretch of the ACC schedule — a three-game road swing that Brey calls the most difficult in program history — begins Sunday at Clemson.
The East Coast trip resumes two days later with a game at reigning national-champion Virginia and ends a week from today in Durham, N.C., for a date at No. 7 Duke.
*Win one of these three, and the Irish (6-8) remain relevant when the Notre Dame schedule then provides promise for a strong finish.
*Win two, and Notre Dame (7-7) is very much in the hunt for a strong finish and some NCAA Tournament consideration.
*Win three, and the Irish (8-6) can start talking seeding rather than consideration.
*Win none, and Notre Dame (5-9) exhausts all of the collateral it built during its three-game home winning streak.
“I’m excited about it, especially because of how we’re playing and what we did in this home-stand,” Brey said of the difficult challenge that lies ahead. “We just need to look at it like we got chances.”
And even Brey admits that to see the NCAA bubble even “through a squint,” didn’t seem possible a month ago when his team was struggling to score just 70 points a game.
“We were just trying to make left-handed layups in January,” he said. “But again, I think our frame of mind, how we’re playing, I’m excited about it with who we are right now.”
For perspective — though very early — Notre Dame ranks No. 48 in the Sagarin Rankings, No. 52 in the ESPN Basketball Power Index (BPI), and No. 60 in the all-important NCAA Net Rankings — slightly ahead of Syracuse, slightly behind NC State in the latter.
This week provides a chance to dramatically boost each of those profiles.
“We’re confident right now. The sky is the limit for this team,” said senior Irish guard T.J. Gibbs, who ranks third in league game scoring at 17.7 per outing. “We’re not going to let anything get us down. We’re on a three-game win streak … and that just breeds to the type of competitors we are on this team and we’re not going to let up now.”
----
• Talk about it inside Rockne’s Roundtable
• Subscribe to our podcast on iTunes
• Learn more about our print and digital publication, Blue & Gold Illustrated.
• Follow us on Twitter: @BGINews, @BGI_LouSomogyi, @BGI_MikeSinger, @CoachDeDario and @AndrewMentock.
• Like us on Facebook.
