Red Alert in Louisville

Everyone’s talking up the Big East as the biggest, baddest conference in all the land. Two second tier teams faced off on Big Monday, trying to show America the depth of the conference. I’m still not convinced the Big East is the meanest thing around, but I took in the sights and sounds of what Louisville and Notre Dame had to offer.

I don’t like Louisville’s guard play. Edgar Sosa makes too many careless turnovers for a junior PG. One could say he’s a non factor, but the turnovers actually make him a factor…for the other team. Their outside shooting seems streaky the past few games and Rick Pitino’s offense is predicated on his teams being able to shoot the three. Jerry Smith needs to shoot more because he was 3-4 (all 3s) in this affair. Their frontcourt has talent. I like Samuels and the way he went right at the Notre Dame defense. Terrence Williams is obviously a nice player. He showed his usual well rounded game. Earl Clark bothers me though. He makes some really poor decisions with the ball. He shoots too many 3s for a player shooting about 25% from beyond the arc.

If you look at Louisville’s front court, they had all the points against ND. The biggest issue is that even though Williams had a monster game, it still went to OT. Louisville has a long way to go despite escaping Notre Dame here and Villanova last week. Those squads are both second tier Big East opponents. Let’s see what happens when they step into the ring with Connecticut, Georgetown, and Pittsburgh.

Harangody showed up as usual for the Fighting Irish. Without McAlarney’s 3s, however, Notre Dame couldn’t hit a bucket from the outside. Like we’ve discussed before, ND is a different team on the road. The heart of Notre Dame’s defense was being attacked and they didn’t make adjustments. The Louisville press forced the tempo to quicken, leading to a bunch of Notre Dame turnovers. Tory Jackson had seven on his own. ND struggles to get offense outside of their Big 2. Jackson isn’t bad, but he doesn’t shoot that well. Ayers and Hillesland just stand around most of the time.

Notre Dame just isn’t deep, so they can’t bring any instant offense off the bench. If you pressed them hard, you could definitely wear them down. Louisville’s press isn’t that kind; it’s more to speed up the game. A team like Clemson, who brings strong full court intensity, could cause ND major problems.