Brey has failed to support Harangody in his final seasons

Notre Dame had a tough loss on Saturday in Cincinnati. After controlling most of the first half, the Irish could never pull away from a tough Bearcats defense. Eventually, UC’s dominance of the backboards caught up to UND, and the Irish fell, 60-58. Despite Luke Harangody growing into the Big East’s version of Tyler Hansbrough over the last two seasons, he’s seen the talent erode around him, and the team success that Notre Dame experienced during Harangody’s first two seasons is proving elusive in his final two.

 

As a freshman, Luke Harangody and the Notre Dame Fighting Irish won 24 games, reached the Big East Tournament semifinals and the NCAA Tournament as a No. 6 seed. As a sophomore, Harangody saw his team win 25 more games, earn a No. 4 seed in the NCAA Tournament and win a game there.

 

Last season, Notre Dame was a consensus top-25 team entering the season, this despite losing Rob Kurz and replacing him with no one (I suppose it was sophomore Tyrone Nash, in theory). Notre Dame disappointed, though, finishing 8-10 in conference and 18-14 overall (before the NIT, where the Irish won three times). A seven-game losing streak in January and February ruined the season. Read More »


Predicting many future events in one large analysis

Feel free to jump to the conference of your choice by clicking on one of the links below:

 

ACC
Big 12
Big East
Big Ten
Pac-10
SEC
Mid-Majors

 

With the first games that count coming up on Monday night, I figured I’d get my predictions in for all the major conferences and a few select mid-majors. Here are the conference-by-conference predictions with projected league record and postseason fate. It’ll be another four-plus months before I find out how wrong I am — sooner than that with some teams. Though I don’t officially make Final Four and Sweet 16 picks, you can infer them from the seedings.

 

ACC

 

Duke (predicted conference record 11-5; possessions returned — 63.8 percent*): There are concerns at point guard, but they were there last year as well, and while Jon Scheyer isn’t a natural at the position, he’s good enough to get by considering his talent and that of those surrounding him. The loss of Elliott Williams does hurt, but the combination of Scheyer and Kyle Singler plus emerging youngsters should keep Duke at or near the top of the ACC. NCAA No. 2 seed. Read More »