Having lost two of its first three games to ranked Big Ten teams in Michigan State and Ohio State, Notre Dame can see where it stands. Fresh off a difficult, injury-riddled season, improvement doesn’t appear to be that obvious, and the team still is very thin. Still, Mike Brey sees it as a learning experience for a team led by juniors Prentiss Hubb, Nate Laszewski and Dane Goodwin.
“We are older, and I think we’ve kind of found out a little more about ourselves through these first three games,” Brey said during a Thursday news conference.
The Irish will face another underachieving team in Kentucky on Saturday. After a season-opening win over Morehead State, the Wildcats have dropped three in a row. That means a lot of pressure from a rabid fan base expecting more out of a team led by BJ Boston and Terrence Clarke, two freshmen currently projected as lottery picks in next year’s NBA draft. Brey expected excitement when he worked with John Calipari to get these teams together for the first time since their thrilling 2015 Elite Eight matchup, but he probably didn’t expect it would pair up teams trying to find their footing.
“I think both teams have their backs up against the wall right now,” Brey said.
The Wildcats have enough talent that a win in Lexington would mean the world to the Irish. It would give them a great boost heading into ACC play, and they need one. The conference is stacked this year, so there’s almost no game the Irish can waltz right into expecting things to go easily.
“If you look further into our schedule, it’s not like we’ve got one week and say, ‘Hey, there’s a win where we can feel better about ourselves,’ ” Brey said.
What Brey can feel better about is knowing that whatever the Irish do runs through Hubb. It’s difficult to come to any other conclusion regarding the team leader in scoring (22.3) and assists (5.3). Hubb also is one of four players averaging at least 35 minutes a game. But even if the Irish weren’t so stretched out, would Hubb playing so much necessarily be a bad thing?
“It all comes off of [Prentiss],” Brey said. “It’s hard to take him out of the game.”
Hubb’s 37.7 minutes a game are tied with Cormac Ryan, who had a frustrating game against the Buckeyes. He was shut out in the second half leading all scorers with 15 in the first. Though he was guarded more closely after the first 20 minutes, he also might have run out of gas. He had to sit out last season after transferring from Stanford, and now, he’s playing almost entire games.
“Overall, Cormac’s really trying,” Brey said. “His body is getting conditioned into extended minutes…It’s very new territory for Cormac.”
