The Crossroads Classic has become an item for my bucket list. I won’t be able to cross it off this year, but the games must go on.
The Crossroads Classic has become an item for my bucket list. I won’t be able to cross it off this year, but the games must go on. What better way to celebrate the holidays in the Hoosier State by watching four of the most prominent colleges in the state compete in the sports it’s known for? This year, Notre Dame has drawn Purdue as its opponent, and Indiana will face Butler in the other game.
This is the 10th season of the event at Bankers Life Fieldhouse, and the Irish are looking to right the ship both with this season (2-3) and this event (4-5). Though they have a nice weapon leading ACC scorer Prentiss Hubb (19.4 points a game), they need more contributions from a bench that has provided very few early in the season. That could change now that Trey Wertz is in the rotation, and would help if Nikola Djogo, the only other substitute to log substantial minutes thus far, got something going. Otherwise, the starters could get burned out quickly, even if Mike Brey says they’ve been conditioned to play many minutes a game.
The NCAA staff is said to have been in contact with Indiana and the city of Indianapolis to host the entire tournament which is currently scheduled to finish with the Final Four on April 3 and National Championship Game on April 5 at Lucas Oil Stadium.
If Notre Dame were to make the tournament this coming season it wouldn’t get to travel very far but it certainly would be about the most “Indiana” thing ever to see the NCAA Tournament played in the state’s incredible high school gymnasiums which are the basketball equivalent of the high school football venues in Texas.
I can see it now:
Kansas vs. Villanova for a trip to the Final Four and the two blue-bloods are squaring off at Seymour High School.
Or better yet, a small school from Indiana and tradition powerhouse Duke square off in Knightstown as Notre Dame secures their second ever trip to the Final Four.
Rookie Wire obtained every detail possible about the NBA G League pre-draft evaluation process, including all of the known invitations sent.
Rookie Wire obtained every detail possible about the NBA G League pre-draft evaluation process, including all of the known invitations sent.
Due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, many draft-eligible prospects not invited to the NBA combine have had trouble getting all of their information to team-decision makers in advance of the 2020 NBA Draft. To combat this, the NBA G League is offering a greater opportunity to be evaluated by team decision-makers.
This information included below was shared with USA TODAY Sports Media Group’s Rookie Wire on the condition of anonymity because the person who shared the details was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter.
Per source: Even though the G League Elite Camp was canceled this year, a "select number" of prospects who did not get NBA Combine invites have received invitations to participate in virtual evaluations and an NBA Pro Day. This includes eight shooting drills and an open workout.
While the G League Elite Camp was canceled this year, a “select number” of participants were given the chance to share virtual evaluations through both shooting drills and an NBA pro day.
Prospects who agreed to participate will use HomeCourt, a mobile basketball training application, to record on-court workouts. The results will be shared with NBA team staffers through the app.
Players were encouraged to have two staffers with them in the gym to assist with the process. The coaches and trainers were required to wear a face mask and gloves during the workout.
NBA Evaluation: 8 Shooting Drills (based on previous editions of the Draft Combine)
Warm-Up/free-throws (50 shots)
Spot-Up shooting (50 shots)
Shooting off dribble/pull-up jumpers (30 shots)
Mid-Range/off the catch (20 shots)
3-point drill /3-pointers off the catch (20 shots)
Side-mid-side/3-point jumpers on the move (2 minutes)
3-point endurance/catch-and-shoot at game speed (5 minutes)
Cool down/free-throws (50 shots)
Each shooting drill can be completed a max of three times. Only the best score is uploaded into the NBA Player Evaluation platform for all NBA teams to access the data and video.
This is how the results look, as obtained by Babcock Hoops’ Derek Murray:
Per source, John Mooney’s combine shooting numbers:
Mooney averaged 16.2 PTS and 12.7 REB last season at Notre Dame. He recently signed with Perth in Australia with an NBA out clause included in the contract. pic.twitter.com/pD8FwaCiu1
This workout allows the draft prospect to share the unique
aspects of his game through a 45-minute open workout.
Players are prohibited from partaking in live competition against any other draft-eligible and/or other players, including: informal scrimmages, pick-up games (e.g., 2-on-2), defensive drills (e.g., pick-and-roll coverage, post defense, etc.), offensive drills (e.g., Pick-and-Roll / Pop situations)
Pro Day must be a half-court workout.
Pro Day is an open workout for up to 45 minutes. If a player does NOT use the full 45 minutes, that is OK.
Must be completed on the same date as shooting drills. The player is allowed a 10-minute break in between.
KNOWN INVITATIONS
USA TODAY Sports Media Group’s Rookie Wire was able to obtain a list of prospects invited to participate in this process. Note that others may have been included as well, though these were the names we can confirm at this time.
A decision to play tennis instead of AAU basketball might have set Gordon Hayward on a path to play for Boston — by preventing other schools from stealing him from Butler and Brad Stevens.
Boston Celtics veteran forward Gordon Hayward might not be on the team had he not chosen to play tennis, it seems.
Talking on the TrueHoop “Bring It In” podcast recently, Celtics head coach Brad Stevens related an interesting tidbit about the recruiting process he had with Hayward as head coach of Butler — and how his intensely competitive nature kept him off the radar of other teams just long enough to get the Indiana native to sign at the mid-major college.
Hayward wasn’t heavily recruited at first, a “late bloomer”, according to Stevens, who first crossed paths with the future Boston swingman while the Butler product was still a junior in high school.
“[The Haywards were] the first family that sat in my office, as a recruit,” he began. “We didn’t offer him a scholarship at the time.”
But after a chance to see him play, Stevens had a change of heart.
“Right after the workout [we] called his high school coach and told him he had a scholarship offer to Butler. And you know, from that point on, it became a little bit of a fight with some other schools just because he, he blew up quickly.”
But Hayward quickly made up his mind, committing to Butler after just six weeks — and didn’t play any A.A.U. ball over the summer, which likely helped keep the All-Star forward from being sniped by a blue blood program.
“He played tennis that summer to try to try to win a state tennis championship,” observed Stevens. “So he was really under the radar.”
“We were fortunate that he was and and then I think one of the benefits of that is is that when he got to college, it was really the first time that he had focused solely on basketball. So there was a real passion for it, and a real passion to work at it,” he explained.
Hayward and Stevens would go all the way to the brink of an NCAA championship together, Hayward’s late heave against Duke bouncing out at the literal last second.
The bond the pair forged all those years ago was most certainly a factor in the 30-year-old forward’s decision to sign with the Celtics in the summer of 2017.
And it’s certainly possible that had the young prospect played A.A.U. ball that summer, minds could have been changed about his college of choice as well.
Tennis — and Hayward’s obsession with winning — may have helped set Boston’s current roster composition in motion in one of those ‘what-if’, butterfly effect moments.
We’ll just have to be happy things worked out as they did.
Now, we get to the heavy hitters in the Notre Dame 15 Years Tournament, beginning with the top seed.
Now, we get to the heavy hitters in the Notre Dame 15 Years Tournament, beginning with the top seed. The 2014-15 Irish represented the program’s second season in the ACC, but they made it clear to everyone that they intended to compete in perhaps the best conference in college basketball, not simply lay down for the likes of Duke, North Carolina and Syracuse. No one could deny it when this season was over.
En route to a 32-6 record, the program’s best since going 33-7 in 1908-09, the Irish jumped out to a 15-1 start and ended up winning 20 of their first 22 games, including eight of their first nine ACC games. That run ended with a four-point win over the No. 4 Blue Devils, at which point the Irish were ranked eighth, as high as they would get during the season. In spite of their 14-4 conference record, it only netted them a No. 3 seed in the ACC tournament. That didn’t matter, however, because the Irish squeezed out wins over Miami, Duke and North Carolina by an average of 8.3 points to win Mike Brey his first championship and earn an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament.
The close but meaningful games continued in March Madness. Seeded third in their region, the Irish needed everything to get by 14th-seeded Northeastern in a four-point first-round win, and the second-round win over in-state rival Butler required overtime. They breathed a little easier in an 11-point win over Wichita State in the Sweet Sixteen, setting up an Elite Eight matchup with Karl-Anthony Towns, Willie Cauley-Stein, Devin Booker and top-ranked Kentucky. The game was a classic, and the Irish would have made their first Final Four in 37 years had Jerian Grant not air-balled a corner 3 at the buzzer, giving the Wildcats a two-point victory.
Jerian Grant was named to the Consensus All-American First Team alongside Stein, Jahlil Okafor, D’Angelo Russell and Frank Kaminsky. He led the Irish with 16.5 points and 6.7 assists a game. Zach Auguste, Pat Connaughton and Demetrius Jackson all had scoring averages in the neighborhood of 12, and Steve Vasturia averaged 10.1 points a game. All of this made the Irish the second-best shooting team in the nation (50.9 percent), the third-best scoring team (2,963 points) and the ninth-best passing team (576).
Boston Celtic veteran forward Gordon Hayward’s intensely competitive nature goes back at least as far as high school.
Boston Celtic veteran forward Gordon Hayward might be calm, confident and collected when he plays basketball in the NBA.
But, when he was still shooting hoops for his high school team, let’s just say he was goofier — if his former teammates are to be believed. NBC Sports Boston’s Chris Forsberg made his way to Brownsburg, Indiana to stick his nose ino Hayward’s past, and came away with some interesting dirt.
Of course, almost all of us were goofier in high school — that’s just part of growing up — but not all of us become All-Stars and famous players for the Celtics. Forsberg’s sleuthing got him in touch with a trio of former teammates of Hayward from the Brownsburg High men’s basketball team.
“He would be the shy kid walking down the hall and not really talking to anyone. But then you get him in a video game contest, he starts screaming, hollering, and punching people.”https://t.co/U99DMb7FBDpic.twitter.com/Z3BwSQ1b7H
“If the city of Boston only knew how goofy this kid was in high school,” began ex-teammate Gino Calderon, trailing off as J.D. Crosby and Blake Hall, also former teammates of Hayward, laughed.
Regaling Forsberg with tales of the now-star’s former passivity intermingling with an intense competitive nature that manifested in all kinds of outlets one wouldn’t normally expect, the trio painted a picture of a very normal-sounding teenager.
“Shy and competitive,” offered Hall of Hayward in that era of his life.
“He would be the shy kid walking down the hall and not really talking to anyone. But then you get him in a video game contest, he starts screaming, hollering, and punching people. So it was kind of a bipolar — from shy to very competitive and aggressive in one person.”
At parties Hayward’s parents would host for the basketball team, all attendants — including parents — would play in competitive games like ping-pong, pool or foosball.
And they’d split into teams with a more talented player and a less-talented player, an ‘A’ and a ‘B’, if you will.
“Gordon was always the ‘A’ player. And I just remember one time he was stuck with one of the moms who was not coordinated at all,” revealed Hall.
“And he was getting audibly frustrated and screaming. Like the whole room just stops and looks at him and he realized he was screaming at one of our moms. But it was just kinda funny because it was his goal to win every game of the tournament even though there’s 20 people involved.”
His former teammates pained a consistent picture of the competitor-in-the-making that the Indiana native would become.
The one thing he didn’t excel at? Rapping, at least according to his former teammates.
Not that he was terrible — he famously made a short track about a jacked former classmate that went viral right before Hayward’s legendary 2010 NCAA tournament run — but it’s what you’d expect of a bunch of kids goofing around.
“I feel like, if you looked at him, you couldn’t tell, but he was talented at everything,” said Crosby.
“I remember he’d beat us in ping pong, he’d beat us at pool, he played tennis, and then he can make funny rap songs. I don’t know if there wasn’t anything he couldn’t do.”
“[Rapping is] probably what he’s least good at, in my opinion,” interjected Hall. “But he’s so good at everything else.”
As a sophomore last season at Santa Clara, Wertz averaged 11.9 points, 3.5 rebounds and 3.9 assists per game. In his freshman year Wertz earned All-Freshman Team conference honors in the West Coast Conference.
Notre Dame basketball has it’s latest commitment as transfer guard from Santa Clara Trey Wertz chose Mike Brey’s Fighting Irish basketball program on Saturday afternoon.
Wertz chose Notre Dame over finalists Arizona, Butler and North Carolina with Carolina being the only campus he had ever stepped foot on, making a visit his sophomore year of high school.
What is Notre Dame Getting in Trey Wertz?
Wertz was a two-time all-state selection in high school at Providence Day School in Charlotte, North Carolina. At the time of his recruitment he was a as a three-star talent and chose Santa Clara over the likes of Georgetown, Stanford, Virginia Tech and others.
As a sophomore last season at Santa Clara, Wertz averaged 11.9 points, 3.5 rebounds and 3.9 assists per game. Wertz earned All-Freshman Team conference honors in the West Coast Conference two seasons ago.
Trey Wertz, 6-5, 185, G, Soph., Santa Clara 2019-20 Stats: 11.9 ppg Scout’s take: “Big, smooth guard who gets to his spots well. Great pace and when you let him do that, he’s as good as anybody. When you get up in him and speed him up, he’s a different player.” Schools: North Carolina, Arizona, Oklahoma, Ohio State, Notre Dame, Virginia, Butler
Wertz, who averaged 11.9 points, 3.9 assists and 3.5 rebounds per game as a sophomore at Santa Clara last year has cut his list of potential schools down to four and Notre Dame is one of the remaining choices.
Notre Dame has only made one Final Four in men’s basketball history but it did make the final four of schools for transfer guard Trey Wertz.
Wertz, who averaged 11.9 points, 3.9 assists and 3.5 rebounds per game as a sophomore at Santa Clara last year has cut his list of potential schools down to four and Notre Dame is one of the remaining choices.
Arizona, Butler and North Carolina also remain on his list. Carolina is the only of those four schools he has previously visited, doing so back in his sophomore year of high school.
Wertz is set to announce his decision at 3:00 p.m. ET Saturday. We’ll have the news for you once it goes down either good or bad.
Our Missing March Madness series comes to an end with a miss that nearly changed the course of NCAA history as Gordon Hayward’s Butler fell to Duke.
In the final installment of Missing March Madness, we revisit the near miss of Boston Celtic veteran forward Gordon Hayward and his Butler Bulldogs in the title game of the 2010 NCAA Tournament.
A tightly-contested game from start to finish, neither team had more than a six-point lead at any time in the contest.
But, the Cinderella-story story run of Butler and Hayward came to an end after the Bulldogs couldn’t quite regain the lead in the game’s final moments, despite coming as close as 60-69 with under a minute to go.
In the contest’s final possession, the future Celtic forward would launch a 50-foot shot that hit the backboard, then the rim…
And then fell to the ground, a miss.
There have been few games that have come closer to such a massive upset, a lowly mid-major nearly stealing a national title from the bluest of blue blood programs.
The loss would sting greatly despite the improbability of Butler, Hayward, and future Celtics and then-Butler head coach Brad Stevens having made it that far in the first place.
The Indiana native would score just 12 points on 2-of-11 shooting in the loss along with 8 rebounds, the cold-shooting night ultimately sinking the Bulldogs title aspirations.
“There’s certainly nothing to hang your head about,” said coach Stevens at the time (courtesy of the Associated Press). I told them in there, what they’ve done, what they did together, will last longer than one night, regardless of the outcome.”
Boston Celtic All-Star forward Gordon Hayward led his Butler Bulldogs past the Michigan State Spartans in the Final Four on this date ten years ago.
While it may be April, March Madness doesn’t stop just because the month does (coronavirus quarantines, however, are a different story).
And for Gordon Hayward and his Butler squad in 2010, the Madness kept rolling well into the next month as his Bulldogs took on the Michigan State Spartans in the Final Four.
Hayward would help seal the win with a last-second rebound that would prevent the Spartans from scoring to tie the game or take the lead with a 3-pointer.
Butler came away with a 52-50 victory due to the Indiana native’s heroics, Hayward scoring 19 points and 9 boards counting the game-clinching rebound.
“We’ve been talking about the next game all year, and it’s great to be able to say the next game’s for a national championship,” said the future Celtic forward at the time (via the Associated Press).
Much like current teammate Kemba Walker a year later, Hayward’s improbable run set him up to play for an NCAA championship, facing off against the Duke Blue Devils on April 5th, 2010.
“If I was not playing, I’d be a Butler fan,” Michigan State head coach Tom Izzo said. “I like they way they play, I like their story.”
Unless it’s your team they sunk, how could you not?
