1. Opening Geben Play

The Irish often go to Martinas Geben in the post on their first offensive possession. He doesn’t usually look to score. Instead, he often tries to force a second defender to help guard him and then makes a pass out to a shooter.

This hasn’t been that effective, but I suppose the Irish want Geben to be engaged in the game early. Some people feel that if a big man never touches the ball, they’re less likely to give maximum effort at the defensive end, a line of thinking that makes some sense. Geben might not be in the starting lineup for much longer, however, so unfortunately this trend may not continue.

2. Struggling Steve

Steve Vasturia has been struggling with his shot recently, shooting 4-20 (20%) from three and 9-35 (26%) from the field in his last four games. Vasturia has a pretty flat shot that doesn’t tend to look so great when it doesn’t go in, and I think this has led to some over-analysis of his recent shooting woes.

I wouldn’t be concerned, however. Vasturia’s still shooting 41% from three on the season, and I expect him to regain his shooting stroke sooner rather than later.

3. To Zone or Not To Zone?

The Irish use the 2-3 zone defense a fair amount, switching back and forth between the zone and man-to-man defense. In general, I think mixing up defenses is a good idea, and the zone will be particularly effective against teams that aren’t great at shooting and/or passing.

The zone defense tends to provide the opposition a lot of three-shots (which is good if they can’t make them). But another potential weakness of the zone is that it can result in giving up offensive rebounds. Typically, players are responsible for boxing out the guys they are guarding. But in a zone defense, defenders aren’t really “guarding” anyone in particular. This can lead to offensive players slipping by and grabbing offensive boards.

Still, I think head coach Mike Brey should continue to mix in the 2-3 zone against most opponents. As far as I could tell, the Irish didn’t use the zone against Duke, potentially out fear of three-point shooting threats Grayson Allen and Luke Kennard. This makes some sense, but perhaps the zone could have been effective in getting the Blue Devils out of their offensive rhythm.

4. Free Throws Are No Longer Free Points?

There’s been talk this season about how the Irish could break the single-season record for team free throw shooting percentage (82.2% by Harvard in 1984). For a while, the Irish were in position to break the record, but have since fallen to 80.5%, second in the nation behind Valparaiso’s 81.5% (per KenPom).

(Incredibly, the Irish remain second worst in the nation with a “defensive free throw percentage” of 76.1%. Only one team, Clemson, has had its opponents make a higher percentage of their free throws.)

So what’s the deal with the slight decline in free throw shooting? The Irish made only 19-28 against Duke (67.9%), 7-11 against Georgia Tech (63.6%), and 11-17 against Virginia (64.7%). It would have been tough for the Irish to continue making free throws at a historic rate, but it is a little concerning that the team has shot so much worse over the past few games. It has very much played a factor in the team’s three-game losing streak.

Over these three games, Matt Farrell is 6-9 from the line, Bonzie Colson is 6-13, and Austin Torres is 0-6. These are really the only guys that have underperformed at the line.

Torres has only made 4-14 free throws on the season (28.6%), so hopefully he just doesn’t see too many trips to the line. Farrell is an 83.6% free throw shooter, and going 6-9 isn’t really much to complain about. I expect him to be a great foul shooter moving forward.

Colson’s situation is a bit more interesting. He’s still made 84-103 free throws on the season (81.6%) but his 6-13 stretch is just large enough of a sample size to wonder whether we should expect him to regain his 81.6% form the remainder of the season. There’s generally a correlation between jump-shooting ability and free throw shooting ability, so the fact that Colson (not a great shooter) was performing so well at the line was really impressive (and made me question whether it was sustainable).

Maybe Colson won’t make quite as many free throws the remainder of the season, but in the grand scheme of things, I don’t anticipate this being much of an issue for the Irish.

5. Balanced Scoring

As of the Georgia Tech game, the Irish were one of two Division I teams with four players averaging at least 14 points per game (Colson, Beachem, Vasturia, and Farrell), with UCLA being the other. Farrell’s scoring average has fallen down to 13.9 ppg, but this fact is still a great indicator of how many scoring options the Irish have. The offense has struggled a bit the last few games, but with so many options on that end of the floor, it won’t be surprising if the Irish get back to putting the ball in the basket.