The Texas Tech basketball team will face a rather unfamiliar foe Sunday in the second round of the NCAA Tournament. In fact, the showdown with Notre Dame will be only the second time these programs have ever met with the first coming back in 1975, an 88-63 Fighting Irish win in South Bend, Indiana.
It’s been an interesting season for the Irish. After starting the year just 4-5, they would turn the corner by winning nine of their next ten games. That stretch included victories over North Carolina and Virginia.
Then, after a loss to Duke, ND would reel off wins in seven of eight games. However, to close out the season, the Irish would have some ups and downs going just 3-3 in their last six games before the NCAA Tournament.
That was enough to earn them a No. 11 seed, making them one of the final teams to get into the Big Dance. But they’ve made the most of their opportunity including a thrilling 89-87 OT win over Rutgers in one of the “First Four” NCAA Tournament games and then a thorough beating of No. 6 seed Alabama, 78-64, on Friday.
So let’s take a closer look at the Irish ahead of Sunday’s second-round showdown. And as we do, it will become apparent that this will be a contrast of styles.
ND doesn’t play defense very well
If the old adage that “defense wins championships” is true, then the Red Raiders should be in good shape in this game. That’s because Tech leads the nation in adjusted defensive efficiency (according to KenPom.com) while Notre Dame ranks just 77th.
To put ND’s defensive in perspective, know that of the teams that are still alive at the time of this article’s publication, only six rank lower on the Ken Pom adjusted defensive efficiency ranking. What’s more, per 100 possessions, ND gives up 13 more points than Tech. (Tech gives up 84.8 and ND gives up 97.8).
More good news for Tech is that opponents are shooting 49.4% from 2-point range against the Irish. That puts them at 186th in the nation. By contrast, Tech allows opponents to shoot 44.2% from 2-point range, 14th-best overall.
In their ten losses this year, the Irish have given up an average of 73 points per game. That’s good news for a Red Raider team that can struggle to score at times.
But one factor to watch is that head coach Mike Brey is not shy when it comes to deploying a zone defense. At certain points this season, Tech has struggled against zones, especially given how suspect the Red Raiders can be when shooting the ball from beyond the arc.
"“That’s one of our big things, guarding the three-point line,” ND assistant coach Antoni Wyche said last month. “It’s a thing that can shift games and create runs. Even though it’s a zone, it has man-to-man principles. You’re not just guarding an area, you’re still kind of responsible for a man.”"
Will the Notre Dame zone be able to slow down the Red Raiders on Sunday? Perhaps the answer will lie in whether or not Tech can shoot the ball well from the outside.
On Friday, the Red Raiders hit 12-20 (60%) from the 3-point line in one of the program’s best-shooting games of all time. While that isn’t likely to happen again on Sunday, Tech will have to hit some shots from the perimeter against the ND zone. If that happens, it could pull the Irish out of their zone where Tech’s athleticism and size advantage could take over against a defense that isn’t very good.