Basketball preview: Notre Dame Fighting Irish V St. Johns Red Storm

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Notre Dame's Tim Abromaitis

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St. Johns tends to lean towards zones on defense that shut down opposing backcourts. In the thriller against Georgetown the Johnnies held the three Hoya guards and leading scorers to 7 of 25 shooting and 20 points or 26.1 bellow their average total. The Hoyas came into the game as the Big East’s best 3-point shooting team at 40.3 percent but were held to 4 of 17 in that area. The Hoyas only scored less than 60 points once since this season against Notre Dame (55).

This could spell big trouble for Notre Dame who had trouble against the vaunted Syracuse zone shooting 42.6 percent (down from 52.5 percent) and only 7 of 21 on 3-pointers. They also turned the ball over 15 times while averaging 10 TOs a game.

Notre Dame has shown its shooting and guard-oriented offense has no answer for a long zone defense. The Johnnies have a below average offense that is ranked 107th in the nation in points per game with 73 and 33 rebounds per game place the team at 274th in the nation in that category. Notre Dame is among the nation’s leaders in points (78.8), rebounds (40.6) and assists (18.3).

The Fighting Irish will fight hard against the zone and will itself to a hard fought victory and prove that a potent offense can prevail over a potent defense. Notre Dame will give coack Mike Brey his 100th regular season victory.
 

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