Notre Dame-DePaul Notes

After Notre Dame had been blown out at Marquette on Jan. 12, thoughts of rankings in any Irish player's head would have been fanciful at best and completely unrealistic. Playing a ranked team, the Irish had been dominated, 92-66, in the worst loss under head coach Mike Brey.
Yet if you look at Notre Dame three weeks later, is there any way the Irish shouldn't be ranked? The Irish have won four of their last five games and are in sole possession of second place in the Big East at 6-2, a half-game ahead of Marquette and Connecticut.
"I would expect so and again, I'll take it or leave it," Brey said. "If we are, great, if not...
"And I think our guys are like that, too. I think we've probably earned that, quite frankly, but if we don't get it nobody's losing any sleep here."
There's a decent chance it'll happen, as the Irish began the week No. 30 in the Associated Press poll and tied for 27th in the coaches' poll with Connecticut.
It'd be the first time Notre Dame has been ranked this season.

Not Letting Up
While Brey didn't seem fazed by it, one area the Irish can continue to improve on is putting teams away earlier. Notre Dame led, 62-49, midway through the second half and then allowed DePaul to come within three points before they re-awoke to stretch their lead.
It's a nit, but it is something that could end up being critical in March.
"When we get those 10 or 12 point leads, we have to do a better job of attacking and pretending like it's a closer game, a two-possession game," senior forward Rob Kurz said. "But we did a good job of fighting back and getting a lead again."
Part of doing that comes with more consistency defensively -- although in fairness to Notre Dame, DePaul hit some big shots. The Irish are confident the offense will always be there.
"We need to be consistent with doing the little things right," junior guard Kyle McAlarney said. "Boxing out, getting out to shooters, not making silly mistakes by leaving a shooter.
"On a few three's we left shooters a couple of times or we didn't get back. Little things like that, like getting back in transition and stopping the ball, those are little things we need to keep consistent throughout the game because when we have a lead of 10 and do those things, a lead could jump to 20 at any point."
Brey emphasized at his post-game media chat that it didn't matter how Notre Dame won its games and wouldn't lose sleep over a lead almost lost. However, one would think that with a consistently-improving team, which the Irish are, this could be another progression point.

This and that
Notre Dame football coach Charlie Weis was in attendance along with his wife, Maura. So was quarterbacks coach Ron Powlus. ... In tomorrow's Super Bowl, Kyle McAlarney thinks the New York Giants are going to win. Makes sense, as he's a New Yorker.
-By Michael Rothstein of The Journal Gazette

Comments

[David]

Michael, any thoughts on (1) whether ND's commitment to defense will improve or are the players just giving lip service to the fact that they need to play better D to be a better team, and (2) whether ND can go places in March without another outside shooter (besided McAlarney)?