Christian's Blog

As Jack Swarbrick’s comments about Notre Dame’s football independence - and potential lack thereof – spread across the nation on Tuesday, some longtime Domers suggested that the administration was getting the story out early to prepare fans for what could be inevitable.

Not so, according to Notre Dame.

In today’s edition of the Daily Dish, a series of athletic notes sent out by Senior Associate Athletics Director John Heisler, the Irish contingent in New York City for the Big East Tournament did not plan to make national news the other day.

“1. If you are wondering how sports headlines come about, understand that sometimes it’s almost by accident. Take Tuesday, for example. Notre Dame football coach Brian Kelly, in New York for a day of events with Notre Dame-connected groups, was visiting with a small group of New York-based sportswriters over coffee that morning at the Barking Dog café on 34th Street. The event was designed as more of a “meet and greet” session for media who don’t make it to South Bend every day.

Most of the conversation wasn’t headline news, but Kelly at one point was asked about his thoughts on conference affiliation. Meanwhile, Irish athletics director Jack Swarbrick just happened to stop by the session to listen – and he, too, was hit with the question about conferences. What Swarbrick said wasn’t necessarily new or groundbreaking – but it maybe involved more of a national assessment of the conference landscape than had been voiced. In any event, the nature and context of Swarbrick’s remarks immediately prompted the Associated Press to run a short item, followed by a more in-depth feature later in the day – and the New York Times wrote a full-blown piece that ended up the lead sports story at the top of the page in Wednesday’s print edition.”

There were not many changes in the bottom portion of the Big East on the final day of the regular season, but West Virginia's overtime win over Villanova caused a major shakeup toward to the top. The Wildcats were knocked from the #2 spot all of the way down to #4 while Pittsburgh moved into second followed by the Mountaineers at #3. As the seventh seed, Notre Dame will face the winner of the Seton Hall-Providence matchup, which will be a rematch of tonight's game which the Pirates won 92-80.

If Notre Dame wins that game it will face off with the Panthers in the quarterfinals with West Virginia as the highest-seeded team the Irish could meet in the semis.

#9 USF (19-11, 9-9) vs. #16 DePaul (8-22, 1-17), noon, ESPN2
#12 Connecticut (17-14, 7-11) vs. #13 St. John’s (16-14, 6-12), 2, ESPN2
#10 Seton Hall (18-11, 9-9) vs. #15 Providence (12-18, 4-14), 7, ESPNU
#11 Cincinnati (16-14, 7-11) vs. #14 Rutgers (15-16, 5-13), 9, ESPNU

#8 Georgetown (20-9, 10-8) vs. USF/DePaul winner, noon, ESPN
#5 Marquette (20-10, 11-7) vs. UConn/St. John’s winner, 2, ESPN
#7 Notre Dame (21-10, 10-8) vs. Seton Hall/Providence winner, 7, ESPN
#6 Louisville (20-11, 11-7) vs. Cincinnati/Rutgers winner, 9, ESPN

#1 Syracuse (28-3, 15-3) vs. Georgetown-USF/DePaul winner, noon, ESPN
#4 Villanova (24-6, 13-5) vs. Marquette-UConn/St. John’s winner, 2, ESPN
#2 Pittsburgh (24-7, 13-5) vs. Notre Dame-Seton Hall/Providence winner, 7, ESPN
#3 West Virginia (24-6, 13-5) vs. Louisville-Cincinnati/Rutgers winner, 9, ESPN

Quarterfinal winners, 7 & 9, ESPN

Semifinal winners, 9, ESPN

As first reported by CBS' Seth Davis on Saturday afternoon, Notre Dame senior All-American Luke Harangody returned today against Marquette after missing the last five games with a right knee injury.

Harangody did not start, but checked in five minutes into the game to the boos of the Bradley Center crowd. Harangody did not force his offense, but did make his first field goal of the contest. He scored five points on 2-4 shooting and grabbed a rebound in 10 minutes of action in the first half.

Davis hinted that Harangody could be coming off the bench for awhile.

“This is going to be the MO for Notre Dame moving forward because as Coach Brey told me last night, they realize that they have played well without Luke Harangody,” he said. “A head coach in the Big East made the comment to me that Notre Dame is actually less predictable with Harangody out. So it’s going to be an interesting role as they work Harangody back into the mix.”

ESPN’s resident tournament expert Joe Lunardi or ‘Joey Brackets’ has accurately predicted 129 of the 130 NCAA Tournament teams over the last two years and even teaches a course on Bracketology at Saint Joseph’s University.

As of Thursday, Lunardi has Notre Dame (20-10, 9-8) in the field of 65 for the 2010 tourney.

Since the Irish are among Lunardi’s last four in, they are not yet locks to receive an invite, but a win at Marquette in the regular season finale and/or a win or two in the Big East Tournament should seal Notre Dame’s Big Dance bid.

The Irish were Lunardi’s first team out prior to their victory over Connecticut on Wednesday.

Surprisingly, Lunardi also has UConn (17-13, 7-10) in the tournament along with Notre Dame on the last four in list. According to Lunardi, the Irish would be the 62nd team invited followed by the Huskies, Rhode Island and San Diego State, with the Aztecs as the last team in.

The inclusion of the Irish and the Huskies would give the Big East the most teams from any conference in the country with nine. The ACC and Big 12 each have seven teams in now, according to Lunardi.

Lunardi has the Irish as the 11th-seed in the South Region, set to play #6 Texas A&M in the first round in New Orleans, with the winner playing either #3 Vanderbilt or #14 Weber State in the second round. Lunardi has Syracuse as the top seed in the South with Duke as the #2 team.

It is difficult to say that Notre Dame is a better team without its best player, All-American Luke Harangody, but there is no doubt that wins over Pittsburgh and Georgetown last week represent the best two-game stretch of the season thus far.

There is some precedent for teams seeming to improve in the absence of their top player, something ESPN Page 2 columnist Bill Simmons and has friend Dave Cirilli named the Ewing Theory, in honor – or dishonor – of Patrick Ewing.

“Patrick Ewing's teams (both at Georgetown and with New York) inexplicably played better when Ewing was either injured or missing extended stretches because of foul trouble.”

Simmons lists two criteria for candidates:

“1. A star athlete receives an inordinate amount of media attention and fan interest, and yet his teams never win anything substantial with him (other than maybe some early-round playoff series).

2. That same athlete leaves his team (either by injury, trade, graduation, free agency or retirement) -- and both the media and fans immediately write off the team for the following season.”

Both elements are obviously present in Notre Dame’s current situation without Harangody, who has been out since injuring his knee on Feb. 11.

To be fair, the Irish did lose their first two games after Harangody’s injury and Notre Dame was considered done. The Irish responded with wins over the Panthers and Hoyas and are now in position to grab a NCAA bid if they can finish the season strong and have a solid showing at the Big East Tournament next week.

Simmons published his Ewing Theory in May of 2001 and one of the best examples was the 1998 Tennessee football team winning the national title the year after Peyton Manning graduated. But less than a year later, Simmons’ hometown New England Patriots won Super Bowl XXXVI with Tom Brady took over for the injured Drew Bledsoe.

Mike Brey shot down any ideas that the Irish are better without Harangody, but the offense has slowed down and Notre Dame has been more efficient even without scoring as many points. Brey has acknowledged that there is a chance that Harangody could be lost for the season.

As long as the Irish are still alive, so is Notre Dame’s version of the Ewing Theory.

On ESPN's College Basketball Final this weekend, Andy Katz revealed that Notre Dame head coach Mike Brey told him that there is a good chance Luke Harangody will not return this season. Harangody has been out since Feb. 11 when he suffered a bone bruise to his right knee against Seton Hall.

"(Brey) did tell me that Luke Harangody has a less than 50 percent chance of ever playing the rest of the season because his current knee injury could potentially lead to a microfracture situation so they don’t want to rush him back," Katz said.

"His senior night is Wednesday against Connecticut. He may not play in that game and Brey told me if he doesn’t play Wednesday night, he’s not going to play Saturday against Marquette."

On Monday, Brey said that was not entirely accurate and Katz misunderstood him.

“He misquoted me, he’s less than 50-50 for this week probably. As I said, if he can’t go Wednesday, I think it’s going to be difficult to go Saturday given how this injury is,” Brey said. “If we don’t go this week, I think we’re then into revisiting it early next week before we go to New York.”