While we await tonight's Mabrey vs Mabrey game, here are some offensive and defensive stats to chew on.
The Irish are currently third in the nation in scoring at 88.0 points per game behind Oregon and Mississippi State — both at 91.1 points per game. The Irish were up to 90 per game before scoring 82 and 78 the last two games. ND is second in field goal percentage at 51.8% — 0.4% behind Oregon, sixth in assists per game at 19.9 and ninth in assist to turnover ratio at 1.36. The Irish are fourth in free throw attempts and second in free throws made with 290 — just one behind Mississippi State. ND outscores opponents from the free throw line by an average of 8.1 made free throws per game — its highest advantage from the line over the last nine seasons.
Notre Dame is 5th in scoring margin at 25.2 points per game. Mississippi State leads scoring margin with a 35.2 point advantage per contest, followed by Oregon, Baylor and UConn. According to RealTime RPI, the Irish have played the nation’s toughest schedule. MSU’s is ranked 36th, Oregon’s 14th, Baylor’s 7th, and UConn’s 21st.
Seven of Notre Dame’s games to date have been played against teams that rank in the top 25 in scoring (over 78.7 points per game) including #4 Marquette and #7 DePaul. UConn, Oregon State, Louisville, Drake and Iowa are in the top 20 (better than 80 points per game). Only two teams over the remainder of the regular season schedule — Syracuse and Tennessee are in the top 25 scoring teams in the NCAA. The Orange are tied for 16th at 81.1 and the Vols are currently 24th in points per game at 79.3.
In spite of the challenging schedule, only two teams have scored above their season scoring average against the Irish — UConn scored just a bit under 5 points above their season average at the time the game was played (their scoring is down to 81.5 now) and Lehigh scored 1.7 points above their season average. Only one team, Lehigh, shot better against ND than their season average — and by just 0.1%.
Splitting the season roughly in two, ND’s first eight opponents averaged 39.4% from the field and 70 points per game with Oregon State having the best shooting night at 48.3% and UConn with the most points at 89.
The last nine opponents are averaging 33.3% from the field and 56.4 points per game. The highest shooting percentage was Lehigh at 40% and the most points were scored by Louisville and Lehigh with 68. Louisville was held to 15.9 points below their season average.
ND’s first eight opponents averaged 7.4 points below their season scoring average. The second nine have averaged 13.6 points below their average scores.
The first eight games were against a tougher overall schedule — teams currently ranked 2, 10, 13, 22 and 24. The second nine include the 4th and 14th ranked teams. The five ranked teams in the first half of the season were held on average to 4.4 points below their season scoring average (7.1 below without UConn) and 5.8% below their shooting percentage. The two ranked teams in the last nine games scored an average of 18.9 points below their season scoring average and 11.8% under their shooting percentage.
A note on UConn -- their offense (for them) is struggling a bit lately. They averaged 87.9 points per game over the first nine games of the season -- but they're only scoring 75.2 points per game over the last six. For the season, they're scoring 81.5 ppg compared to last seasons 89.4. They're shooting 49.3% from the field and 37.3% from three. The comparable numbers for last season were 53.3% and 40%. They're averaging 19 assists per game this season vs 22.8, their steals are down from 10.2 to 7 per game and they're currently forcing 14.9 turnovers vs 18.2 last season. I suspect their numbers will start to rise now that they're in conference play. The game at Louisville in a couple of weeks will be interesting.