Joe Raymond - AP

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Nothing substantial from the coaching rumor mill so far today - Charlie didn't quit at his press conference, at least - so let's take a look at Mike Brey's 2010 squad.

In the interest of full disclosure, when Scott Martin went down with an ACL injury, I was ready to write off this Irish hoops season.  Not from a record standpoint - oh no, the schedule is so putrid they would roll up some victories on the Harangody/Jackson combination alone - but from a being a quality team that could compete for a Big East title standpoint.  Martin was so perfect for the Brey offense, a Rob Kurz/Ryan Ayers 2.0 that could go inside/outside, knock down threes and space the floor for Harangody on offense while still providing some size on defense.  Short of the big man himself going down, there wasn't a worse injury that could have occurred.  I was certain we were going to see an anomaly: a Mike Brey team that couldn't shoot, and therefore, would be just sort of awful and gruesomely entertaining to watch on the occasional Big Monday.

But then the Seth Davis preseason puff piece happened and likened Tim Abromaitis, who barely saw the floor last season, to Matty Carroll.   Well, that would be one shooter, and Ben Hansbrough would be another, and Tory and Jonathan Peoples maybe could continue progress on their jumpers, and Harangody's range was extending towards the end of last season....

That was a best case scenario and it seemed quite unlikely, but here we are two games into the season and the idea that Mike Brey would have a team without shooters seems completely laughable in hindsight.  I understand the competition has also been something to chuckle at, but you have to put the ball in the bucket no matter who you're against, and the Irish have been doing that from behind the arc and then some.  The team is 26 for 48 from 3m for a blistering 54%.  Hansbrough is 9 for 11, Peoples is 3 for 6, Tory is 4 for 7 and Tim "Matt Carroll" Abromaitis is 6 for 10 off the bench.  Throw in Luke Harangody tossing in 3 of his 9 and you have the main reason (beyond the schedule ) for the Irish averaging 90.5 points per game.

As long as Peoples and Jackson can continue knocking down a decent percentage - and they will get looks, with the double and triple-teams that will be thrown at Gody all season - this offense will be in fine shape.  Ty Nash can do nitty gritty things, bang with some guys and clean up misses, with Carleton Scott doing the same - plus shooting the occasional three! - when he's in the game.  Abromaitis is some bonus scoring punch off the bench, and also adds some size if you wanted to go a little bigger on the outside and move Hansbrough over to point while sitting Tory.  Or, if you really wanted to space things out, slide Abromaitis down to the four and put Harangody in there with him, Tory, Ben and Peoples.  You need another guy to add into the rotation, but this Irish team has some different combinations it can deploy and will be competitive in every game as long as Harangody stays out of foul trouble.

My other thought with this line-up is whether this might be the best perimeter defense we've seen from a Mike Brey squad in recent years.  God bless Kyle McAlarney, who elicited a record number of "laughing, shaking your head and high-fiving your nearest friend" with his three point barrages and will be sorely missed, but he wasn't exactly Gary Payton out there on the defensive end.  Chris Thomas, with a banged up knee plaguing him the whole season, couldn't guard anybody his senior year.  Tory is tenacious, but often undersized and forced into bad match-ups.  But this team -if Brey wants to - could be a very solid defensive squad.  Hansbrough played a hard-nosed style at Mississippi State and has the size, while Peoples has the athleticism to maybe make that Russell Carter leap for his senior season.  Tory is a bulldog pressuring the ball, so it's possible a lot of the problems that plagued the Irish over the years, like giving up penetration to make for easy slash-and-kick threes or dunks, could be mitigated.  With Harangody gobbling up rebounds and Nash/Scott jumping out of the gym to block shots, this could potentially be a considerably more balanced Irish team that we're used to seeing .  Granted, it's likely the perimeter defense assumes its usual position as a sieve-like turnstile, but the personnel is there to lock things down on the outside.

Your notable games for the Irish this season:

November 27^th vs. Northwestern

December 19^th vs. UCLA (who lost to Cal State-Fullerton last night)

January 2^nd at UConn

January 9^th vs. West Virginia (one preseason Big East favorite)

January 27^th at Villanova (the other)

And then the closing stretch of the Big East schedule, which consists of @Louisville, Pitt, @Georgetown, UConn and @Marquette.  Not quite as bad as the Bataan Death March in the middle of last year, but still no easy trek into the Garden.  Remember, some of these teams aren't as good as last year - Louisville lost Clark and Williams, Pitt Blair and Young, Marquette James, Matthews, McNeal and Burke - but they aren't exactly going to be gimme wins either, especially with the young players stepping into the replace the losses having a full season of conference play to get seasoned.

Fun Luke Harangody goal for the season that doesn't involve winning National Player of the Year or setting the career Big East marks in scoring or rebounding :

I'd like Harangody to get a triple-double.  He'll get the points and rebounds with his eyes closed, but the assists will be a little tricky simply because he is just a high volume scorer.  He only averaged two a game last year with a game-high of six against Syracuse, but if it turned into an up and down game and the opposition was really throwing double teams at him, it's possible.