Many of us turned out the lights on the Irish hoops season following the loss at Rutgers, a team that was winless in the Big East until beating the Irish.  Perhaps that was a bit premature, as the Irish protected home court against two other bubble teams - Cincinnati and South Florida - and now find themselves back in the conversation with a 6-5 record in the best conference in the nation.

Against a somewhat listless Bearcats squad, the Irish got a classic Luke Harangody night, as the big man scored 37 and grabbed 14 boards.  Tim Abromaitis chipped in 22 and the backcourt of Tory Jackson and Ben Hansbrough dished out 17 assists, which helped facilitate an absurd 25 assists on 29 field goals night for Notre Dame.  Things were a little hairier against the Bulls, as a big first half lead was blown, only to have the game saved by a phenomenal second half from Jackson.  The senior point guard played fantastic defense against Dominique Jones down the stretch and got to the hoop repeatedly against the South Florida defense, finishing with 18 points.

If the Irish want to keep the ride going, they absolutely must win the next two games to get to 8-5 before a very tough closing stretch.  Next up?  A trip to Seton Hall, a 12-9 team that's already been through the toughest part of their Big East schedule.  They're led by the inside-outside combination of Jeremy Hazell and Herb Pope, a talented duo that's going to give the Irish all kinds of trouble.  Hazell's a rangy 6'5" guard scoring 22 a game, while Pope's averaging a double-double and two blocks, meaning that securing the paint is going to be incredibly important.

Ty Nash has been playing well on the interior, but he's going to need some more help from Gody.  Luke's been spending more time on the perimeter this year, and it shows in his offensive rebounding numbers.  It's not a matter of effort - Harangody is still one of the better defensive rebounders in the country - but the fact that when he's on the perimeter taking shots, he's just not close enough to basket to be an effective weapon on the glass.  Against Cincinnati, Harangody spent more time around the paint and it showed in both his shooting (15 for 25) and number of offensive boards (six, a season high). 

Using KenPom's rebounding rate numbers - basically, the percentage of available boards a player gets while he's on the floor - you can see that Gody isn't as productive on the offensive glass this season compared to the last couple years.

Oddly enough, the Irish are actually better as a team on the offensive boards this season than they were last year.  I would suspect most of that can be attributed to Hansbrough being a great rebounding guard and Abro slighting improving on Ayers' rate from last year.  There are a lot of things the Irish need to finish the season strong and get back to the NCAA Tournament, but one of the most important is for Harangody to re-establish himself on the offensive glass.  Considering the big guy is currently below 30% from behind the arc, I don't think the Irish will miss his outside contributions too much if he turns his attention inside.

(Just as an aside, Dejuan Blair's offensive rebounding rate last year was an absurd 23.6, meaning he essentially grabbed one out of every four missed shots for the Panthers.  The fact he's playing in this weekend's Rookie vs. Sophomore game and leading all rookies in rebounding is not surprising.)