Notre Dame Basketball: What did we learn from the Bahamas trip?

The Notre Dame basketball team will return from the Bahamas tomorrow with some good , some bad and some ugly things to build on.

Tomorrow marks the return of the Notre Dame basketball team to South Bend after a successful team-building trip to the Bahamas. As fellow STS hoops junkie Chase Eyrich talked about the other day, this trip was an important one. The need for all the new pieces to be on the court together can not be understated.

What did we learn from this trip?

A great many things actually. The one unfortunate thing about the trip is that we are unable to find a box score from one of the games. The stat sheet from the NBPA All Stars game from whatever reason is a duplicate of the IBA elite game. I am sure it will be corrected shortly.

In any event, the most obvious thing to take away from the box score is that the rotation is WIDE OPEN. In the first game against IBA elite, nine players played at least 18 minutes. In the third game, nine players played at least 13 minutes.

Both junior leader TJ Gibbs and highly touted freshman Nate Laszewski performed at a very high level. Gibbs averaged 21.5 points and went 13-18 from deep, while Laszewski averaged 19.5 points, 8 rebounds and shot 6-12 from deep. Juwan Durham averaged nine rebounds and 2.5 blocks per game in the two games.

Dane Goodwin had a pretty difficult trip on the court statistically. The freshman, who has a reputation as a big time scorer, went 5-18 from the floor, 0-8 from behind the arc and 3-6 from the stripe.

As a team, the Irish apparently have some chemistry issues to work out as well. Notre Dame logged 35 turnovers in the two games compared to 38 assists. Some of this stat can be attributed to Temple Gibbs playing the lead guard spot while freshman Prentiss Hubb (who did not appear in the games) continues his convalescence.

In the third game (Bahamas All-Stars), it is said that the officiating was beyond atrocious. The Irish, after averaging 115 points in the first two games, scored only 75 in the third but were still able to pull out the victory 75-65. Of course, going 16-35 from behind the arc can make up for more than a few poor calls from the officials.

I am really hopeful that the absence of Hubb is just a precautionary thing and there was no setback. As I have stated before, I think it is paramount that Gibbs plays the off-guard spot during the upcoming season.

At the end of the day, it is difficult to take too much away from these games, but at the very least, you can extrapolate that Gibbs is taking the leadership role by the horns and Laszewski appears to live up to the hype.