Notre Dame Basketball: William and Mary Provides an Opportunity for Offensive Improvement

After suffering their first loss, Notre Dame basketball looks to get back on the right path against William & Mary.

The Irish are in unfamiliar territory. After losing their first regular-season tournament game in two years this early in the season, their backs are against the wall.

Notre Dame has seen some struggles in all three of their games so far. It’s something that you would expect out such a young team. With a youthful core that has to take such an important role, the Irish have had to find ways to get around certain struggles.

In the loss versus Radford, it was obvious that the pace was not something that would benefit Notre Dame. After the first half, there was an overwhelming feeling that nothing really happened.

The Irish were led by the dead-eye shooting of John Mooney, but outside of his performance Notre Dame struggled to get any kind of offense going.

The team is young and head coach Mike Brey is the right guy to develop these players, but there will still be growing pains.

Notre Dame will have to display how they will react with their backs against the wall so early in the season against William & Mary, a team similar to themselves.

W&M has been known as an offensive team with impressive numbers. They were one of the most efficient offenses in the nation last season.

This year comes with new challenges and a new system. W&M lost some of their biggest offensive guns in David Cohn and Connor Burnshfield. While they returned three double-digit scorers, a new focus on defense has had to be implemented.

You can point your finger at W&M giving up 100 points to UIC in an overtime game, but overall they have a much better defensive unit than the one that gave up over 81.5 ppg last season.

There are no cakewalks, but this will be an opportunity to get their offense back in the right place against a team that will be able to provide some pushback.