GAME THREAD | Radford at Notre Dame

Radford (0-1) at Notre Dame (0-0)

Date: November 10

Time: 8:00 PM ET 

Where: Purcell Pavilion | Notre Dame, Ind. 

TV: ACC Network | John Schriffen & Randolph Childress

Line: Notre Dame -18.5

O/U: 137.5

QUICK FACTS 

- Radford leads the all-time series 1-0. 

- The Irish fell to Radford 63-60 on November 14th, 2018. 

- Notre Dame is 20-2 in the Mike Brey era in season openers. Brey is 22-0 at Notre Dame in the home opener. 

- The Irish return a combined 5,849 career points, which is the most ever in the Brey era to start a season. Notre Dame’s guards have scored 4,694 of those points. 

- Notre Dame returns 338 combined starts and 633 combined games played, which is also a new high for Brey during his time in South Bend. 

- The Irish also have six graduate transfers on the roster, which is the most of any Power Five program. 

- Dane Goodwin and Nate Laszewski enter the season with over 1,000 career points in the blue and gold. If the Irish play 35 games this season, Cormac Ryan would need to average 12.2 points per game to join his teammates with 1,000 career points at Notre Dame.

PROJECTED STARTERS

Notre Dame

Radford 

Preview

Notre Dame will opens its 2022-23 campaign on Thursday evening and it will be without a key piece to the puzzle as grad transfer guard Marcus Hammond will be lost for at least the next week with a sprained MCL. 

“We’re not going to have Marcus Hammond,” stated head coach Mike Brey. “He’s got an MCL sprain that we’re nursing. We’re a little down at the guard spot. Trey (Wertz) would start in that spot. You feel you have a fifth-year guy, but we’re a little thinner on the perimeter and that does concern me because Marcus has been very good for us through 30 practices, the exhibition and the scrimmage. 

“I think we can really re-evaluate next Friday and maybe get him going. He’s out shooting and moving, but they don’t want him cutting.” 

The injury to Hammond is a hit to the Irish as he recorded nine points and seven rebounds in last week’s exhibition game. 

However, Brey remains confident his team can handle a little adversity as they have a veteran core and youth ready to shine. 

“They’re ready to go,” Brey said. “We went through the summer and we’re ready to go. I do like the games come at us quick. We have our hands full. Radford is a team that’s going to fire and be loose and a lot of one-on-one stuff. Can we be good with it and pick our spots? Knowing when to change tempos will be key for us because they really want to run. They kind of play with a 15-second shot clock. It’s going up quick.

“You know our nucleus. Ven-Allen (Lubin) and JJ (Starling) are a big part of it.”

One other notable roster note to start the season will be guard JR Konieczny will redshirt this season as Brey is looking at the big picture for the program, but also the development of the South Bend native. 

“One of the things we talked about with JR is the five-year program,” explained Brey. “He and I talked about that a lot the last couple days. We’ll put him in street clothes tomorrow because I don’t want to burn a year of eligibility. 

“I think it’s something we’ve kind of looked at and talked about a little bit with him even through the summer when he was hurt. Even with Hammond down - it’s the Abro (Tim Abromaitis) plan. I think he’s gained 22 pounds and he’s gotten better, but it’s just hard to get him in. Why wouldn’t we think of him as a three-year starter instead of a two-year starter, so we save a year. Abro has been the test case and I said to him and his family, you know who Abro’s workout guy was on game day. It was Anthony Solomon and we’ve come full circle.” 

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