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What to Watch For in Notre Dame's Final Exhibition Game

Writer's picture: Joey DwyerJoey Dwyer

After taking care of business last Friday against Nazareth college, Notre Dame will host St. Norbret College Tomorrow night at Purcell Pavillion. This will be the final exhibition game for the Irish before they tip their season off against Cal State Northridge on Saturday November 13th. Although the second exhibition game is sometimes a snoozer, there will still be plenty of storylines, here's what to watch for in Friday's contest:


How will Mike Brey use the game?


In Notre Dame's first exhibition game, Mike Brey seemed to treat it like a real game in terms of who he played and how long he played them. The Irish had six players play over 20 minutes along with JR Konieczny who played 18 minutes. The veteran head coach used Notre Dame's first exhibition as a dress rehearsal of sorts to get the starters in the flow of a gameday and to practice managing his rotation. Friday night's exhibition could be different in that regard.


We will likely see plenty of Notre Dame's "old guys" on Friday night, but unlike last week's exhibition, there could be a heavy dose of Notre Dame's young bench players like Tony Sanders and Matt Zona. Rather than using Friday's exhibition as a dress rehearsal, Brey could use it as an evaluation period of sorts to get an extended look at players he won't otherwise see in game action.


Mike Brey and the Notre Dame staff can take advantage of Tomorrow's game in a few separate ways, will they play the young guys? Will they try to get more looks at the older guys? There isn't really a wrong answer but it will certainly be interesting to see how the staff navigates their final exhibition game.



Can The Irish Continue their Defensive Dominance?


It's no secret that Notre Dame's biggest issue in 2020-2021 was their defense, Mike Brey has been very upfront about the team's defensive issues. The veteran head coach even made some changes on his staff in an effort to revamp the defense.


In Notre Dame's exhibition against Nazareth College it seemed that those changes payed off. The Irish gave up just 37 points, the lowest amount the program has ever let up in an exhibition game, and seemed to overwhelm Nazareth in essentially every aspect.


Notre Dame's unbelievable defensive performance is certainly a good sign, but it was also against a division three opponent in October. It will be easier to be optimistic about Notre Dame's defense if they can have another dominant performance on Friday night.


Does Blake Wesley still play some point guard with Trey Wertz in action?


One of the biggest surprises from Notre Dame's first scrimmage was Blake Wesley's time spent at point guard. In his junior year of high school, arguably Wesley's biggest weakness was his shot selection. For Mike Brey to already trust the guard as a ball handler is a great sign, even if it was just in a scrimmage.


It was interesting to see Wesley playing point guard last week but with Trey Wertz likely to return to the lineup, we will see if Notre Dame is serious about Wesley being a combo guard or if the freshman was just bringing the ball up in place of Wertz. Wesley will certainly have a role this season, Mike Brey went as far as saying that he and his team "need Blake" but on Friday night we will get a better idea of whether the freshman will be a true combo guard or soley a wing.


Notre Dame should easily take care of business on Friday night but this scrimmage shouldn't be written off as meaningless, watching for these storylines will give us a nice look into Mike Brey and the coaching staff's mind.



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