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How Matt Farrell went from fringe player to Notre Dame's beating heart
The leading candidate to be named college basketball’s most improved player this season struggles to hide his contempt for that title.
Notre Dame point guard Matt Farrell insists he was pretty good the past two years too even if he didn’t get many chances to prove it.
Buried behind future NBA draft picks Jerian Grant and Demetrius Jackson as a freshman, Farrell didn’t leave the bench in more than half Notre Dame’s games and played scant minutes in the rest. Farrell also fell out of the Irish rotation at the start of conference play last season and only averaged 2.6 points and 1.6 assists per game.
With Grant and Jackson both playing pro ball now, Farrell finally ascended to starting point guard this season and quickly proved that Notre Dame wouldn’t experience a drop-off at the position. The 6-foot-1 junior has scored 14.1 points per game, tallied more than twice as many assists as turnovers and repeatedly rescued the Irish with massive plays late in close games.
“I’ve been told I’m the most improved player, but I don’t think a lot of people had the chance to see me play before,” Farrell said. “I was doing a lot of the things in practice that I’m doing now. I just had to wait my turn to show it in games.”
Farrell’s breakout season is a major reason Notre Dame is alone atop the nation’s toughest league despite being projected to finish seventh back in October. The 15th-ranked Irish (16-2, 5-0) have a chance to further entrench themselves as an ACC title threat Wednesday night with a road win at No. 10 Florida State.
If Farrell beats the Seminoles with some late-game magic, nobody in blue and gold will be surprised. The everlasting images of Notre Dame’s season so far are Farrell pumping his fist or flashing a defiant grin after a swashbuckling drive or game-clinching jumper.
There was his acrobatic go-ahead 3-point play to beat Northwestern on Nov. 22. Or his impossibly deep 3-pointer to seal a victory over Clemson earlier this month. Or his pinpoint pass to set up V.J. Beachem’s game-winning layup last Thursday at Miami.
Of course, his signature play of the season came last Saturday when he baited Virginia Tech guard Justin Robinson into letting the ball roll all the way to mid-court and then dove for it and snatched it away. Farrell then had the presence of mind to not only pop up without traveling but also to look over his shoulder, spot a fast-charging shot blocker and dish to a teammate for a game-clinching layup.
“People ask me all the time if I’m surprised how well Matt is playing,” Notre Dame associate head coach Rod Balanis said. “The level that he’s playing at? Yeah, I’m a little surprised. But he has been a really good player in our program for the past two years. He has gotten an opportunity now and he has really taken advantage of it.”
Every aspect of Farrell’s fearless, tough-minded style of play can be traced to his New Jersey upbringing. The son of a longtime high school coach who was both his biggest supporter and toughest critic, Farrell had the importance of a strong work ethic drilled into him from a young age.
Basketball and baseball were once twin passions for Farrell, a deft switch hitter who would spend time after school each day perfecting his swing in the batting cages. When Farrell decided to give up baseball entering high school so he could focus exclusively on hoops, he was nervous how his father would react.
“I told him I’d make him a deal,” Bob Farrell said. “I said, ‘I’m not going to make you play a sport you don’t want to play, but if I come home and you’re sitting on the couch playing with some kind of electronic instrument, I’m going to break it and then I’m going to break you.’ I wanted him to commit himself to basketball, and he really did after that. I was so proud of him.”
There were many nights when Bob would arrive home from work to find his younger son alone in the garage, rivers of sweat cascading off his face.
Each night, Farrell would do 45 minutes of ball handling drills while wearing five-pound weighted gloves. Farrell would also work on his shooting, jump rope or use a Vertimax machine to improve his speed, strength and explosiveness.
All that extra work helped Farrell evolve into one of the state of New Jersey’s premier players, a point guard with the quickness to beat defenders off the dribble, the court vision to create shots for his teammates and the confidence to want the ball in his hands with the game on the line. Farrell initially committed to Boston College in October of his senior year, but he reopened his recruitment a month later once it became clear that Steve Donahue and and his staff might not be back the following season.
That Farrell was still uncommitted late in his senior season was very fortunate for Notre Dame. Irish coach Mike Brey hadn’t intended to add a point guard in his 2014 class until some roster upheaval led them to seek an extra body at the position.
Grant, Notre Dame’s engine on offense, had an ascendant junior year ripped away from him thanks to an academic-related suspension imposed for the second semester. Jackson, Grant’s talented understudy, was in the midst of a topsy-turvy freshman season marred by a two-game suspension that February.
“At the time, there was a lot of uncertainty,” Balanis said. “Mike was like, ‘We might need another ball handler in the program. Who knows?'”
Notre Dame hadn’t previously pursued Farrell prior to that point, but a phone call from Farrell’s high school coach to Brey’s assistant, Martin Inglesby, convinced the Irish to take a closer look. It also didn’t hurt when former Duke point guard Bobby Hurley called Brey to rave about Farrell, whose style of play reminded him of his own.
The only time Brey saw Farrell play in person, he traveled to New Jersey for a state playoff game in March 2014. It took the Notre Dame coach all of one half to decide to offer Farrell a scholarship.
“He played with an edge about him,” Brey said. “Reminded me of Hurley.”
While early playing time wasn’t a certainty for Farrell at Notre Dame like it was at other schools, he chose the Irish anyway. Notre Dame’s ball-screen heavy offense was a good fit for Farrell, as was its chip-on-the-shoulder mentality from annually flying under the radar in the Big East or ACC.
When Farrell’s scarcely played as a freshman, he didn’t like it but he understood it. He treated practices like his games, at one point hitting so many clutch shots for Notre Dame’s scout team that Brey became worried he was demoralizing the first unit.
When Farrell’s playing time dried up again midway through his sophomore year, that was harder to stomach. He sought advice from Jackson and other teammates and even spoke to his dad about the possibility of transferring at the end of the season.
“I told him, ‘At the end of the season we’ll talk, but right now you need to prove them wrong,'” Bob Farrell said. “I told him, ‘You can be the kid that shows up late and blames everyone else or you can be the kid that gets into the gym an hour early and then stays an hour after. Make the coach have to play you. Don’t start making excuses and blaming everybody else.'”
The biggest reason Farrell fell out of Notre Dame’s rotation before conference play was that the coaches feared he couldn’t defend his position at his size in the ACC. Six-foot-6 freshman Rex Pflueger became the fourth member of a four-guard rotation because he brought length and athleticism at wing.
But with Jackson and fellow guard Steve Vasturia wearing down late in the season as a result of playing 36 minutes per game, Brey came to the conclusion he needed another playmaker on the floor. Impressed with Farrell’s performance in practice, Brey gave the sophomore his first significant playing time in months during the ACC tournament and then inserted him into Notre Dame’s starting five for all four of its NCAA tournament games.
Farrell played at least 22 minutes in every game during Notre Dame’s second straight Elite Eight run. While he averaged 6.5 points and 3.5 assists, his most important contribution was simply easing the pressure on Jackson to always have to initiate the offense.
“To be honest, we don’t get to the Elite Eight without Matt Farrell last year,” Balanis said. “It was probably good for him to see that there was a bright future for him here. I think that set him up to be ready to go this year.”
Any notion of transferring vanished in a hurry for Farrell after he gained the coaching staff’s trust last March and then Jackson entered the NBA draft after the season. By the time he sat down with Brey at the start of summer school, the discussion had a very different tone.
“He told me, “‘It’s your keys now,'” Farrell said. “‘It’s your team. Run the show.’ I think that was a big step for me to take before this year started.”
Farrell spent the summer working to become a better vocal leader and a more consistent defender. He added muscle, improved his lateral quickness and made a point of making sure the younger players knew they could always seek his advice the same way Jackson did for him.
When the curtains parted on the 2016-17 season, Farrell was ready for that stage. He has saved his best for Notre Dame’s toughest games, averaging 17.6 points against major-conference competition so far.
Since the public had seldom seen Farrell play before this season, his contributions have inevitably led to him being hailed as college basketball’s most improved player. Farrell understands it’s intended as a compliment, but he would much prefer if the focus was on Notre Dame’s unexpected climb to the top of the ACC pecking order.
“We lost NBA guys and people have written us off, but we don’t care,” Farrell said. “We don’t pay attention to any of that. We have confidence in the guys who have to come in and step up.”
Farrell himself is living proof of why. He has gone from the fringes of the rotation to a fixture in the starting lineup and turned a position of uncertainty into one of strength.
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Jeff Eisenberg is the editor of The Dagger on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at daggerblog@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
