Notre Dame and Mike Brey have another unheralded offensive juggernaut

Three hundred and sixty-eight days ago, Notre Dame sophomore guard Matt Farrell spent much of his Saturday evening sitting on the bench. He got off it for four minutes. He didn’t take a shot. His lone stat was a single turnover in a 77-66 loss at Virginia.

That innocuous Jan. 2 game typified January and February of last year for the former three-star guard whose only other major conference scholarship offers had come from Boston College and Rutgers. Farrell recorded seven DNPs in ACC play. He made just one field goal.

A year later, Farrell, now a junior, may very well be the most improved player in all of college basketball. He scored a cool 22 points in Wednesday night’s upset of No. 9 Louisville, and is the floor general on an Irish team that now sits tied atop the ACC at 2-0.

He’s also emblematic of one of the hidden wonders of college basketball, the machine that is Mike Brey’s Notre Dame — the machine that ripped through a Louisville defense that had been allowing 0.87 points per possession.

For the second straight year, the Irish lost their two leading scorers. For the second straight year, they lost an NBA point guard. And for the second straight year, they’ve rebuilt on the fly, erasing any lingering thoughts of past stars with routine efficiency.

This time, the end product is an unorthodox conglomeration of previously undervalued and now successfully developed talent that will take Brey to his third NCAA Tournament in a row. Farrell dishes (at an assist rate of 29.9) to Steve Vasturia, a wing who attempted more than twice as many threes as twos as a freshman, but worked to expand his offensive game to become an all-around scorer; to Bonzie Colson, a 6-foot-5 center and a top-20 rebounder in Division I; to Martinas Geben, a Lithuanian big who played a grand total of 48 minutes a year ago; and to V.J. Beachem, who is just a damn good player.

The Irish, despite the personnel turnover, have their third consecutive top-10 offense, and eighth since 2002, the first year of KenPom data. They space the floor delightfully and share the ball compulsively. They don’t turn it over, and knock down free throws at the highest rate in the country. And they feed off Farrell, who, out of nowhere, has become a stud.

Well, not completely out of nowhere. Brey boldly inserted Farrell into the starting lineup for the first time ever in last year’s first round NCAA Tournament game against Michigan, and kept him there throughout his team’s run to the Elite Eight. The directive from the head coach was simple: “Attack.”

“We were a little stagnant,” Farrell told me last year on the eve of the Elite Eight game against North Carolina. “They’ve always told me to attack, attack, attack. Get in there, make plays. Just do what you do.” He didn’t have the ball in his hands enough during the tournament to show the breadth of his skill set. But now, with Demetrius Jackson in the NBA, Farrell is doing what he does, and he’s doing it really well.

The one constant throughout the years, of course, is Brey’s offense. It’s not set play-heavy, but rather driven by principles and the basketball IQs of his players. It’s full of “unpredictable movement,” as Brey has said, and thus is difficult to prepare for despite years and years of film.

It’s also a difficult system to solve because Brey tweaks it every year based on what he has at his disposal. This year, he can even tweak it within a given game based on lineups. Notre Dame can go big, with Geben (6-foot-10) at the five, Colson at the four and Beachem at the three. Or Brey can slide Colson and Beachem to the five and four, respectively, to go small. Both looks are effective, and require adjustments from opponents.

History tells us the success of this group shouldn’t be a surprise. This is simply what Brey does. He finds players like Farrell and helps them morph into stars.

But it’s tough not to be astounded by a player who less than 10 months ago didn’t get off the bench in an overtime ACC Tournament game against Duke, and Wednesday night won his matchup against some of the best defensive guards in the nation.

And it’s tough not to be astounded by a program who doesn’t get five-star recruits, yet looks ready to compete with the ACC’s heavyweights for the third year running.