Calm, nitty-gritty work wins games
By KATHLEEN O'BRIEN
Associate Sports Editor
It's a good thing All-American power forward Troy Murphy used to travel into the heart of Newark, N.J., to play in the St. Rocco's Church League. He needed the lessons learned on the streets — getting elbowed without retaliating, ignoring opponents' trash talk and playing through uncalled fouls — to keep his cool in Sunday's free-for-all against West Virginia.
"I thought we showed a lot of poise dealing with all the distractions," Murphy said. "Before the ball was even thrown up, they were [trash] talking."
Murphy and the rest of the Irish managed to avoid the major outbursts that helped send the Mountaineers home in defeat. Two technical fouls by Chris Moss, the second of which resulted in Moss raging at the referees, being physically dragged off the court by three West Virginia coaches and spitting on an Irish cheerleader, didn't help the Mountaineers' cause.
Referees whistled Moss for his first technical with one minute, 31 seconds to play in the first period when he stepped on the face of Irish reserve Jere Macura. Irish players Matt Carroll and David Graves quickly got their arms around Macura, restraining their teammate and preventing him from striking back at Moss.
The Irish were no saints, with Ryan Humphrey called for a technical midway through the second period. Humphrey was fouled in the act of shooting, and jumped up and into the face of Mountaineer Michael Ayodele.
But it was West Virginia's Moss that carried the play beyond just physical Big East bruising and into the unacceptable and unheard of.
"I've coached 38 years and that's never happened. It will be corrected," Mountaineer coach Gale Catlett said when informed after the game that Moss had spit on a female cheerleader. "He was claiming all day that he'd been shoved and pushed, and the officials weren't calling it. He just lost his cool."
Catlett had not yet decided on whether Moss would be further punished, but said the junior, who has tallied double digits seven times this year, is in the midst of some personal problems, including the fact that Moss's mother is near death.
After the game, Irish coach Mike Brey said keeping players' tempers under control is always a concern.
"You get these kids to play at a fever pitch, especially when you're on the road and the crowd's kind of on you," Brey said. "I thought they did a great job trying to calm him down."
The Irish played dirty in their own way, one that didn't hurt their chances of victory.
They responded to a post-game chat after a Jan. 13 loss in Lexington, Kentucky, to the Kentucky Wildcats, and started digging in on defense, scrambling for loose balls and going full-tilt for rebounds. Brey inserted forward Harold Swanagan into the starting lineup in place of Graves last Tuesday as Graves nursed a sprained ankle.
The switch in the starting five, while it may have bruised Graves' ego a bit, appeared to work. It gave the Irish a surge of hustle and jolted Graves into a better defensive effort, so Brey stuck with what was working.
"We're just taking it game by game. I still think of myself as a starter," Graves said. "The six of us [Murphy, Humphrey, point guard Martin Ingelsby, Carroll, Swanagan and Graves], we're all starters. I don't really care, as long as I'm on the floor and contributing to the team.
"The games that I play very well on defense," Graves continued, "I usually have an all-around good game. The times that I concentrate on shooting, I'm just an average player."
Against West Virginia, Graves put up a solid effort across the board. Graves took over Swanagan's role of Super-Sub, leading Irish scorers with 17 points. He and Swanagan each pulled down a team-high nine rebounds, as did Humphrey.
After two-and-a-half years as a starter, suddenly finding himself on the bench at the opening whistle can't have been easy for Graves. It came as a tough adjustment for Swanagan at the start of the season when he lost his starting spot to Humphrey.
But the best thing for the Irish and their hopes of making it to the NCAA Tournament might be ignoring whose name is announced on the loudspeaker as a starter. They might need to make adjustments on a game-to-game basis. All six guys, the main contributors for the Irish, are going to get their minutes, but an opposing team's larger lineup or one player's shooting slump may necessitate lineup changes from time to time.
The cornerstone for Irish success may be Brey's ability to massage his team's egos and their swiftness at adjusting to the changes.
As Murphy said after Sunday's game, "It's not me against them. It's Notre Dame against West Virginia. Whether I have zero baskets or 30 baskets, I'd rather win."
Hopefully, those words are from the heart, and echo the sentiments of his teammates. After all, wins are what matters.
The views expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of The Observer.
All Sports Stories for Monday, January 22, 2001
