Irish reload for basketball season
Despite losing several key members of its rotation, the Notre Dame Fighting Irish senior boys basketball team is more in reload mode than a rebuilding phase.
“We certainly have talent, but we are inexperienced and we’re young,” Notre Dame head coach Mark Gallagher said Friday, after the Irish opened the 20th Annual Father Fogarty Tipoff Tournament with a 70-64 loss to the Father Goetz Gators. “What happened today is that we played well at times and then our inexperience showed at times too and we panicked and took a few bad shots.
“We let them frustrate us and the more we got frustrated, the worse we played.”
Notre Dame will get better as the season wears on and the team will be led by Grade 11 point guard David Jones.
“David is the point guard and that is the case all the time, but the most important thing is we are trying to move the ball,” Gallagher said. “Our strength is going to be that we have four or five guys on the floor who can make a shot and then when they come out to play us, we will be able to throw the ball inside to our big guys.”
Early in the season, the Irish are working on sharing the ball, figuring what is a good shot and what isn’t and when to take shots and when not to take shots.
One of the big guys this year for the Irish is Shammar Campbell. The 6-foot-6 forward played sparingly last year, but is now a starter and looks ready to take the next step this season after heeding Gallagher’s advice to hit the weight room.
“Shammar obviously hasn’t played a lot and he was growing into his body over the year,” Gallagher said. “When he came up to senior last year, he would have flashes where he played well but he just didn’t have the experience.”
He is a different player now.
“He’s athletic, he has grown into his body and he’s doing things that, at this time last year, he wasn’t capable of doing,” Gallagher said.
The 17-year-old Welland Warriors travel player has put the work in to make that happen.
“I joined the weight training and I started working out a lot and my team is now confident in me so I have to be confident in myself,” he said.
Campbell worked hard on his cardio and did strength training two days a week. He has already noticed the benefits on the court but feels that’s only the start of what he can accomplish this season.
“I want to get way better and help my team,” he said.
And while no one is happy to sit on the bench, Campbell felt he learned a lot last season by watching.
“It was good for me because I learned how my teammates play,” said Campbell, who one days hopes to play basketball at the post-secondary level.
The Father Fogarty tournament continues Saturday with games at 10 a.m., 11:30 a.m. and 1 p.m. followed by the championship and consolation finals at 2:30 p.m. All games are being played at Notre Dame.
Teams competing in the tournament are Notre Dame, Father Goetz, Assumption, St. Patrick’s, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, Blessed Trinity, St. Marcellinus, Waterloo Collegiate, St. Jean de Brebeuf, Jarvis Collegiate, St. Joseph and St. Thomas Aquinas.
STATS PACK
Gators 70 Fighting Irish 64
Mick and Angelo’s/Johnny Rocco’s Player of the Game: Notre Dame’s Shammar Campbell with 15 points and double digit rebounds,
For the Notre Dame Fighting Irish: David Jones 16; Campbell 15; Austin Cooper 11; Andrew Zezela 9; Jesse Raso and Brandon Markowski 5; Anthony Cimino 3.
For the Father Goetz Gators: No. 13 had 18; Chris Cichoki 13; Jaeshon Knight 12; Adam Teopiz 10; Kevin Arellano 9.
