City of Basketball Love

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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BUFFALO, N.Y. -- At one point early in the summer of 2016, Notre Dame’s Mike Brey called Matt Farrell into his office for a meeting.

It was a quick chat, and one that left Farrell walking out of the room feeling about as good as could be.

In short, the 17th-year head coach had told the junior guard, it’s your turn.

“(He) said I had the keys to the car,” Farrell said. “That’s when it started, I took it right then and there that this is my team.

“It definitely put a smile on my face, walking out of there with a smile on my face,” he added. “It was a lot of excitement for me just to get to run this team, to try to lead them

Buoyed by the confidence his coach had in him and the experience of starting on the biggest stage in college basketball, Farrell has had a junior year to remember.

The 6-foot-1 guard built on a season where he averaged 14.2 ppg and 5.5 apg, earning an All-ACC Honorable Mention, scoring 16 points and dishing out four assists as the Irish won an NCAA Tournament game for the third consecutive year, downing Princeton 60-58 in the first round on Thursday.

On a night where Notre Dame seniors Steve Vasturia (3-12 FG, 10 points) and V.J. Beachem (1-9 FG, 2 points) both struggled mightily from the field, Farrell’s 6-of-9 shooting performance, including 3-of-5 from beyond the arc, was crucial.

“He’s been doing what he’s been doing all year - just leading us and making big shots,” Vasturia said. “That’s what we are going to continue to need.”

Farrell's most important stretch came just out of halftime, when he scored seven quick points to help the Irish turn what had been a six-point lead at the break into an 11-point advantage with under 14 minutes to play.

With a normally 3-point reliant Irish unable to do its usual damage from beyond the arc (4-of-11), Farrell's ability to get into the lane to either get his own shot or find big man Bonzie Colson (18 points) for a bucket was clutch.

"It's just about making adjustments," he said. "I don't know if we shot the ball very well, but...we did what we had to do to get out of there with a win."

It was just around a year ago that the Pt. Pleasant Beach (N.J.) product started to make his presence felt significantly in the Irish program.

After playing sparingly in 15 games as a freshman and then averaging just over 11 minutes per game through his first 24 outings as a sophomore, Farrell got inserted into the starting lineup for Notre Dame’s NCAA Tournament opener against Michigan. Farrell started that one and the next three as the Irish made the Elite 8 for the second year in a row, playing over 26 minutes per contest and averaging 6.5 ppg and 3.5 apg in that quartet of outings.

But that wasn’t even a hint of what was to come this season.

Farrell had his coming-out party in New York as Notre Dame swept Colorado and Northwestern to win the Legends’ Classic in November, scoring a total of 38 points and dishing out 12 assists against just one turnover in the pair of victories.

The start of Atlantic Coast Conference play didn’t do anything to shake Farrell, who’s scored in double figures in all but one game since league competition began on Dec. 31, a span of what’s now 22 games.

“He's at the controls of this program,” Brey said. “What helped him get confident early in the season, was that we did start him in the NCAA Tournament. So when we went to Brooklyn and won the Legends Classic, that was a great coming-out party, but he felt good, and that made us all believe and believe in him.”

The Irish will need Farrell to continue to play at a high level if they’re to make it past the second weekend of the tournament for the first time in nearly 30 years.

Notre Dame is the only program in the country to make Elite 8s in both 2015 and 2016, but top-seeded Kentucky (in ‘15) and top-seed North Carolina (last year) kept the Irish from going any further.

“I think guys use it as motivation to try to get to that Final Four, that’s our goal,” Farrell said. “But I think it gives us confidence, we’re a team that likes to be in these big games...we’ve got guys who are poised and we’ve got a coach who’s poised. All of those factors come into it and help us, and we’re a team that likes to play in March and who likes to be in this tournament.”

Even though so much has changed since last year in regards to his role, Farrell insisted that he still feels the same way playing in March Madness as a bona-fide star as he did when he was an underclassman with a lot to prove.

“I think it's a lot of fun to be here, especially with the guys around me, so, kind of the same mindset,” he said. “Just do whatever it takes to get the ‘W.’”