Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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BY WES MORGAN T here was Notre Dame junior forward Jack Cooley through the first nine games — the one who averaged just 4.9 points per contest, including a scoreless ef- fort against Missouri and a missed trip to Washington, D.C., versus Maryland because of illness. Now, Fighting Irish fans are getting to know the new Cooley — the one who imposes his will, is an emo- tional leader, sacrifices his body for loose balls and scores 22 points per game, as he did against both Maine and Dartmouth. The 6-9, 248-pounder has a re- newed pep in his step and is the outrageous; we shouldn't have let that happen. We all just put it upon ourselves. Coach [Mike Brey] didn't have to say anything; we all knew." Fraser didn't score again. A combined effort by Cooley, junior Tom Knight (who earned his sec- ond career start) and junior Mike Broghammer shut the 6-7 sopho- more down over the final 20 min- utes. Along the way, the Irish out- rebounded a solid Maine crew 34-26. Cooley came in averaging 4.9 points and 7.0 rebounds per game. And despite a weakened body still recovering from some kind of bug last week, which required him to NEW ATTITUDE After a slow start, Jack Cooley adopted a tough-minded approach and played the best basketball of his career main reason Notre Dame improved to 7-4 with back-to-back victories. At a time of year when folks jump headfirst into the holiday spirit, Cooley opted for the nasty route. And the Fighting Irish are better off because of the chip on his shoul- der. After starting seven contests, Cooley came off the bench against Maine on Dec. 8 and went off for a career-high 22 points and 14 re- bounds to will Notre Dame to an 87-78 victory. Registering just four points in the first half and struggling to defend the Black Bears' Alasdair Fraser, who pounded in 17 points through the first 20 minutes, Cooley made a decision at halftime. "I kind of figured enough was enough," Cooley said. "I just needed to go out there and play my hardest no matter what's going on. It helped on defense. If I'm doing well on of- fense, it's easy to do well on defense. Even if you're not doing well on of- fense, you've got to just find a way to do it on defense. I made some strides tonight. "The bigs collectively, we just decided we weren't going to let [Fraser] score again. That was just 52 JANUARY 2012 miss portions of practice, he logged 27 minutes — the second most he's played all year. He also knocked down eight of nine foul shots for Notre Dame. For the first time this season, the Irish felt that one or two play- ers weren't going to let the team fail. Cooley and sophomore point guard Eric Atkins (26 points) put the squad on their backs. "It was a good win because we won," head coach Mike Brey said bluntly. "I thought our three big guys rotating through there gave us great stuff. I thought Jack was fabulous, man. He gave us the heart and soul. He got loose balls for us and did all the tough stuff. Eric and Jack wouldn't let us lose, and that was nice to see." What was tough to see was an- other key player go down with an injury. The Irish lost fifth-year se- nior and co-captain Tim Abromaitis in late November with a torn ACL. Against Maine, fellow co-captain Scott Martin took a shot to the head at the end of the first half and missed the rest of the game with a mild concussion. The rest of the team picked up the slack and fed off of Cooley's new attitude. "Those two guys [Cooley and Atkins] just kind of had that look that they were going to make some plays," Brey said. "I thought Alex [Dragicevich] had a little bit of that look today, and Pat [Connaughton] did, too." The question was whether or not Cooley could back that performance up two nights later against Dart- mouth. After all, consistency hasn't been a hallmark of this year's Irish. In Brey's 12th season, up is down, left is right and there's a new sur- prise each and every night. It has forced Brey to use seven different starting lineups so far. With Abromaitis and Martin in street clothes and sophomore guard Jerian Grant and Atkins — the team's two leading scorers this year — going scoreless, Cooley again picked up the slack at home. Cooley tied a career high set the previous game against Maine with 22 points, but fell short of a double- double. Nine rebounds glared at him from the stat sheet. "I had more than four blocks, too," Cooley said. "The scorer 's table … I don't want to talk about it. Oh well, I'm feeling great." His stamina was in question at the beginning of the season after the big man was diagnosed with a condition that limits the amount of oxygen his body can process. When asked how much he could continue to ride Cooley, who played 25 min- utes Saturday, Brey was candid. "We are going to ride that big dog hard, I can tell you that much," Brey said. "He's been great, and we really need that presence." The Cooley-Knight combo might become standard operating proce- dure come Big East play. The two started together for the first time against the Big Green. "It could be," Cooley said. "It does work. It's pretty hard to stop when we have two scoring bigs down there. What are you going to do? When you double on one, you just dish to the other." At the very least, Brey now has an idea of what he can expect from Cooley moving forward. ✦ Cooley, a junior forward, led the Irish to victories over Maine and Dartmouth by averaging 22.0 points and 11.5 rebounds per game. PHOTO BY JOE RAYMOND BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED