Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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ND SPORTS ning of the season. "He's a very tal- ented player." Russo has also been a major asset to the Notre Dame power play unit in the first half of the year. He con- trols the point in the offensive zone for a group that has scored 20 goals in 99 attempts, the second-best suc- cess rate in the conference. 5 4. NICK NEMETZ AND . MICHAEL KREFT, DIVING Head coach Tim Welsh has high hopes for his massive, 16-person freshman class, which makes up al- most half of the 37 swimmers and divers on the roster this season. "We were looking for a class to have a big impact, and right now we've got a class that's going to have a very big impact," Welsh said. Nemetz and Kreft, both divers, have made the biggest dent during the first half of the season. The duo has combined to claim first place in three of their first four diving compe- titions for the Irish. Nemetz won the one-meter competition in the home opener. Kreft nudged him in the next, and won both the one- and three- meter medals against Pittsburgh and later did the same at Louisville. Irish diving coach Caiming Xie likes to recruit a talented group ev- ery four years and tutor them until they graduate. This year's new crop is picking up right where last year's seniors left off. "We have at least great expecta- tions for them, and maybe even ex- travagant," Welsh said. 6. PAT CONNAUGHTON, MEN'S BASKETBALL The lone freshman on head coach Mike Brey's team this season is going to get plenty of action in a rebuilding year for the Irish. Connaughton nar- rowly missed a double-double (10 points and nine rebounds) against Detroit in the second game of his career. He made his first collegiate start four days later in a 93-69 win over Delaware State. Since then, Con- naughton has come off the bench and averaged 7.6 points per game. "He's almost like a sixth starter," Brey said after a loss to Indiana. "He's a tough kid and he really com- petes. We need that right now." Connaughton will reap the benefits of what is shaping up to be a long www.BLUEANDGOLD.com Chris Giesting won the 400-meter race in the Blue & Gold Invitational on Dec. 2, clocking a time (47.4 seconds) that was one of the 10 fastest in the country to date. PHOTO COURTESY NOTRE DAME MEDIA RELATIONS FEBRUARY 2012 49 season for the men's hoops team. He and sophomores Eric Atkins and Jer- ian Grant are filling up on valuable experience while forming the future core of the Irish team. 7. CHRIS GIESTING, TRACK & FIELD Giesting is one for one in Big East Athlete of the Week awards so far in his career at Notre Dame. He won the 400-meter race and ran on the winning 4x400 relay team in the Blue & Gold Invitational on Dec. 2. He fin- ished the 400 in 47.4 seconds, which was one of the 10 fastest times in the country to date. "I was pretty surprised," he said. "Training was going well and I was running against [Irish sophomore] Pat Feeney, who won the Big East last year, I knew I could compete with him." Giesting and Feeney, both Indiana products, met in high school and have pushed each other hard since Giesting arrived on campus. Working in the weight room and focusing on details has helped Giest- ing post some of his best career times very early in the season. The freshman said he has set a lofty goal of qualify- ing for Indoor Nationals in March. 8. MARKISHA WRIGHT, WOMEN'S BASKETBALL It's not easy being a newcomer on a Final Four team that returns nine players, but forward Markisha Wright did enough in the non-confer- ence schedule to show that the future of Irish basketball is in good hands. Wright averaged 14.8 minutes and 4.5 points in Notre Dame's first 12 games of the season. She is in the process of leaning how to use her 6-2 frame to be a presence in the paint on the college level. "I see her as being a scorer on the blocks," head coach Muffet McGraw said. "She really will help us. We don't have that physical presence that we lost with [2011 graduate] Becca [Bruszewski]. I think she'll give us that." Wright said she had to adjust to not always being the strongest player on the floor during the first part of her freshman season. "You just have to be tough and get to your spots a lot sooner in college," she said. "They're going to push you around, but I'm getting used to it now." ✦