Let the good times roll. Beginning with Sunday`s game against Temple, Notre Dame has four games in eight days, a schedule that may cause coaches to frown, but not players.
”If you`re not happy with a challenge like this,” says Irish co-captain Joe Fredrick, ”you`re not a basketball player. We haven`t really played that many games. Some teams have already played 20 games. We`ve only played 12. We get sick of pounding each other in practice.”
It has been mostly good times all season for the Irish (9-3), who are playing the style of basketball most players relish.
Fredrick, who played two seasons in the structured, half-court game that was a byproduct of the David Rivers era, says the new fast-paced style ”is not really a big adjustment because it`s the way we always liked to play.
”When we played together in the offseason, we always ran up and down the floor. Now we`re playing the way we always wanted to.
”With David we played a half-court game, and set it up for him to get his shots. That was all right because he was a great player. But we found ourselves standing around a lot.
”You understand that we`re still not a run-and-gun team like UNLV. We run, but we don`t gun. We run when it`s there. We like to create it, but we don`t force it.”
As co-captain, Fredrick has had to take over one of Rivers` roles, that of a team leader. But just as their playing styles differ, so does their leadership style.
”If you want to talk about someone who led by setting an example,”
Fredrick says, ”you`d have David`s picture next to that definition in the dictionary. He was an incredible leader by example.
”He was not the type of guy who`d tell you a whole lot, but I learned by watching him. If he had a bad game, I`d listen to the postgame interviews. He would never bad-mouth anyone else. He`d always take the blame.
”Then I noticed he always got to the practice floor as early as possible the next day and would work on whatever he did wrong.”
Fredrick says that Jamere Jackson, the other co-captain, is more in the Rivers mold, whereas ”I`m more vocal just by nature.”
It`s Fredrick who relays coach Digger Phelps` instructions to the rest of the team when he`s on the floor, ”but there are times you can`t hear him, and when you`re dribbling the ball up the floor you can`t look back over there, so I`ll just call the play myself. I pretty much know what the coach wants. As long as it works, he doesn`t get on me.”
But Fredrick can lead by example, too. Just a bit player until the second half of his sophomore season, Fredrick, a junior, is averaging 15.4 points this season, second to LaPhonso Ellis` team-leading 15.6.
”I always knew in the back of my mind I could be scoring at that level,” Fredrick says, ”but the few times I started early last season I`d just dribble the ball up the court and throw it to David.”
Then, in a game against Kentucky, Fredrick came off the bench and scored 14 points, ”and I started creating opportunities for myself instead of being content with giving the ball to David all the time. David was very supportive. He realized if I scored more, it gave him opportunities. It became a two-way street.”
