Irish MBB team fights but falls to North Carolina, 81-64
There’s a reason that unranked North Carolina (10-5, 2-2 ACC), last year’s NCAA tourney runner-up, was ranked No. 1 in the preseason and picked to finish first in the Atlantic Coast Conference this season.
And Notre Dame (8-8, 0-5 ACC) allowed all those strengths, firepower and high ceiling to be exposed in an 81-64 Tar Heel men’s basketball victory that started before noon in front of 21,750 at the Dean E. Smith Center in Chapel Hill, N.C., on Saturday.
There were no answers of substance from Notre Dame, mired in a string of six losses over the last seven games.
In fact, there were a few lows.
• With 7:21 to play and the Irish still in it, trailing 65-54, Irish grad student Cormac Ryan was charged with a Flagrant 2 foul — which comes with an ejection— for kicking Puff Johnson in the face after the two wound up tangled under the basket following Johnson’s breakaway bucket and Ryan’s attempt to block him from behind. Only a minute earlier, Ryan had gotten the Irish to within seven after his second 3-pointer in less than a minute.
• Notre Dame was without 6-8 freshman Ven-Allen Lubin and his 5.7 points and 4.5 rebounds a game off the bench, as he nursed an ankle injury suffered in Tuesday’s loss to Boston College. His minutes were distributed between 6-9 junior Matt Zona and 6-9, 268-pound freshman Dom Campbell. They accounted for five points and two rebounds – and Campbell fouled out in seven minutes. Yes, seven minutes.
• The Irish were outscored 22-12 in bench points, out-rebounded 45-32, allowing 13 of those on the offensive end, and had just 11 assists on 25 field goals. They shot only 41.7% for the game, below their 46% percent coming in.
• North Carolina came in shooting 31.3 percent in 3-point attempts, but had plenty of uncontested looks to finish at 42.1 (8-for-19). The Irish came into the game 316th in the country in field-goal percentage defense at 45.9 and allowed 47.7 for the game, including 50% at halftime. And it could have been worse — the Heels were without 6-11 Pete Nance (11 points, 6.1 rebounds a game) because of an injury.
• A team that’s supposed to at least be good from the free-throw line (78.3%), didn’t get there often and hit only 7-of-14.
After Ryan got booted, the Irish never got the deficit below 12.
“I love the fact that we had a little bit of a confrontation,” ND coach Mike Brey told the South Bend Tribune’s Tom Noie. “That was kind of good. We probably need some of that.”
It was mostly a trickle downhill after the Irish took an 18-15 lead near the halfway mark of the first half following a Marcus Hammond 3-pointer, and they led for only 2:51 in the contest.
They were outscored 36-26 in the lane, mostly because of 6-11, 235-pound senior Armando Bacot. He finished with 13 rebounds — six on the offensive end — and 21 points, a couple over his average and fifth straight game with 20-plus points.
The Irish had to make some defensive concessions, especially without Lubin inside, to try to slow him.
Basically a four-guard starting lineup around 6-10 Nate Laszewski sagged on Bacot — either in a zone or in their man-to-man — but Bacot found enough open players to produce four assists, one more than any of Notre Dame’s guards produced.
Caleb Love had 18 points and benefitted from the attention Bacot got to go 3-for-6 from the 3-point line. RJ Davis added 13 and Puff Johnson 11.
Laszewski did all he could inside. He finished with a team-high 17 points — four over his average — on 7-for-10 shooting (1-for-1 from 3-point line) and had a team high in rebounds with eight.
Dane Goodwin was 5-for-10 for 10 points with seven rebounds, and freshman JJ Starling was 4-for-10 for 10 points. The highly recruited guard’s season 63.9% free throw shooting took another hit when he went 1-for-3.
Niagara transfer Marcus Hammond got his first start of the season, over Trey Wertz, but it produced no spark. He was 2-for-8 from the field and 1-for-4 from the line (seven points).
It will take a 15-game winning streak now for Notre Dame to match its 15-5 ACC record of a year ago.
The Irish host Georgia Tech at 7 p.m. on Jan. 10.
“We’re just looking for anything right now,” Goodwin told the South Bend Tribune. “Whatever we can find in a positive way is going to help us, and we’ll roll with it.”
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