SOUTH BEND, Ind. — It’s fair to wonder where Notre Dame might be now, had star sophomore guard Markus Burton not missed eight games with a leg injury.
There’s no wondering where Notre Dame would have been without him late Tuesday night.
As the Irish men’s basketball team struggled to find points most of the night against a snug Georgia Tech defense, Burton first kept them in the hunt, then he carried them down the stretch to a 71-68 victory in which the Irish led for just one minute and 49 seconds.
“Pressure is a privilege,” said Burton after his two huge 3-pointers over the final 2:25 and sparkling 26-point, three-rebound, four-assist, three-steal performance finished off the Yellow Jackets.
“I feel like I can handle it.”
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The win in Purcell Pavilion that finished a little after 11 p.m., in front of 4,200, pushed Notre Dame’s mark to 10-10 overall, and 4-5 in the ACC. It was its eighth win in 10 home games.
Georgia Tech, which knocked off a Burton-less version of the Irish, 86-75, on Dec. 31, has yet to win a road game this season, and fell to 9-12 and 3-7.
The two teams are known for tight tussles. ND is 17-8 against Tech since joining the ACC, and only three of the wins have been by double digits. Five games have gone to overtime.
Burton, who came in averaging 19.9 points a game, now has a stretch of 20-plus points in five straight games — the first time an Irish player has done that since Ben Hansbrough in 2011.
“He’s a guy who can create off the dribble,” said Tech coach Damon Stoudamire of Burton. “He makes them a different team from that standpoint. We had a couple defensive errors and he got some open looks.”
There weren’t a lot of open looks for the Irish, who were outscored 32-20 in the paint. ND’s best inside threat, 16-point scorer Tae Davis, was tracked all night and finished with just four points on 1-for-9 shooting with four turnovers and one assist. He had scored 27 points in the first meeting in Atlanta.
It was a fight all night to find any offensive rhythm — the Irish had just 10 assists on their 25 field goals, six off their season average, and had zero fastbreak points. Even the free-throw shooting — 11-for-16, 68.8% — wasn’t special.
The Irish did go 7-for-14 on 3s in the first half to help forge a tie at 37 at the half, but then went 3-for-9 in the second half.
“I think Damon is one of the best defensive-scheme coaches in our league,” Irish coach Micah Shrewsberry said, “maybe in the country. … He's gonna make you work. He's gonna make you think. He's gonna make you do some stuff that's uncomfortable for you.
“But I'm proud of our guys, because this is a situation we haven't been in. We've been up big and people have come back and beat us. We've been down big and we stormed back. But we haven't been down the entire game and needed possession after possession after possession.
“And you know, they led for basically 37 minutes of the game, and our guys just stuck around, stuck around, stuck around, and just found a way to win at the end.”
It wasn’t an especially impressive defensive performance either for the Irish.
Georgia Tech shot 49.1% for the game — 5% about its season average — and 40% (4-for-10) on 3s. It totaled only eight turnovers against the Irish defense, and it had been averaging 12 coming in.
Despite all that, the Irish never let them scurry away — even when Notre Dame went scoreless for the first 5:08 of the second half until Burton hit a short jumper.
“Yeah, maybe we need to practice more at 9 p.m., and then practice more at 10 p.m., because I didn't think we started either half very well at all,” Shrewsberry said. “I thought we were kind of sleepwalking a little bit.”
Still, Tech’s biggest lead early in the second half was six at 43-37, and it reached seven at 62-55 with 5:35 to play on a fadeaway jumper by Naithan George, a 10-point scorer who finished with 20 on a 9-for-11 shooting night.
The Yellow Jackets didn’t score again until 13 seconds remained.
Momentum finally swung the Irish way when Matt Allocco fired a quick pass to Burton, who found himself alone at the 3-point line at the top of the key with 2:25 to go.
“I knew as soon as I shot it, it was going in,” said Burton, who went 4-for-5 on 3s and 9-for-17 overall.
The next attempt, from the wing, was just as clean and gave the Irish their first lead, at 64-62 with 1:42 to play.
They didn’t waste the momentum.
Kebba Njie, who had nine rebounds, added a bucket, and ND hit five of six free throws to hold off any potential rally.
Braeden Shrewsberry was the only other Irish in double figures with 15, but eight of nine Irish who played contributed at least four points, and the Irish bench delivered 16 points — six from center Nikita Konstantynovskyi, five from JR Konieczny and five from Julian Roper II.
“Those are 16 huge points from those guys,” coach Shrewsberry said. “It took all of us to win that game.”
“You know, I talked so much last week about our deficiencies as a group in clutch time. You know, the last five minutes of a five-point game and here it was, here's what we needed. We got stops when we needed to. We got rebounds when we needed to. We got timely buckets when we needed to. We got to the free throw line.
“That's all credit to our guys learning from previous situations of how we can be better.”
The Irish next play at Miami (4-16, 0-9, ESPN2) on Saturday at 8 p.m. Then they head to Tallahassee to take on Florida State (13-7, 4-5, ACCN) on Tuesday at 7 p.m.
Before exiting the press conference, Shrewsberry said he wanted to share a lesson in humility with the media.
Checking his texts while heading back to the locker room after the game, he saw one from an unknown number at 10:15 p.m. – while the game was still going on.
“What the [expletive] am I watching?” part of it read. “Do you have any plays written up? Because Holy [expletive], your team is unorganized as hell. What are they paying you for?
“I'm glad it didn't have a name attached to it,” Shrewsberry said, smiling, “but that right there, fellas, is a lesson in humility. As good as you feel you are, some people think you stink.”
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