This one will hurt — even if it did produce some hope.
Proving its mettle over and over after being handed a shock three and a half minutes into the game, Notre Dame fell to Rutgers, 85-84, in overtime late Tuesday in the Players Era Festival Tournament in the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas.
When Rutgers’ 6-foot-10, 270-pound center Emmanuel Ogbole landed full body on Markus Burton’s right leg under ND’s basket, the Irish (4-2) were slammed with a huge challenge. They were suddenly minus the 6-0, 190-pound sophomore’s 21 points, five rebounds and dynamic leadership.
Would anyone step up? Could anyone step up?
Several did.
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The major hero was Matt Allocco, the 6-4 graduate senior guard and Princeton transfer who came in averaging eight points a game. He took over the heavy lifting in running the floor. He played all 45 minutes and finished with a team-high 24 points, 10 rebounds and five assists – and just one turnover.
His night included six threes on nine attempts.
He nailed three in a row to revive the Irish hopes from a six-point deficit over the final 40 seconds of overtime.
His last came at 12.3 seconds to tie the game at 84 and stun Rutgers along with the crowd of 7,600.
The comeback was short-lived. Freshman Cole Certa, who had played just seven minutes all season, came on as a shooter in the final seconds and unnecessarily fouled Rutgers’ star Dylan Harper intentionally with 11 seconds left.
Harper, a 6-6 freshman who is expected to be a top five NBA draft pick next summer and was ranked the country’s No. 4 recruit per Rivals, riddled the Irish for 36 points mostly on weaving drives through the Irish defense. Only two of his buckets came on threes, and he was 10-for-14 from the line.
He hit the last of those free throws with 11 seconds left to give the Scarlet Knights (5-1) the 85-84 edge.
“It’s just an unfortunate situation,” Irish coach Micah Shrewsberry said of Certa’s mistake. “It's not the first time it’s happened, and it’s probably not the last time it's ever gonna happen.
“Because of injuries, because of fouls, we're playing late game with a freshman, but that wasn't the game, right? There were plenty of things that happened way before that. … I haven’t lost any faith in Cole Certa. He’s gonna play tomorrow (Thursday vs Houston, 12:30 a.m.). I guarantee he’ll make a shot tomorrow. He's gonna be ready to go tomorrow.
“You know, it happens, and I feel bad that it happened, but it's happened before. It's happened to a lot of people before. And he'll move on. He'll be better from this. We will be better from this situation.”
Notre Dame didn’t do much with the final 11 seconds. Tae Davis tried a drive down the lane but was cut off and tossed it back to the perimeter before Shrewsberry called a timeout with 3.8 seconds to go.
Allocco then tossed it in from side court and got it back. He took a couple dribbles and got off a contested shot from the top of the key. It bounced high off the rim and out as the clock went to zero at 1:48 a.m (South Bend time).
Shrewsberry had no immediate information on the severity of Burton’s injury.
“I don't have any updates,” he said. “I don't know what's going on, but we're just going to put this in God's hands and let him handle whatever happens next, and we’ll handle it.”
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Notre Dame had to readjust quickly in a game that started almost an hour later than the planned starting time of 10:30, because of an earlier overtime game between Alabama and Houston.
Minus Burton, the approach shifted. They slowed the pace and delivered some solid defense early.
Notre Dame led by 10 with 5:28 to go in the first half before the Knights’ Harper and Jordan Derkack (16 points) led Rutgers back as it whittled the deficit to one (35-34) at the break.
By the time it was done, there were 10 ties and 16 lead changes.
The Irish got a big hand from their bench.
Logan Imes, a 6-4 sophomore guard came in averaging just eight minutes and 1.8 points a game. He finished with eight points in 35 minutes and went 2-for-4 on threes. Burke Chebuhar, a 6-8 grad student averaging 5.3 points in eight minutes, had 11 points (3-for-6 on threes) and seven rebounds in 19 minutes.
“There's no other group of guys, nor a locker room I’d rather be in than with our group,” said Shrewsberry. “We might not be as talented as every team that's out here, but we're damn sure just as tough. We compete and we execute.”
The Irish had nine turnovers by halftime but cut that number to five in the second half and overtime.
Neither team could sustain a run.
After Allocco gave the Irish a 66-65 lead at the 1:22 mark of regulation on a drive to the bucket, Rutgers came back with four straight points for a 69-66 lead with 25.1 seconds left.
Allocco, who had missed a 15-foot fadeaway jumper with 35 seconds left, found some space at the top of the 3-point line and tied the game at 69 with 8.4 seconds left.
Harper’s 3-point attempt at the end of regulation was way off the mark, sending it to overtime.
The Irish led by a couple of points early in the overtime, but back-to-back turnovers at the 1:30 and 1-minute marks opened the door for the Scarlet Knights.
Braeden Shrewsberry finished with 16 points but struggled from the 3-point line at 3-for-13 and Tae Davis had 15 points and six rebounds.
The Irish did not have one fastbreak point and finished at 44% from the field to Rutgers’ 45%, and 42% from the 3-point line to Rutgers’ 33%.
The Knights connected on 19-of-28 free throws to ND’s 12-for-15 and the Irish held a 42-36 edge in rebounds.
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