SOUTH BEND, Ind. — Jim Larrañaga came into Purcell Pavilion worried about Notre Dame’s size.
The Miami men’s basketball head coach saw a starting lineup with three forwards — 6-foot-9 Tae Davis, 6-10 Carey Booth and 6-10 Kebba Njie — and 6-7 guard J.R. Konieczny and wondered if his team could handle all that length. So much so that he added more size at guard to his own starting lineup.
But Notre Dame’s two 6-10 forwards spent the entire second half on the bench in a 73-61 loss to Miami. Head coach Micah Shrewsberry didn’t like the effort they expended in the first half.
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So Shrewsberry kept Njie and Booth on the bench even when his six-man rotation that pulled the Irish (7-12, 2-6 ACC) ahead in the second half clearly ran out of gas in the final nine minutes.
“I would rather lose with the dudes that are going to play the right way, that are going to build this culture, than win with somebody that’s not doing it the right way,” Shrewsberry said. “Not to say they haven’t been. They’ve played really hard in other games. I hope this helps them play really hard against Boston College the same way they sat and watched those dudes compete like that.”
The Irish allowed Miami (13-6, 4-4) to grab three offensive rebounds in the first five minutes of the game and let star forward Norchad Omier feel really good about himself on the way to 20 first-half points. The 6-foot-7 Omier, who missed Saturday loss at Syracuse with an ankle injury, finished the night with 33 points and 10 rebounds on 12-of-14 shooting from the field. He scored 13 points in Miami’s 62-49 home win over the Irish on Dec. 2.
“We treated Omier like he had some disease that we didn’t want to get close to or we’d get sick,” Shrewsberry said. “Just let him operate and do whatever he wanted to. Then [Miami guard] Matthew Cleveland’s in there getting offensive rebounds to start the game. That set the tone for what happened. That’s what it was.”
In less than a minute stretch late in the first half, Omier ended three straight possessions with dunks. He dunked over Njie in the post. He dunked on a fastbreak from a steal he took himself. Then he dunked on an alley-oop off a pick and roll.
“The 20 points in the first half, that’s disrespectful,” Shrewsberry said. “He was getting wide open dunks. He’s getting offensive rebounds. He’s getting layups. He hit two 3s because our ball screen coverage. We weren’t where we were supposed to be. A lot of things went into that.
"He was way too comfortable out there. Way too comfortable. You ever let a good player get comfortable, you’re in for a long night."
To that point, Notre Dame was keeping pace with Miami. Following the Omier alley-oop, Irish point guard Markus Burton hit a 3 to cut Miami’s lead to three with 4:31 remaining in the half. But the Irish didn’t score again before halftime.
That scoreless stretch included four missed 3-pointers and three turnovers. Miami led 37-29 at the break with a much more efficient offense that scored 20 points in the paint. The Hurricanes shot 16-of-33 (48.5%) from the field. Omier accounted for half the makes.
Notre Dame made just 10 of its 34 shots (29.4%) in the first half. Half of their field goals came on 3-pointers (5-of-20).
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Shrewsberry didn’t spend a lot of the halftime break speaking to his team. With 10 minutes of halftime remaining, the Irish were out on the court taking shots.
Notre Dame started the second half with four guards on the floor — Burton, Konieczny, Julian Roper II and Braeden Shrewsberry — as Roper and Shrewsberry replaced Njie and Booth. Davis was ND’s lone forward.
That group put Notre Dame back in the game. Konieczny made the first attempt of the second half to end the drought. Then Notre Dame went on a 9-0 run to take its first lead since the first five minutes of the game. A Davis layup put Notre Dame up 40-39 with 15:05 left in regulation.
Omier committed three turnovers during the Irish run.
“We just turned the ball over way too much and that gave Notre Dame some real momentum in the start of the second half,” Larrañaga said. “We played a very solid and very complete first half, and then let them not only get back but take control of the game.”
Notre Dame reached its largest lead of the game when a Konieczny 3 broke a 49-49 tie with 9:24 remaining. But the lead was short-lived. The Hurricanes went ahead for good with 7:47 remaining on a Wooga Poplar 3.
Notre Dame managed to scored only nine points in the game final nine minutes. A Logan Imes layup for Notre Dame was sandwiched between scoring droughts of 2:39 and 4:52.
The six-man rotation, which used Imes off the bench with the second-half starters, ran out of gas.
“Everyone out there was playing their heart out,” Konieczny said. “I think some of the guys ran out of gas there. I’m proud of the way we fought second half. Them going on the run is just them playing good basketball.”
Micah Shrewsberry saw his team running on fumes, but he was adamant about not putting Njie and Booth back in the game.
“I’ll stick with the dudes that are going to give me the effort that I want. Maybe I should have called more timeouts to give them a break,” Micah Shrewsberry said. “But that group established from the start of the second half how hard you needed to play in order for us to win. So I was going to roll with those dudes the rest of the half.
“Sometimes you can get a guy jumpstarted if he sits there and watches. Now he comes in and plays that same way. I didn’t want to mess with how hard those dudes were playing and what they were doing.
“That’s group’s never practiced together. That group’s never done anything together like that. We were just winging it offensively. But they were competing. When you play that hard, good things happen for you. That’s what was happening.”
Burton picked up his third foul less than four minutes into the second half, but he stayed on the floor for 18 minutes in the half. He scored a team-high 15 points but also led the Irish with eight turnovers.
Notre Dame finished tied with Miami in rebounds with 35 each despite playing so long without its two biggest players. And Omier only scored 13 points in the second half with Davis primarily drawing the assignment of guarding him.
Micah Shrewsberry said he didn’t have much conversation with Njie and Booth after they were benched.
“There will be tomorrow,” he said. “There will be after this. But also film doesn’t lie. I can go back and show you the difference. You have all the ability in the world. But if you don’t compete at the same level, it doesn’t matter.”
Shrewsberry expects them to respond positively in practice leading up to Saturday’s home game against Boston College (12 p.m. EST on ESPNU). The Irish lost at BC (11-8, 2-6) by four points last week.
“I know how they’re going to respond in practice tomorrow,” Shrewsberry said. “If they don’t respond the right way, then I need to question who they are as players. But I know how they’re going to respond tomorrow. Absolutely.
“The bench is a great motivator. You can’t sit there and watch how those six guys played that second half and then come in and pout tomorrow. I know that ain’t happening. I can tell you that much right now. They’re not going to do that.
“They’re all going to compete. They’re going to give it their all. I guarantee both of those dudes will play as hard as possible on Saturday.”
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