Midway through the first half Tuesday night in Dean E. Smith Center, Notre Dame men’s basketball looked like it could compete with No. 7 North Carolina.
As the Tar Heels celebrated Senior Night in Chapel Hill, Notre Dame’s young lineup trailed by just two points with a little more than nine minutes remaining in the first half. When North Carolina fifth-year center Armando Bacot missed a dunk, it led to a fast break for Notre Dame with freshman point guard Markus Burton leading a two-on-one opportunity.
But Burton, Notre Dame’s leading scorer who does most of his damage moving toward the basket, decided to settle for a transition 3-point attempt. His shot, which would have given the Irish the lead, missed. Then North Carolina leading scorer RJ Davis hit a 3-pointer on the other end.
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On Notre Dame’s next possession, Davis poked the ball away from Burton in the open court and took a steal for an easy layup. The sequence started an Irish spiral that led North Carolina to a 16-point halftime lead and an 84-51 blowout victory in the final week of regular season play in the ACC.
“Congrats to North Carolina,” Notre Dame head coach Micah Shrewsberry said in a statement provided by Fighting Irish Media. “They kicked our butt from start to finish. It was grown men versus boys out there. We have to get better if we want to get to that level.”
Notre Dame’s hot stretch of playing winning basketball — five wins in its previous six games — was no match against a team with Final Four aspirations. North Carolina (24-6, 16-3 ACC), winners of five straight, can win the regular season ACC title with a victory Saturday over No. 9 Duke (24-6, 15-4).
The Irish (12-18, 7-12) didn’t give themselves much of a chance Tuesday night by playing below their standard on the defensive end and making it worse by feeding North Carolina’s defense turnovers in the first half.
The Irish turned the ball over seven times in the first half, which led to nine points for North Carolina. The Tar Heels didn’t need much help scoring as they shot 51.6% from the field (16-of-31) and 44.4% from 3 (4-of-9) before the break.
Notre Dame’s offense struggled all night long. That the Irish couldn’t manage to score while three North Carolina senior walk-ons played the first 1:18 of the game should have been a sign of bad times to come. Sophomore Tae Davis missed a basket in the lane and freshman Braeden Shrewsberry missed a jumper to start the game for the Irish.
Burton, Notre Dame’s rookie superhero for almost the entire season, had one of his worst offensive performances of his young career. He finished 3-of-11 shooting (27.3%) for nine points with the help of three free throws. Burton missed all three of his 3-point attempts and turned it over four times. His nine points provided his lowest scoring output since a career-low six points in a road loss to Miami on Dec. 2.
He was outdueled by North Carolina star guard RJ Davis, a senior who may have played his last home game for the Tar Heels. RJ Davis stayed right around his season average (21.5) by scoring a game-high 22 points.
Two UNC seniors who definitely played their final game in the Smith Center added 14 points each: Bacot and ND graduate transfer Cormac Ryan. It was Ryan’s first time playing against his former Irish teammates, though not many of them are still at ND. Ryan finished 4-of-9 shooting with a pair of 3-pointers and four free throws.
Notre Dame trailed by as many as 38 points as the Tar Heels didn’t ease up until after Bacot made a 3-pointer with 3:14 remaining in the game to give UNC its 84-46 lead. That’s when North Carolina head coach Hubert Davis finally subbed out RJ Davis, Bacot and Ryan.
Tae Davis scored a team-high 11 points for Notre Dame on 4-of-11 shooting from the field. He and forward Matt Zona tied for the team-high of six rebounds. No other Irish player reached double digits in scoring. Braeden Shrewsberry added nine points on 3-of-4 shooting from 2-point range and 1-of-5 shooting from 3-point range. J.R. Konieczny tried to provide a spark off the bench with seven points.
Notre Dame’s poor shooting performance wasn’t much better from inside the arc (32.5%) than outside of it (26.3%). The only slight offensive advantage for Notre Dame came at the free-throw line with 10-of-16 shooting (62.5%) compared to 9-of-15 shooting (60%).
The Irish will try to bounce back with a regular season finale at Virginia Tech (17-13, 9-10) on Saturday at 2 p.m. EST. Then the Irish will try to make a run in next week’s ACC Tournament starting in the first round Tuesday at Capital One Arena in Washington, D.C.
Notre Dame won't return to campus between the Virginia Tech game and the conference tournament. Somewhere on its travels, the team will need to rediscover what made the last month fun to win some more games. Avoiding a matchup with North Carolina will help.
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