Notre Dame Adds Home Game Against Purdue Fort Wayne
Notre Dame basketball has made its first in-season adjustment to its schedule, with the help of Mike Brey’s shameless plug on Twitter.
The Irish will host Purdue Fort Wayne Saturday at 11 a.m. ET, replacing a Friday home game against Tennessee that was canceled due to COVID-19 issues within the Vols’ program.
Following the Tennessee game's cancelation, Brey fired off a tweet on Nov. 27 asking for anyone and everyone to play his team in a makeup game Friday or Saturday. Home or road. In a slightly shorter regular season where Brey expects canceled games, he saw no sense in leaving a slot blank on the schedule.
Purdue Fort Wayne coach Jon Coffman responded the next day with healthy enthusiasm, saying his team would be willing to make the 93-mile one-way trip or host Notre Dame. He and Brey settled on the former. Contract details or any guarantee amounts going to Purdue Fort Wayne are not known.
The Mastodons are in their first season in the Horizon League after a stint in the Summit League from 2007-20. They moved up from Division II prior to the 2001-02 season. Since then, they have made five postseason appearances and won the 2015-16 Summit League regular-season title in Coffman's second season.
The program's most notable achievement in recent years was a November 2016 home win over then-No. 3 Indiana, which came to Fort Wayne and filled up Allen County War Memorial Coliseum with 11,076 fans wearing cream and crimson. Purdue Fort Wayne beat the Hoosiers for its first and only win over an AP top 25 team in program history.
Last season, Purdue Fort Wayne went 14-19 and 6-10 in the Summit. The Mastodons are KenPom's No. 211 team won their 2020-21 season opener in overtime, 67-63 at home over Southeast Louisiana.
Notre Dame dropped its season opener at then-No. 13 Michigan State, 80-70, and will host Western Michigan on Wednesday night in its first home game of the year. A home game against No. 23 Ohio State on Dec. 8 in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge and a road game at No. 20 Kentucky follow the game against Purdue Fort Wayne.
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