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Notre Dame Basketball Beats Boston College, Holds Tourney Hopes

**BOXSCORE**

The night for Irish senior guard T.J. Gibbs started rather nondescriptly at Boston College — six shots and three points at halftime against a smothering Eagles defense.

His night ended with a clutch second-half performance and the highlight of his fine Irish career with a right-handed, mid-lane floater that beat the buzzer and gave Notre Dame a 62-61 victory over Boston College to secure its fourth straight must-win contest during its late push for an NCAA Tournament berth.

“I was just in the right spot at the right time,” Gibbs calmly stated afterward. “Sometimes like that, it comes down to improvising. The team chemistry we’ve been building makes it easy.”

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T.J. Gibbs’ game-winner keeps Notre Dame’s NCAA Tournament hopes alive.
T.J. Gibbs’ game-winner keeps Notre Dame’s NCAA Tournament hopes alive. (Adam Richins USA Today/Sports)

The Eagles (13-16; 7-11 ACC) were positioned to squash any slim postseason hopes the Irish (18-10; 9-8 ACC) held when nifty BC freshman guard Jay Heath drove the lane, pulled up and hit a mid-range jumper to give the home team a 61-60 lead with eight seconds left in the game.

Holding a timeout in his pocket, Irish head coach Mike Brey let his guys play, drive down court, and finish things off with Gibbs’ game-winning shot after a crafty underhanded shuffle pass from sophomore guard Prentiss Hubb.

Brey later explained that with four or more seconds remaining in this game situation, his team is taught game on, no clock stoppage. With less than four seconds, it’s time for a timeout. The game clock read eight seconds.

“A lot of times the defense is in a little bit of a panic mode and Gibbs had a great look,” Brey said. “I loved our poise.”

Including sophomore forward Nate Laszewski’s game-winning three-pointer last Monday against North Carolina, this marked the second time in the last three games the Irish needed last-second heroics to secure a must-win contest.

“We couldn’t win games like this in early January,” Brey said. “We got a poise about us.”

Beyond defensively holding Boston College to only two field goals during the critical last five minutes of the game, the broader headline of this victory was the play of John Mooney.

The Irish senior forward kept Notre Dame in the game during the first half with 17 points on 7-of-8 shooting. His teammates combined to score 17 points on 6-of-23 shooting and the Irish trailed 41-34 at the break.

Senior guard and team captain Rex Pflueger gave the Irish some hope, and perhaps some locker-room momentum, with his steal and subsequent half-court buzzer-beating three-pointer to end the first half that snapped a 14-4 BC run and brought the Irish from down 10 to down seven at the break.

“You’re down seven, but you feel like you’re tied,” Brey said of Pflueger’s miracle shot. “That helped us.”

Miracles aside, the Gibbs’ bucket — which could become the defining moment of the season — stands as the brightest highlight in this dramatic Irish win.

Gibbs finished with only nine points on 4-of-12 shooting, including only 1 of 5 on three-pointers, but his shot heard around the ACC is the only one that mattered.

“We’ll take it anyway we can get it,” Brey said.

Mooney was solid, as usual, with 22 points and 12 rebounds for his nation-leading 23rd double-double. Laszewski and sophomore guard Prentiss Hubb each added 10 points to round out Irish double-digit scorers.

Pflueger came up with his usual big game — though his stat sheet might suggest otherwise — with five points, four rebounds, three assists and no turnovers.


Player of the Game: Hard to argue with Gibbs and his game-winning shot, but without the work of Mooney, especially in the first half, no last-second miracles would’ve been possible.


Turning Point: In a game that featured 12 lead changes and three ties, Gibbs’ game-winner became the turning point to this win, and potentially to this season, although Pflueger’s halftime heave deserves consideration.


Beating The Odds

Considering Boston College managed nine three-point shots to Notre Dame’s seven, and the Eagles had 15 assists to only 11 for the Irish, winning on the road seemed unlikely while ND was getting beat at its own game.

But some grinding defense, and a growing ability to win games in the closing minutes that this Irish team could not have earlier this season, allowed Notre Dame to buck any statistical odds and steal a game it had become accustomed to giving away earlier this season. It suffered four of its first six ACC losses by three points or fewer while dropping to 2-6 in league play.


State of the Union

The theme of Notre Dame’s “must-win” tour over the last six regular-season games is halfway home — and stands at 3-0 — after the victory versus Boston College.

Wednesday’s win by the Irish (9-8 in the ACC) — coupled with a loss Tuesday by NC State (8-9) and a win earlier Wednesday by Syracuse (9-8) — breaks up a bit of a standings logjam and situates the Irish into a two-way tie with the Orange for fifth place in the league (Syracuse and Notre Dame split their home-and-home series this season).

The BC victory also provided Notre Dame a seventh win in the last nine games and lifted the Irish above .500 in league play for the first time since January 2018.

This 7-2 stretch for Notre Dame is the best in-season sustained conference run for the Irish since they went 8-2 over 10 league games in 2015-16.


Up Next: Rather than traveling home very late after the BC game, the Irish planned to stay in Boston and travel Thursday to Winston-Salem, N.C ., to play at Wake Forest at 4 p.m. on Saturday.

This meeting with the Deacons is a rematch from earlier this season when Notre Dame scored an ACC season-high 54 second-half points on the way to a 90-80 victory, the first win of what became a three-game winning streak that put this Irish season back on track.

This series doesn’t feature much history.

Notre Dame and Wake Forest have played only 10 times, nine coming in ACC play since 2014 and once in March 2000 when the Deacons beat the Irish in the championship game of the postseason NIT.

Notre Dame leads the all-time series 6-4.

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