Notre Dame Impressive In A 75-61 Win Over UCLA
Notre Dame head coach Mike Brey has insisted all season that he believes this could become the best defensive team he’s coached in his 20 years here.
The Irish (8-3) validated their coach’s point Saturday with a smothering 75-61 win over UCLA (7-4) at Purcell Pavilion.
The Irish defense held the Bruins to season lows in points scored and field-goal shooting, 35 percent (22-of-63). Furious post pressure also helped Notre Dame force nine turnovers and tally four blocks and four steals.
“I thought how we helped our big guys, our (guards) coming down, we stripped them a couple of times, we forced them into offensive fouls,” Brey said. “Maybe we should play that way against every team no matter what the three-point shooters are because it made us active.”
Couple the good defense with Irish shooters starting to find their three-point touch and Brey might have finally found a winning formula as the games get tougher and bigger moving forward. Notre Dame was 0-3 this season against Power 5 opponents before the UCLA win.
“We were searching for a Power 5 win, to beat a Power 5 team,” Brey said. “We made some big shots when we needed to — it was a week of growth for us.”
After tying a school record Tuesday with 20 made three-pointers in a 110-71 win over Detroit Mercy, Notre Dame tossed in 15 more on 39 attempts against UCLA.
“We’re firing now aren’t we,” Brey said. “I’m a great guy to play for. We’re letting it rip now.”
Sophomore guard Prentiess Hubb paced the Irish with 20 points that included 5-of-10 three-point shooting.
“We talked about how we can’t turn down open shots,” said Hubb, who added a team-high six assists. “If you turn down open shots it’s basically being selfish because we all have confidence in each other to take the shot and make the shot.”
Sophomore guard Dane Goodwin added 16 points, senior guard T.J. Gibbs had 15 and senior forward John Mooney had 14 points and 15 rebounds for his eighth double-double in 10 games this season.
Notre Dame never trailed and used an 8-0 run in the first half to open its first double-digit lead of the game.
UCLA closed the first half with seven straight points to pull within 31-24 at the break. Notre Dame responded after halftime with a 14-4 run that sealed the win.
“It was just getting back to defending,” Mooney said of UCLA briefly getting back into the game. “That was a big-part of our halftime speech was locking in again.”
Goodwin Sparks Good Win
Picking up where he left off after scoring a career-high 27 points Tuesday on 10-of-13 field-goal shooting and 5-of-7 three-point shooting, Goodwin came off the bench and provided Notre Dame a much-needed lift during a sluggish first half.
Muddling through an offensive stretch with just one made field goal in seven minutes, Goodwin hit three consecutive three-pointers in the span of two minutes.
Goodwin scored 14 of his 16 points in the first half, all during a 23-10 Irish scoring run that pushed a modest 8-7 lead to 31-17.
“I think we got him in the right spot where he is coming in and going for it,” Brey said of Goodwin’s emergence. “When your teammates are telling you to shoot and be aggressive, and they’ll call some sets for him. I like where he’s at.”
Sweet Revenge
The Irish players stressed this week that they hadn’t forgotten what happened to them out in Los Angeles this time last season during the first game of this home-and-home series with UCLA.
Trailing the Bruins by 13 points in the second half, the Irish clawed back and took a five-point lead before giving up eight straight points, including a game-winning buzzer-beater, in a 75-72 loss.
“That was a long flight home,” Brey said.
“We kind of talked about how we owed those guys one,” Mooney said. “They won at the buzzer and they kind of took it to us last year so we kind of took it a little personally that we needed to win this one.”
This series will be put on moth balls again for the time being, but Brey is confident it will return.
“It brings back a lot of memories and it’s an honor to be part of it,” said Brey, who has won three of his six meetings with UCLA.
Up Next:
Notre Dame returns to action Saturday, Dec. 21, against Indiana as part of the four-team 2019 Crossroads Classic at Banker’s Life Fieldhouse in Indianapolis.
The Irish and Hoosiers tip off at noon (EST) to be followed by Purdue vs. Butler.
This series dates all the way back to 1908 and is led by Indiana 50-22, which has also claimed victory in 16 of the last 21 meetings.
More recently, the Hoosiers have won two straight and three out of the last four.
This will be the fifth time these two teams have played in the Crossroads Classic. Indiana has won three of previous four.
----
• Talk about it inside Rockne’s Roundtable
• Subscribe to our podcast on iTunes
• Learn more about our print and digital publication, Blue & Gold Illustrated.
• Follow us on Twitter: @BGINews, @BGI_LouSomogyi, @BGI_MikeSinger, @CoachDeDario and @AndrewMentock.
• Like us on Facebook.