For No. 5 seed Wake Forest, its dreams of earning a bid into the NCAA Tournament were on the line Wednesday.
The Demon Deacons (20-12), who haven't made the tournament since 2017, needed a victory over No. 12 seed Notre Dame men's basketball — a team they lost to at Purcell Pavillon on Feb. 27 — to keep their postseason hopes alive on the bubble.
On the other sideline, the Irish (13-20), fresh off withstanding Georgia Tech's comeback for an opening-round win, looked a step slower in their attempts to score, rebound and close out on shooters, and it showed in a season-ending 72-59 loss.
Under head coach Micah Shrewsberry, Notre Dame's promising trajectory could help the Irish surpass the Demon Deacons in the ACC standings by next season, but when the two teams tipped off on Capitol One Arena's floor in Washington D.C., there wasn't any comparison to who wanted it more.
"Credit to Wake Forest," Micah Shrewsberry said after the game. "Just an old veteran team that was trying to get into the NCAA Tournament, and that's what they looked like. That's how they played. I thought they started the game with a little more juice than we did and got to a quick 8-0 run, and we just played from behind the whole game."
"I'm proud of our guys for their fight, for their effort, not just today but this whole season .... when I get on the internet and I look at KenPom, I see No. 361 in the country in roster continuity, we're No. 357 in the country in experience. You start three freshmen and two sophomores in the second round of the ACC Tournament game against a team that's got a few fifth-year seniors and some older guys."
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After leading by six points at halftime, Wake Forest created its separation on the scoreboard by outscoring the Irish in the paint 38-14. Notre Dame only had two fewer rebounds than Wake Forest (37-35), but the Demon Deacons scored off their extra opportunities while the Irish didn't. Notre Dame forwards Kebba Njie and Matt Zona combined to score a single point and go 0-of-4 from the field, while it was a completely different script for the Demon Deacons' frontcourt of Andrew Carr and Efton Reid.
Carr and Reid combined for 20 points and 19 rebounds, with Carr pulling down 11 of them, including five offensively. Wake Forest scored 16 total second-chance points, and eight of them came from either Carr or Reid, who routinely trailed their teammates in the open floor and beat out multiple Notre Dame players for rebounds.
Wake Forest was paced by guard Kevin Miller with 17 points. The Demon Deacons leading scorer and All-ACC First-Team guard Hunter Sallis added 14 points, including 12 in the first half.
Notre Dame trailed by as many as 14 points in the first half, marking its largest deficit in the opening period since the 16-point hole the Irish fell into during their first half at North Carolina on March 5.
"I don't know if it was energy early," Shrewsberry said. "You talk about desperate teams, that's what ... they lose this game, they're not going to the NCAA Tournament. Everybody knows that probably for a fact. So this is a game they had to have, and it looked like a veteran team that understood that, that knew that, that knew how they had to start this game to come out on top."
The Irish were led offensively by freshman point guard Markus Burton, the ACC Rookie of the Year, with 21 points on 4-of-16 shooting. Burton went a perfect 12-of-12 from the free throw line but committed four turnovers and played with four fouls during the final 11 minutes and 52 seconds of the game.
Sophomore forward Tae Davis — who entered the contest having scored in double-figures in six consecutive games — continued his streak with 16 points, including an 8-of-10 showing from the free throw line. Freshman forward Carey Booth finished with 11 points and made 3-of-8 shots from the 3-point line but was held scoreless in the second half.
One day after setting a program record with 25 points, the most by any freshman in their ACC tournament debut, guard Braeden Shrewsberry was held to five points on 1-of-6 shooting from beyond the arc. Junior guard Julian Roper II was the only bench player to score with five points.
After playing against full-court pressure in the second half against Georgia Tech, the Irish got another look in this second half when Wake Forest head coach Steve Forbes placed Cameron Hildreth exclusively on Burton, where he said his instruction was for Hildreth to go through ball screens instead of over or underneath.
Notre Dame shot 5-of-25 in the second half, and Burton and Davis were the only players to convert shots from the field. Micah Shrewsberry believed Wake Forest did a good job with its defensive scheme but said the experience gave him a coaching lesson for next season.
"I need to go back and maybe re-teach how we're guarding because I think the level of physicality that people have used ... freedom of movement, I guess, isn't a thing anymore because Markus and Braeden don't get freedom of movement," Micah Shrewsberry said.
"They're not allowed to move, they're not allowed to cut, so we need to change how we guard them, and we need to not let people run and cut. I'm teaching our guys the wrong thing by thinking I'm teaching the right thing. Maybe I need to change our strategy and hold and grab and not let people cut because that's what people did to us all year."
Changes on the horizon
The ACC is expected to expand to 20 teams next season with the additions of California, SMU and Stanford, and the men's basketball ACC Tournament will only invite the top 15 teams in the standings for its postseason action.
Dates aren't finalized, but Notre Dame's conference opponents for the 2024-25 season were set last month, and barring transfers, Shrewsberry will have Burton, Davis, Braeden Shrewsberry and his entire rotation back in the fold if Zona chooses to use his final year of eligibility with the Irish (Zona went through Senior Day festivities). The Irish also landed a top-40 recruiting class with 2024 signees SG Sir Mohammed, SG Cole Certa and PF Garrett Sundra.
Burton, who stuck with Micah Shrewsberry after the program moved on from former head coach Mike Brey, enrolled at Notre Dame as the first Irish signee to win Indiana Mr. Basketball since 2005. The former Penn High standout set the school record for most single-season points by a freshman (577), previously held by Troy Murphy (519 in 1998-99), and has no doubts about the program's direction moving forward.
"I think it's a big step for us knowing that we're all new, we're all new to this, and we're all young, too, so it's a bigger picture in the long run, but it was a great season," Burton said "We did what we were supposed to. We fought all season long, and just know we'll be back."
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