Members of the Notre Dame men’s basketball team made an agreement prior to Saturday’s fourth overtime in the regular season finale at Purcell Pavilion against California.
Despite failing to end the game with game-winning shots at the end of regulation and the second and third overtime sessions, the fourth overtime period would be the last on Senior Day in South Bend, Ind.
Then with 2:40 remaining in the fourth overtime, leading scorer Markus Burton fouled out. Burton went to the bench with 43 points, the most scored by a Notre Dame player since Adrian Dantley scored 49 in 1975. After Cal’s Rytis Petraitis made the free throws he was awarded for getting fouled by Burton, the Bears led by four points.
Yet the Irish refused to quit. Graduate senior center Nikita Konstantynovyski made a hook shot in the post. Senior guard Julian Roper II played tough defense on a shot by Jeremiah Wikinson and fellow senior J.R. Konieczny grabbed the rebound. Then graduate senior Matt Allocco made a 3 in transition to put the Irish back in front by one.
The Irish, who were also without forward Tae Davis after he fouled out in the final minute of regulation, leaned on Allocco to be their closer. He came through with a baseline fadeaway to tie the game following a Wilkinson 3. Then after Cal’s Lee Dort gave the Bears a two-point lead, Allocco responded with another 3 with 15 seconds left.
Notre Dame (14-17, 8-12 ACC) held on with defense and free throws from there in a 112-110 victory.
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“I probably speak for everybody when I say we sure as hell weren’t gonna play another one,” Allocco said of the fourth overtime session. “We were gonna get it done in that last one. We had to.
“We had the lead in a couple of them, gave it up. Wilkinson hit some tough shots and kept them in it. Kept grinding, staying in the moment. Never lost confidence, never had any fear. Unbelievable team effort.”
Wilkinson scored 36 points with a game-high five 3-pointers to lead Cal (13-18, 6-14). Andrej Stojakovic added 21 points for the Bears.
Allocco’s final 3 came off a ball screen from Konieczny. He took a wide path to his right when Konieczny’s defender flashed as if he were going to switch onto Allocco. But the switch defender didn’t stay and allowed Allocco to turn and shoot in rhythm.
“I was leaving a lot of them short,” Allocco said. “So I came off that one, had a little bit of space and just tried to get my legs under it. It felt good the whole way.
“You feed off the crowd in that moment, too. There’s a lot of energy in the building. You don’t really feel tired. The dead ball is maybe when you feel it. But going up and down like that … I felt the confidence from my teammates, inspiration from him (Burton) doing the same thing.
“Unbelievably proud of everybody. Fought our ass off.”
Allocco, who played for just the third time in 10 games due to a right wrist injury, finished with 24 points in nearly 54 minutes. Allocco declined to comment on how much pain his playing through, but head coach Micah Shrewsberry joked that tape is holding Allocco’s hand to his arm.
Allocco, a graduate transfer from Princeton, scored 14 of his points in the overtime sessions after he missed a 3-pointer late in regulation with a chance to win the game. His last eight points came after Burton fouled out of the game.
“When it gets to clutch time, I know he missed a couple, but Mush is not scared of the moment,” Shrewsberry said while using Allocco’s nickname. “He is not scared of the moment. He wants it.
“Some people don’t want it. They are like, hey, stand me in the corner and do something else. He is I want the basketball, and I want an opportunity to win the game. When Markus fouled out, he just said, I’m not gonna let us lose.”
Burton’s 43 points came in fascinating fashion. He scored 18 points in the first 15 minutes of the game, but he didn’t make another shot from the field until the first overtime. His four points in the second half came from six free throw attempts, and he missed six shots from the field.
Then Burton went on to score 21 points in the first three overtime periods. He scored seven in the first overtime, including a game-tying 3-pointer with 36 seconds left in the period. His seven points in the second overtime ended with a 3-pointer with 1:38 left that put the Irish up six. Burton made a pair of 3s and one free throw in the third overtime before Allocco made a go-ahead bucket with 11 seconds left that still wasn’t enough for ND to win.
California tried to bother Burton by having the 6-foot-7 Stojakovic guard him. It worked at times, but it wasn’t a perfect solution.
“With that length we were able to sustain a period where we were able to keep the ball out of Burton’s hands and contest some shots,” said Cal head coach Mark Madsen. “Give our guys for some credit having the stretch, but give Burton credit for persevering. He got loose again late, and we weren’t able to stop him in some key moments.”
Burton didn’t let a slow second half bother him in the overtime sessions.
“But I knew it was my time to put on a show and will my team to victory,” Burton said. “That’s what I had to do. The coaching staff trusts me, but also I have the whole team around me and they trusted me to take the shots that I take.”
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Outside of Burton, who played 53:14, four Notre Dame players logged at least 36 minutes. All of them were honored prior to the game as part of Senior Day: Allocco (53:56), Konstantynovskyi (44:15), Roper (42:37) and Konieczny (36:49). Those four played a lot in the overtime sessions not as a nod to their senior status, Shrewsberry said, but because he felt they were defending well together.
“Markus was unbelievable,” Shrewsberry said. “He was unreal. But I thought the four seniors, the ones that played a boatload — Nikita, Mush, J.R., Roper — they were not gonna let us lose. They were gonna will us to victory in someway, somehow. Just proud of our group.”
Konstantnovyski, a graduate transfer from Monmouth, grabbed a game-high17 rebounds. He was forced to play even more after forward Kebba Njie took contact to the head and never returned after the leaving the game with 15:34 left in the second half.
Roper grabbed eight rebounds, scored seven points and added three steals and two blocks on defense. Konieczny scored 13 points and grabbed eight rebounds.
The Irish will fight to keep their season alive in the ACC Tournament starting Tuesday in Charlotte, N.C. Notre Dame earned the No. 12 seed and will open the tournament against 13th-seeded Pittsburgh (17-14, 8-12) in Spectrum Center at 2 p.m. EDT.
Maybe this team has one more run left in it. But if the Irish left their best basketball on Purcell Pavilion court on Saturday, that wasn’t a bad way to end a disappointing season.
“I won’t forget this one definitely.” Konieczny said. “It’s probably one of the greatest games I’ve played in and also witnessed performance-wise. There was just big shots being made on both ends. I don’t even know what to say.
“I’m just grateful to get that win, end it in the fourth overtime. It was awesome. I’m overwhelmed right now. That was amazing.”
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