A win over Louisville men’s basketball hasn’t been cause for much celebration in the ACC the last couple of seasons.
But Notre Dame’s 72-50 win at Louisville on Wednesday night was meaningful for more than one reason. It gave the Irish their first three-game winning streak of the season. And the Irish (10-16, 5-10 ACC) did so by showing a killer instinct late in the second half to turn a frustratingly tight game into a blowout.
After a 6-0 run pulled Louisville (8-19, 3-13) to within eight points with 8:11 remaining in the second half, Notre Dame erased any doubt of the outcome with a 16-2 stretch that started with a pair of Braeden Shrewsberry 3s. There have been plenty of nights this season that lead could have been wasted away by this Irish team.
Those tough moments, head coach Micah Shrewsberry said, allowed Notre Dame to avoid one in the KFC Yum Center.
“We’re learning from them,” he said. “We’re growing. We’re getting better. It’s built some resolve in our group.”
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Before the coach even sat down in the huddle during a timeout he called and the media timeout that shortly followed when the Irish were up nine and eight points, respectively, his players were already keeping each other properly motivated. Freshman guards Markus Burton and Braeden Shrewsberry and sophomore forward Kebba Njie were showing leadership in moments they were quiet earlier in this season.
“Now we’re to the point where I don’t have to say much,” Micah Shrewsberry said, “because they know what level we need to be playing at.”
That level on Wednesday included a lot of the coach’s freshman son firing from behind the 3-point line. Braeden Shrewsberry finished with a game-high 23 points that were lifted by 7-of-11 shooting from 3. He bounced back from making just one of his eight attempts in the 58-55 win over Georgia Tech the last time out.
“This dude’s maniacal in his work,” Micah Shrewsberry said. “He was probably pretty pissed at how he played in the last home game.”
Micah Shrewsberry recalled seeing Braeden back shooting in the gym an hour after Monday’s practice. That same day, Micah Shrewsberry reminded his team that it hasn’t been easy for ACC teams to win this season after a week off. He cited a tweet from Conor O’Neill, a Rivals publisher of Devils Illustrated and Deacons Illustrated, that showed ACC teams were 1-10 coming off their off dates in conference play this season until Pittsburgh and NC State won last week. Notre Dame continued to buck the trend.
“The last time we had a break, Miami came in and scored 37 points in the first half on us at home, and we were sleepwalking,” Micah Shrewsberry said. “It wasn’t going to happen again tonight. They were ready to go from the start.”
The Irish never trailed and led for all but 2:30 of the game. Notre Dame led by as many as 13 points in the first half with 7:27 remaining when Braeden Shrewsberry hit his third 3-pointer of the game. Louisville cut the lead down to four points with less than two minutes remaining, before a Burton layup in the final minute gave the Irish a 31-25 halftime lead.
Burton struggled with his shot for most of the night, yet he still finished with 16 points on 5-of-17 shooting. He picked up five of his points at the free-throw line and remained active in other ways. The 5-foot-11 Burton grabbed five rebounds and created three steals and three assists.
Burton kept looking for Braeden Shrewsberry as his teammates tried to keep feeding the hot shooter. His seven 3-pointers tied the single-game freshman record at Notre Dame. He joined Pat Connaughton, Chris Thomas and Ryan Hoover with the achievement. Notre Dame finished 12-of-27 (44.4%) as a team from 3 with five teammates each hitting one in addition to Braeden.
“All our guys are doing a great job of finding him, screening for him,” Micah Shrewsberry said. “That’s all he needs is a little bit of daylight.”
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Defensively, Notre Dame limited leading scorer Mike James, who averaged 13.5 points per game entering Wednesday, to two points on 1-of-7 shooting. The Irish made a concerted effort to double in the post with Louisville’s size. Notre Dame outscored the Cardinals in the paint 30-22 despite 6-10 forward Brandon Huntley-Hatfield scoring 16 points. Louisville guard Skyy Clark led the way in scoring with 18 points on 7-of-8 shooting and making all four of his 3-pointers.
Notre Dame successfully attempted to keep Louisville off the free-throw line as much as possible. The Cardinals, who shoot 74.8% from the charity stripe on roughly 23 attempts per game, made just half of their 16 free throws Wednesday.
“We had to do our best to guard them and keep them out of the paint,” Micah Shrewsberry said. “But doubling the post was something that we felt like we needed to do. We have some big, long, athletic guys that can move. They did a great job of really being there on the catch and getting it out of his hands, making him kick it and then rotating back to where we needed to be.”
Notre Dame won the rebounding battle, 42-37, and took care of the basketball with 12 assists and seven turnovers. The Irish had fewer than 10 turnovers in every victory of the current three-game streak.
Pushing the winning streak to four games won’t be easy with a road game at Syracuse (17-10, 8-8 ACC) on Saturday at 12 p.m. EST. The Irish will play against former ND guard J.J. Starling, who is averaging 13.7 points per game as a sophomore, for the first time.
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