SOUTH BEND, Ind. – Sometimes, sports make no sense.
Some games, some moments, just defy all logic.
NOTRE DAME 76, VIRGINIA 54
A 6-7 Irish team that just 11 days earlier suffered a 20-point home loss to The Citadel — a performance that yielded just 45 points — never trailed against blueblood and heavily favored Virginia (10-3) Saturday in front of an announced Purcell Pavilion crowd of 7,784.
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It was the most points ND has scored in the 21-game series against the Cavaliers (1-1 ACC).
“Our guys were locked in since December 26,” said first-year head coach Micah Shrewsberry, his voice withered by the day’s sideline work. “What that game looked like is what our practices looked like for about three days in a row.
“... I thought we were as disciplined executing a game plan as we've been all season.”
A little context.
Notre Dame (1-1 ACC) is one of the worst teams in the country offensively, ranking 340th in scoring offense at 62.6 points a game, 337th in field goal percentage at 39.4 and 341st in 3-point field goal percentage at 26.7 coming into the game.
It was that kind of futile offense that created a struggle against Marist, which produced a 60-56 escape three days before Christmas.
On the other side, Virginia is scary in every defensive category — No. 2 in the nation with a scoring defense of 54.5, No. 6 in field goal percentage defense at 36.7 and No. 26 in 3-point defense at 28.1.
Virginia had lost to only Wisconsin and Memphis, the latter on Dec. 19, to knock the Cavs from the Associated Press Top 25 poll. The Cavs were coming off a 79-44 dismantling of Morgan State on Wednesday.
So, none of those numbers added up to what eventually occurred Saturday, which was dubbed 574 Day at Notre Dame with the area code representing a tribute to the local players on the roster — Markus Burton (Mishawaka’s Penn High School), J.R. Konieczny (South Bend Saint Joseph) and walk-on Raheem Braiton (Mishawaka High School).
“Like 45-46 percent of their shots are threes (303 of 675 shots coming in) and we always said that, ‘You know, if they get it going, they're a dangerous team,” said Virginia head coach Tony Bennett, his team picked to finish fourth in the 15-team ACC.
Notre Dame fans were probably wondering, too, what this team could look like if some 3-point shots started to fall.
Saturday was exhibit A.
A half-minute into the game, Konieczny nailed a three. He hit a second 30-seconds later.
The third takes a little explanation. With the shot-clock winding down on Notre Dame’s fourth possession, Konieczny tossed up a desperate off-balanced shot from beyond the arc. He was just trying to avoid a Shrewsberry lecture for violating the shot-clock, hit the rim and hope for an Irish offensive rebound. Instead the shot went off the glass and through for three more.
A prayer-of-a-shot was answered — after a review by officials that the awkward shot had beaten the shot-clock buzzer.
Maybe the Cavs should have started worrying then.
“They hit some tough shots,” Bennett noted, “and then some of it was us (defensively).”
Like a wide-open Burton sinking a 3-pointer four minutes into the game for a 13-0- lead.
“You know, you don't necessarily win a game in the first four or five minutes and you don't necessarily lose a game,” Bennett said, “but you make it incredibly difficult when you get down like that.”
“We don't have enough offensive firepower to just say, ‘All right, we can kind of exchange possessions and we'll get it going and score in a flurry.’
“I thought we got pretty good looks early, but it puts pressure on your defense when you're missing either some clean looks or bunnies and then you know you’ve gotta get stops. Whether you like it or not, you're going to have to be harder to score against than we are or this will continually happen to us.”
Notre Dame has been fairly steady defensively this season, The Citadel contest an exception.
The Irish couldn’t keep the Cavs out of the lane, but they did keep them from getting to the rim and the Virginia jump shots didn’t fall as often. Top scorer Reece Beekman (13 points a game) had 15 but was 5-for-15 from the field.
The 45.6%-shooting team finished at 38.2% for the game, including 2-for-11 (18.2%) on threes.
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It was a little different for the Irish — 11-for-23 on threes (47.8% for the game) and 26-of-51 overall (51%).
By the end of the first half, Konieczny had all of his 17 points – 6-for-6 from the field, including 4-for-4 from the 3-point line (he came in at 26.7% from the 3-point line). His stats led an ND offense that went 70% from the field in the first half for a stunning 41-24 advantage — the most the Cavs had allowed in the first half this season.
“The young man, J.R., I mean, he just kind of put his shoulder down and bullied us,” Bennett said, “and he hit some tough shots. We got to some rotations, but they run good stuff. They played hard. … We certainly took a punch early and didn't respond.”
Notre Dame did when Virginia slapped the Irish with a wake-up call — a 7-0 run to start the second half.
Julian Roper II, who had missed a couple of games with a foot injury, hit a 3-pointer to slow the run three minutes into the second half.
“We never panicked,” Shrewsberry said. “It would be easy to panic. They came right out at halftime with a quick run. And we sat down, we took a breath and then we came back out and we answered. That's part of our growth as a group, when it had a chance to flip sideways.”
After Roper’s shot, it was Burton, Notre Dame’s leading scorer at 16 points a game, keeping the offense in flow and delivering big shots in the lane to finish with 15. The Irish lead never dipped below 10.
The second-half star was 6-foot-10 freshman Carey Booth, who, in his second start of the season, had three points in the first half but 14 in the second to go 10 over his average.
He was 6-for-9 for the day — 2-for-5 on threes — and led Notre Dame’s energetic assault on the boards (40-27 Irish edge) with nine rebounds. Konieczny had eight and 6-10 center Kebba Njie, in his best performance of the season, had six along with 10 points. He was averaging four points coming in.
“We worked our butts off coming into this game,” said Burton, who took as much pride in his eight assists (ND had 14, four over its average) as any bucket. “We knew Virginia was a really, really good team. … And just the fans that came out today were just unbelievable. There were a lot of people here to support us and I feel like the fans coming out is what helped us win.”
Will Notre Dame take the next step? Was Saturday a sign that it had turned a corner heading into Wednesday’s 9 p.m. EST game at home against North Carolina State (9-3, 1-0)?
“We're getting closer,” Shrewsberry said, “but this game doesn't help you in the next game, right? This one's over. We can't bring this to practice, like ‘We beat Virginia, let’s beat our chest’ knowing you’ve got to play the right way against NC State.
“It helps us knowing that the belief is starting to come in what we're doing.”
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