Surging Irish Cruise To Easy Win Over Miami
Like every college head coach, Notre Dame’s Mike Brey talks a lot about never looking ahead and only worrying about “the next one.”
But Brey also understands that during his team’s desperate late-season push for an NCAA Tournament berth, a big-picture outlook can’t help but creep into the preferred stay-in-the-moment perspective.
Notre Dame (17-10; 8-8 ACC) took and applied the message Sunday in a resounding 87-71 win at Purcell Pavilion over Miami (14-13; 6-11), a second straight Irish victory that keeps alive some slim tourney hopes, whether the players and coach want to admit it or not.
“There’s no question our guys are sharp and they’re looking at everything,” said Brey, whose team has won six of its last eight games. “I just like how we’re playing right now. We know who we are. We kinda figured it out and we got a shot.”
Sunday’s easy 16-point win — Notre Dame’s largest victory in its last 35 ACC outings — was secured during the second half of the first half when the Irish used its best ball sharing and three-point shooting of the season to crank up a 33-6 scoring run that spawned a 48-29 halftime lead that was never remotely threatened in the second half.
Brey often talks about needing 10 made three-point shots in a game to stand a good chance of winning in league play. Notre Dame had 10 threes in the first half — on only 18 attempts — and finished with 14 threes on 31 tries for the game. Brey’s Irish also amazingly had 13 assists versus no turnovers at the break.
“It’s got to be one of our better halves in this building since I’ve been here,” Brey said. “I thought we were in a great rhythm offensively sharing the ball.”
Six different Notre Dame players made at least one three-pointer and four Irish scored 14 points or more in the game.
“At this moment right here is what we’ve been waiting for,” said sophomore Irish guard Prentiss Hubb, who finished with 15 points and 10 assists for his second double-double this season. “I feel like we’ve all been in the gym working our butts off, trying to make that NCAA Tournament push.”
Senior guard T.J. Gibbs and senior forward John Mooney each scored 19 points to pace the Irish. Sophomore guard Dane Goodwin scored 14 points off the bench.
Mooney added 12 rebounds for his 22nd double-double this season and said afterward it was nice to finally have a victory settled before the closing seconds. Notre Dame led Miami by 26 points midway through the second half.
“We’ve done a really good job of getting better in-game situations and down the stretch,” Mooney said. “But it’s always nice to not need that and win like we did today.”
Player of the Game: Gibbs broke out of a three-game scoring and shooting slump against Miami, finishing with 19 points on 5-of-6 three-point shooting. Gibbs went only 7-of-29 shooting and scored 20 total points in his previous three games.
Turning Point: After missing eight straight shots and 10-of-11 tries during an 8-0 Miami run in the first half, Notre Dame responded with a 10-0 run that turned a three-point deficit into a seven-point lead and put this one on ice.
Sharing The Ball
Brey’s teams routinely are at or near the top of the nation in assist-turnover ratio, and this season is no different, but the Miami win took ball-sharing to a new level.
In the first half alone, five different Irish players had at least one assist against no turnovers as a team. And for the game, three players had at least three assists, finishing with 21 assists on 32 baskets with only seven turnovers.
“Nobody plays like us,” Brey said. “These numbers are off-the-chart kind of stuff. And everybody can pass it. I don’t want to over-coach them when they’re flowing. They know who they are.”
State of the Union
In what will likely become a common theme the rest of this regular-season, Notre Dame’s “must-win” tour is still alive at two games after the impressive Miami win.
Sunday’s victory moved the Irish into a four-team, 8-8 logjam for fifth place in an ACC that is not expected to receive more than four of five NCAA Tournament bids, at least to this point.
Adding some frustration to any long-shot Irish NCAA Tournament talk is the fact that Notre Dame has lost six league games by three points or fewer, three of those by one point.
Flip just one of those and Irish postseason hopes become much brighter.
But, Brey said, this is no time to look back.
“We all know it’s going to be interesting down the stretch,” he said, “and we feel we’re going to be part of it. We really do.”
Up Next: After two straight games and wins at home, Notre Dame heads to Chestnut Hill, Mass., and Conte Forum to play a Boston College team (Wednesday, 9 p.m. EST) that the Irish have dominated — or should we say, had dominated — for the last 20 years until about 10 weeks ago.
In this all-Catholic “rivalry,” Notre Dame had won 17 of 18 games since 1999, including 13 consecutive, until Boston College (13-15; 7-10 ACC) came to Purcell Pavilion last December and handed the Irish an unthinkable 73-72 home loss. This remains arguably the harshest defeat Notre Dame has suffered this season.
Even last season when the Irish won only three conference games, two of those came against the Eagles. Overall, Notre Dame is 21-10 in the series.
This must-win game for Notre Dame comes with some added payback motivation at an arena where the Irish have won six straight.
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