SOUTH BEND, Ind. – Notre Dame’s Tae Davis owned a good piece of the Purcell Pavilion floor Monday night.
His 26 points included a stunningly impressive windmill dunk and his physical, confident offensive game drew eight fouls to set the tone for the Irish to snap a four-game losing streak with a 78-60 win over Boston College.
“He’s like a professional player right now,” BC coach Earl Grant said of the 6-foot-9 junior Davis. “He’s gotten bigger, he’s gotten stronger. I was really impressed with him.”
SUBSCRIBE TO INSIDE ND SPORTS TO STAY IN THE KNOW ON NOTRE DAME ATHLETICS
More Content
► Phenom Cooper Flagg, No. 4 Duke withstand late rally from Notre Dame MBB
► Heartbreak reenactment as Notre Dame MBB falls late at NC State
► Notre Dame football's (later) early enrollees arrive and set focus for 2025
► Notebook: Notre Dame shouldn't need motivation from last season's OSU loss
► Key Takeaways: Ryan Day, Ohio State wipe slate clean for title game
Ironically, it was actually one of his few misses in a 9-for-14 shooting performance that kicked off a surge that helped Notre Dame pull away midway through the second half in front of an announced crowd of 4,693.
Toiling to get a toehold in a game that was tied 11 times and included 11 lead changes, ND led 50-48 when Davis’ mid-range jumper was off the mark with 9:22 to play.
Rather than turning upcourt to get back on defense, Julian Roper II, a 6-4 senior guard, raced to the bucket and timed a jump perfectly to come down with the rebound amid the bigger Eagle defenders. He snapped a pass quickly back to Davis who drove it right back to the hoop and was fouled on his layup.
He completed the three-point play with the free throw and ND’s lead grew to five with 9:17 to go.
It reached eight less than a minute later when Matt Allocco was fouled on a short jumper from the lane and completed a three-point play.
The Eagles never got closer than six the rest of the way.
“It was just a matter of time,” Roper said of Davis’ development. “It’s no surprise to me.”
Over 32 games last season, Davis averaged nine points a game, shooting 48.4% from the floor.
His performance Monday was the seventh time this season he has led ND in scoring and marked the fourth time in the last seven games he has scored 20-plus points.
His scoring average coming in was 16.1, 10th in the ACC, and his 51.5% shooting from the field was third in the league.
“I think just working and watching film,’’ Davis said of his developing game. “... Just reading the game.”
The Irish win comes after three close league losses to three North Carolina teams, two by a point, and pushed the Irish to 8-9 (2-4 in the ACC). Though the Irish own a 28-17 series lead over Boston College (9-8 and 1-5), coming into the game BC had won six of the last seven, including two last season.
“I keep talking to them about keeping the faith,” Irish head coach Micah Shrewsberry said. “We haven't gotten the results that we wanted, but they've never wavered from what's been needed to give ourselves a chance to win.
“And even though this one was back and forth and choppy and we weren't at our best offensively, and I think they scored a bunch defensively early on, we just kind of buckled down and made plays when we needed to. And I thought the kind of hustle plays that Roper and Kebba (Njie) made were really huge.”
CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE TO INSIDE ND SPORTS ON YOUTUBE
The stat no Boston College fan will feel is fair is Notre Dame’s 23-for-27 shooting from the foul line to the Eagles’ 6-for-6.
Though Grant took issue with a few calls, he acknowledged the Irish “took the ball to the basket with more authority,” than his team.
Notre Dame’s late offensive surge pushed their game shooting percentage to 47.3 but it was a struggle to get shots to fall most of the night. It was particularly ugly from the 3-point line where the Irish were just 3-for-15 (20%), way off their season mark of eight threes and 36.8 percent shooting.
Braeden Shrewsberry, Notre Dame’s top 3-point shooter and averaging 14.9 points a game, didn’t score, misfiring on his four shots, all 3-point attempts.
“Early on, we weren't ready for the physicality of the game,” Micah Shrewsberry said. “We weren't ready to drive through contact.”
The Irish were able to edge ahead, 36-33, at halftime thanks to a 10-for-12 performance from the free throw line. It helped offset the Eagles’ perimeter shooting (5-for-10 on threes) and nine Irish turnovers in the first half.
Cleaning it up in the second half, Notre Dame wound up with just 10 turnovers for the game to Boston College’s 18.
“So, we turned it over nine times in the first half,” Micah Shrewsberry said. “We always talk about, we want to be at 10 turnovers or less, and we've been right at that number a lot this year (the Irish were averaging 10.5 coming in) and to only have one turnover in the second half we're just getting more possessions.
“We had more possessions than they got. We didn't turn it over. They turned it over. We got on the offensive glass. We didn't let them get on the offensive glass. That's how you win games. You know, shoot the same percentage, but you win games because you get more possessions than the next guy.”
The Irish went 26-of-55 from the field to BC’s 22-of-47 and had 35 rebounds — an impressive 17 on the offensive side — to the Eagles’ 23, including seven offensive rebounds.
The Eagles’ leading scorer Donald Hand Jr. (14.7 per game) had 17, going 5-for-7 on threes.
ND’s Davis got help offensively from Markus Burton with 20 points, a point over his average. He struggled from the perimeter (5-for-15) but went 9-for-10 from the free throw line.
Burton also had four of ND’s season-high 13 steals with Njie and Allocco picking up three each.
Allocco had 13 points, going 5-for-8 from the field, and three rebounds in over 30 minutes and Shrewsberry said, “Mush (Allocco) wasn't going to let us lose.”
Neither was Roper.
He averages less than a bucket a game, and scored only two Monday, but was terrific defensively. He had seven rebounds, a couple assists, a steal and no turnovers in 18 minutes off the bench.
“...He wants to win so bad,” Shrewsberry said, “and he's kind of done whatever's been asked of him.”
“And I think our effort on both ends of the court was great,” Shrewsberry said. “And I challenged our guys yesterday. We had a short turnaround and short prep for this game (after Saturday’s game at Duke), but I challenged, you know, specifically, Markus, Braeden, Tae, Kebba — I challenged them that they needed to play harder defensively.
What's the difference between last year's group defensively and this year's group, when you’ve got a lot of the same people out there? I challenged them to play harder defensively, and I thought they did.”
Notre Dame meets Syracuse for the second time this season on Saturday at 4 p.m. EST (ACC Network) in New York. The Irish won the first meeting, 69-64.
---------------------------------------------------------------
• Talk with Notre Dame fans on The Insider Lounge.
• Subscribe to the Inside ND Sports podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, SoundCloud, Podbean or Pocket Casts.
• Subscribe to the Inside ND Sports channel on YouTube.
• Follow us on Twitter: @insideNDsports, @EHansenND and @TJamesND.
• Like us on Facebook: Inside ND Sports
• Follow us on Instagram: @insideNDsports
