Game 30 Preview: One last Ride in Purcell for Brey

NOTRE DAME NOTES| PITT NOTES

SOUTH BEND, Ind. – The last week of the regular season is upon Notre Dame men’s basketball. With that said, it’s Senior Day on Wednesday, March 1, inside Purcell Pavilion. Graduate guard Marcus Hammond, along with two senior managers, will be celebrated in a special pregame ceremony. It’ll also mark Glenn & Stacey Murphy Head Coach Mike Brey’s senior day farewell as well. Don’t miss a special video presentation before tip honoring the ND career of Coach Brey.

With that said, once all the pregame festivities has passed, it’ll be the Fighting Irish (10-19, 2-16) tipping off against No. 25 Pittsburgh (21-8, 14-4) at 7 p.m. ET on ESPNU.

ND VS PITT

A series that began all the way back in 1927 with a 33-17 win in the ND Fieldhouse. Almost a hundred years later, the Irish own a 37-31 series lead, with a 19-11 mark at home. Notre Dame has won four straight in the series and seven of the last eight. 

This year however, the Irish have a tall task at hand and face a Panthers squad that sits in first place and is fighting for their first ACC regular season title. 

Pitt entered the AP Poll at No. 25 this week, making its first appearance in the poll since Jan. 11, 2016. In head coach Jeff Capel’s fifth season, Pitt has been one of the best teams in the country from mid-November on. The Panthers have won 20 of their past 25 games with the 20 wins since Nov. 20 tied for 11th most in the NCAA in that span.

THE DIFFERENCE A FEW POSSESSIONS CAN MAKE

How unlucky have the Irish been this season? Just in ACC play alone, they have lost 11 games by single digits. Of those 11, a whopping eight have been by five points or less. Plus, an incredible five has been decided by one possession.

If those eight that were decided by five points or less went a different direction, aka the difference of 2-3 possessions, the Irish could easily be sitting at 10-8 and in the middle of the pack. 

Taking a deeper look at six of ND’s last eight losses – excluding both Wake Forest games – the Irish have lost by a combined margin of 21 points over those 6 games, which equates to a 3.5 average margin of defeat. 

UNLUCK OF THE IRISH

The Irish battled Duke, No. 7 Virginia and North Carolina to the final minute. All three – Unluck of the Irish. 

At Duke, the Irish Trailed by 10 in the 2nd half and rallied to make it a one-point game at 62-63 with 36 seconds left. The comeback was fueled by Dane Goodwin, who scored 17 straight points from 12:35-4:29. Goodwin finished with a season high 25 points on 11-of-13 shooting. ND thought they would have a chance for at least the tie at the end if it wasn’t for the heroics of Duke’s Mark Mitchell, who had one field goal at that point in the game. He then hit a corner three with 12.0 seconds left.

A few days later in Charlottesville, the Irish thought they had a miracle at the buzzer. Down two with three seconds on the clock, Trey Wertz was on the free-throw line with one to shoot. He then shot a ‘perfect miss’ as the ball found its way back to him. Wertz calmly dished to Dane Goodwin who was wide open for the game-winning three. It hit off the rim as ND fell at the buzzer 57-55.

A few days later at home vs North Carolina, it was 57-56 UNC with one minute remaining. UNC’s Davis took his defender 1-on-1 and converted a tough jumper just beyond the free-throw line, extending the lead to 59-56. The Irish put the ball in Starling’s hands and the freshman beat his defender with a driving layup down the right side of the paint – now 59-58 UNC with 30.3 seconds left. Next, the offensive boards helped the Tar Heels again as they got two shots off but no rim. Notre Dame was a second away from a huge defensive stand and on UNC’s third shot of the possession they hit the front end of the rim as the rebound was knocked out-of-bounds. It stayed with UNC with now just nine seconds on the clock, shot-clock off, which meant ND had to foul. The Tar Heels made both free throws and then fouled Notre Dame so they couldn’t shoot the three. ND ultimately fell 63-59.

THREAT FROM THREE

Notre Dame’s offense may struggle from time to time, but you can’t argue with the team’s three-point shooting ability. The Irish rank 3rd in the ACC in made three-pointers per game and 45th in the country, converting 8.8 per game. Their 8.8 threes per game would crack the program’s all-time top-10 list- the program record is 9.7 set by the 19-20 squad. 

Career Three-Pointers Made

Goodwin – 226

Laszewski – 231

Ryan – 206

Hammond – 244

Trey Wertz – 190

Between those 5 players, a whopping 1,097 career three-pointers made. 

VEN-ALLEN – THE STARTER

Ven gets the award for most-improved Irish player down the final stretch of the season. He’s moved into a starting role and has posted five double-digit scoring performances over the last seven games. 

Lubin is coming off a career high 19 points at Wake Forest (2/25), where he went 9-of-13 from the field. He had a near double-double with 8 boards and tied his career high of 3 blocks. 

WERTZ WATCHER

Trey Wertz is 10 threes away from 200 in his career and 22 assists away from 500 — If he can get to both, he’d become just the 3rd Irish player to achieve 200 made threes + 500 career assists since 1996. The other two: Chris Thomas and Prentiss Hubb.

*Note that not all of Trey’s threes and assists happened at Notre Dame.

— ND —