Notre Dame will now take on No. 2 Duke. On the season, Duke is averaging 85.1 ppg on 49.4% shooting from the field. Notre Dame suffered a seven-game losing streak in the middle of the season, won just eight regular season games in the ACC and lost to the likes of Ball State and in while at full strength.
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Notre Dame celebrates a charge.
Duke, looking to repeat as ACC champions, will face No. 10-seeded Notre Dame (20-13) at 7 p.m. Thursday in the quarterfinals.
And so the waiting game begins. I’ll say this though, when he plays well this Duke team really gets it rolling.
“If you have a good look against their zone, rise up and take it”.
The Fighting Irish were down by twenty-one points to Virginia Tech with less than thirteen minutes to go.
Notre Dame came out of the gates sluggish in the first half much as they did in their first-round game against Pittsburgh.
Duke’s Grayson Allen, who poured in 17 points in the opening 10 minutes, finished with 23 points. The senior connected on 5 of 6 three-point attempts on his way to a 23-point evening.
From there, the Irish changed the tune. The Devils routed Notre Dame 88-66 at Cameron Indoor Stadium in late January, but the Irish were without Colson and Farrell (ankle). Trevon Duval of Duke supplied 11 assists.
Ferrell led Notre Dame in scoring with 22 points against Virginia Tech on Wednesday. “He’s really explosive”, Colson said.
“They’re such an explosive offensive unit and tonight we had no answers”, Brey said.
“We can’t force anything. Just completely fell apart the last 15 minutes defensively”. What if we had an NIT banner you guys hung up as seniors and you’d come back and go – I know it’s the NCAA – but remember that year? Non-starters combined for just 26 of the 245 points scored by the Irish during three days in Greensboro.
Notre Dame coach Mike Brey, who earned his 500th career victory, said there are no restrictions on Colson. Gibbs and Farrell each scored five points in the stretch to spur the comeback. The nation’s No. 5 team led 32-19 midway through the first half. The Blue Devils shot 55.4 percent for the game. The Irish shot only 25% in the first half.
Now, it’s highly doubtful that the Hokies don’t make the tournament, but there’s now a good chance of the Hokies dropping a seed-line, or two.
Duke extended it to 80-62 with 4:30 remaining, and there would be no big rally for the Fighting Irish this time.
Colson finished with 12 points. “But when we run from it and do our own thing, it’s not going to work”. “They need to sort of be a little less cerebral and a little bit more instinctual in terms of the way that they pitch and compete”.
“They started switching everything just to try to keep us in front”, noted Buzz Williams. We’ve used a lot of juice. “No matter what happens, we’ll be accepting and proud”. We gave the committee a heck of a resume-let them make the decision. “If it’s good enough, we’ll win some games; if it isn’t, we won’t and we’ll go back to the drawing board and do it all over again the next day”. It’s all we could ask.
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What does Notre Dame have to do to win? The Irish also reached their fifth straight ACC Tournament Championship game and ninth consecutive conference tournament title game overall. They both dominated Notre Dame. But they were able to pull of a ridiculous comeback.
