Notre Dame’s wish list for an ACC title run

Matthew Crow Associate sports e ditor

The fate of the notre dame men’s basketball season rests on the Acc Tournament. If that was not clear earlier, it certainly is after the Irish squandered an early 16-4 lead to lose to Wake Forest on saturday and fall to 2-10 in Acc play. For notre dame to reach the ncAA Tournament in head coach mike brey’s final season, they will have to claim the Acc’s automatic bid by cutting down the nets in Greensboro.

This may seem like an unlikely proposition, and it is. To win the Acc title for the first time since 2015, the Irish, barring a late-season turnaround, would need to win five games in just five days. This scenario poses specific challenges for a team that has been notably inconsistent, having failed to win consecutive games since their 5-0 start to the season and leans heavily on a thin rotation.

At the same time, however, it doesn’t feel impossible. highly competitive efforts against miami, nc state and syracuse (twice) have proven that the Irish can hang with the conference’s top teams. The task for notre dame will be to turn those narrow losses into wins and to string those wins together over the course of a week. so yes, it is unlikely and it will be difficult, but if the Irish are to put together a cinderella postseason run, here are five things that need to happen.

Make 10 threes in every game

As a team that relies heavily on three-point shooting, notre dame does not have a large margin of error if their shots are not falling. It’s been a constant refrain from brey that, to win Acc games, notre dame must make double-digit three-pointers. on the surface, it appears that the Irish, who average 9.5 three-pointers in Acc play, have just about done that. however, in a single-elimination tournament, averaging 10 threes is very different from hitting that mark in every game, which was evident on saturday. The Irish finished just 4-21 from beyond the arc and could not muster up enough scoring to match Wake Forest’s high-powered offense. brey complimented Wake Forest after the game, calling them a team that isn’t “going to help you [win games]” by having off nights. In march, notre dame needs to be a team that doesn’t help their opponents and that starts with consistently shooting the ball up to their standard.

Just one poor shooting night, like saturday’s, would likely spell the end of the Irish’s season.

Lock the perimeter down on the flip side, the Irish’s best chance to limit the Acc’s top teams offensively is to go all in on preventing three-point attempts. This can be seen by comparing saturday’s game with notre dame’s december matchup with syracuse. on saturday, the Irish stifled Wake Forest in the first half, holding them to just 27 points. In the second half, Wake started to let it fly from long range and the Irish had no answer. The deacons finished with 11 threes and 54 points in the second half alone and would cruise to an 81-64 victory.

conversely, the syracuse game was dominated by orange big man Jesse edwards. The Irish could not stop edwards in the post and he finished the game with 22 points and 16 rebounds. however, syracuse made just three threepointers in the game. despite their strong interior play, they finished with just 62 points. The Irish have the offensive firepower to keep up with teams that score from the inside, but often fall behind when hit by a barrage of threes. notre dame should look to prevent threes at all costs, even if it means allowing opposing post players to have a field day.

Utilize Laszewski in the pick and roll

When notre dame’s shots weren’t falling on saturday, their points frequently came from finding graduate student forward nate Laszewski rolling to the basket. Laszewski finished with a teamhigh 18 points and did much of his work in the paint. As knockdown of a shooter as Laszewski is, it’s tempting to keep him stationed on the perimeter. however, he has finished well at the rim all season and the attention that he draws in pick and roll opportunities allows his teammates to play to their strengths.

screens from Laszewski provide open jump shots for graduate student guards dane Goodwin, cormac ryan and Trey Wertz. They also create space for slashers like freshman guard J.J. starling and graduate student guard marcus hammond to get to the basket. When Laszewski receives passes while rolling, he can look to the rim or find open shooters on the perimeter. The Irish have often gone on long stretches where they haven’t been able to get anything going offensively. Getting Laszewski rolling to the rim more frequently could provide a muchneeded spark if notre dame goes

cold in Greensboro.

Get healthy

This probably goes without saying, but a full-strength lineup gives the Irish their best chance of winning the Acc Tournament. on saturday, notre dame was without freshmen forwards venAllen Lubin and dom campbell and lacked an interior presence on both ends of the floor. Additionally, winning five games in five days is a test of stamina. having eight regular rotation players available instead of six reduces the severity of the “tired legs” that Irish players would be feeling by the fourth or fifth game.

brey provided an update on the status of both players after saturday’s game. campbell will likely return to action in two weeks after dealing with an ongoing inflamed Achilles issue. The timeline for Lubin’s ankle injury is uncertain, with brey saying that “we’ll see where we are on monday.” Junior forward matt Zona stepped into a bigger role in their absence and played well on saturday, but the Irish are counting on a postseason return for both of their talented freshmen.

Finish the regular season strong

Watching the ncAA Tournament, one will often hear an announcer make reference to a team that has “gotten hot at the right time.” Whether purely anecdotal or based in fact, it is widely believed that teams who play well at the end of the regular season and win their conference tournament carry crucial momentum into march madness. Last year, Kansas rolled through the big 12 tournament and eventually captured the national title.

For notre dame, the Acc Tournament is essentially a series of ncAA Tournament play-in games, so playing their best basketball over the next few weeks can only improve their chances of making a deep run. brey said after the Wake Forest game that “you’d love to see if you could get a little momentum before you go to Greensboro.” he has consistently praised his team for bringing the same effort and energy every day, regardless of whether they are winning or losing, but picking up some big wins down the stretch would no doubt provide a confidence boost that finishing with a long losing streak would not.

Contact Matthew Crow at mcrow@nd.edu.

The views expressed in this Sports Authority are those of the author and not necessarily those of The Observer.

Julia schutz, the Flying dutch stood at the helm up 32-23 at the end of 10 minutes.

hope came out in the second quarter just as relentless as they had done at tip off. This time, saint mary’s was not able to keep pace. in two and half minutes, the Flying dutch doubled their lead with nine unanswered points, up 41-23. a minute and a half later, hope guard meg morehouse’s three-pointer lifted the Flying dutch to an insurmountable 48-25 advantage.

The deep hope roster wouldn’t step off the gas. on the day, 11 different Flying dutch players would record five or more points. at half, hope stood firmly ahead of saint mary’s 70-32.

The belles put a much more competitive performance in the third quarter, putting up 16 points to the Flying dutch’s 21. however, the dream of victory had long since faded away. 109-62 was the final score. With the loss, saint mary’s falls to 7-15 on the season and to 4-9 in michigan intercollegiate athletic association play. on Wednesday, Feb. 8, saint mary’s travels to olivet nazarene University in bourbonnais, iL for their final road game of the season. Tip-off is at 6 p.m. esT.

Contact Peter Breen at pbreen2@nd.edu

“she’s a new kid to our program because she was a transfer from a c anadian university, but she’s still young. she’s only a sophomore,” sparks said. “she had to run a lot of that race by herself, so i know she’s got more in her, whether that’s in the 3K or the mile.” sparks has enjoyed seeing c hisholm and markezich train well together and push each other towards national accolades.

“[ c hisholm] and olivia [ markezich] have really trained well together,” sparks said. “both of them are in the top 16 in the nation in those two different events. They have really pushed each other to achieve national level accolades in the last couple of months.”

The i rish track and field community also came together this past weekend by officially dedicating the weight throw event to late throws coach adam beltran, who passed away last s eptember. sparks discussed how meaningful beltran was to the program during his 15 years of coaching.

“adam beltran was here for 15 years and had three different head coaches. We had probably 50-75 people here yesterday to honor him. The people that threw for him 15 years ago came back into town for the weekend to memorialize him, not just in the competition, but we had a weekend full of events,” sparks said. sparks talked about the impact beltran had on the lives of his athletes both on and off the field.

“a s coaches we try to make impacts on people’s lives through athletics, but along the way if you’re a good X’s and o’s coach, you make a big impact on their lives outside of sport,” sparks said. “it is always neat to see when alumni come back to town and talk about their relationship with adam. it makes it all worthwhile. adam’s parents were in town and they got to hear the stories. i know it was really special for his entire family to really see the support that he had in that moment at the meet.”

The i rish will be in action next weekend with most athletes going to the Windy c ity i nvite in c hicago. c arter s olomon and graduate student Kevin berry will head out to the valentine’s i nvite in boston where s olomon will look to run a national qualifying time in the 5K.

Contact Nate Moller at nmoller@nd.edu

clinical on offense. The team was unable to make a single three-pointer in the first half, shooting a combined 4 for 21 beyond the arc at the end of the game. Notre Dame’s inefficiency with the ball became more apparent as Wake Forest began to heat up, with the traveling team showing their scoring prowess in the second half. The 12-point lead in the first half was the biggest for the Irish in their eventual 8164 loss on Saturday afternoon.

“In the two games we won in the league, the other team helped us a bit. [Wake Forest] isn’t going to help you,” head coach Mike Brey explained when asked about his team’s margin of error. “We played some zone, we played some matchups, that helped us last Saturday but not so much today.”

Brey’s comments highlighted that Notre Dame couldn’t maintain their first-half defensive prowess as Wake Forest attacked the deficiencies in the Irish scheme. “We were switching everything and they turned it over a bunch, but then they opened the half and banged one from up top. It just breaks the ice and now they’re feeling good.”

The beginning of a hot streak for Wake Forest became apparent early into the second as Damari Monsanto connected three three-point attempts in the first two minutes of the half. Monsanto led the Demon Deacons in scoring with 28 points, making 8 shots behind the arc. Monsanto’s shooting tirade was unfortunate for the Irish, who were able to contain his star running mate Tyree Appleby for the majority of the game. However, cool heads prevailed for the away team as effective ball movement allowed them to break apart the Notre Dame defense.

“I guess I’ve matured over the years because I probably would have lost my mind about ten years ago. Ten minutes to go in the first half and

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rebounds in her time on the floor, with Notre Dame often unable to control the paint.

Junior forward Maddy Westbeld put in an especially admirable shift helping to cover for Ebo, even playing out of position. Westbeld played the full 40 minutes for the Irish and ended with team-highs in both points and rebounds. The junior rotated all over the floor throughout the game as Ivey attempted to manage a six player rotation without a natural center.

Without Ebo, the Irish we had four points. It wasn’t just not making shots; we had 11 turnovers early and we’re not really a team that turns it over in league play,” head coach Steve Forbes for the Demon Deacons said.

Notre Dame’s early lead was dependent on their ability to create turnovers as most of their points came off of transition. Two exemplary plays from graduate guard Marcus Hammond showed how efficiency on one side of the floor can affect the other. After a block on Appleby, Hammond raced down the floor for a layup on the other end. Similarly, Hammond playing the passing lanes allowed him to convert a steal from a bad Monsanto pass into fast break points. Both of these plays helped Notre Dame to find an easy bucket to convert into two. Wake Forest’s character prevented the Irish from getting more open looks later on though.

“We scored 77 points from the 10-minute mark on. We played really good offense and pretty good defense for the whole game,” Forbes continued.

This loss proved to be characteristic for Notre Dame this season, as last week’s game against Louisville was the end to a previous four-game losing streak. The primary issue over this span of games is the team’s defense. Notre Dame allowed over 80 points in 5 of their past 6 losses, a mark that they have only reached once over their 12 games in their conference. Despite a teamhigh 18 points from graduate forward Nate Laszewski, Notre Dame has shown that they do not have the firepower on offense to win a shootout against their opponents. When asked about his individual stats and the team’s result, Laszewski said, “I really don’t care what happens [with my performance], we just want to win games in the end.”

Notre Dame’s issues on both offense and defense have become exacerbated in recent games due to injuries. Both freshmen bigmen Ven-Allen Lubin and once again took the floor against Duke without a single senior in the rotation. On a team that just weeks ago gave significant minutes to two, the learning curve has been noticeable.

But Ivey stressed after the game the benefits being forced into high pressure situations will have on her young lineup.

“That’s an adjustment. It’s part of the game you’ve got to navigate,” said Ivey. “Yes, injuries have plagued us the last couple weeks. But again, adversity gives a lot of opportunity for our team. Some players are really young and have never been in these moments. And you’ve got

Dom Campbell were on the sideline in Saturday’s contest, limiting the Irish to a seven-man rotation for the game. Campbell, who played in place of the injured Lubin against Louisville, suffered both a right and left inflamed Achilles tendon midway through practice on Friday.

“It’s been an issue with both Achilles’ tendons. One is really swollen and we want to be safe because we don’t want a rupture,” said Brey.

When asked about his timetable for return, Brey was direct, saying ‘probably two weeks.’ The head coach later stated that he was unclear when Lubin will make his reappearance on the court. These late-season injuries come at a bad time for the Irish, with a possibility of the season-ending before either player has the opportunity to return.

However, Brey has worked around these injuries, expecting his bench to step up to the challenge when called upon. One notable substitution in this game was junior forward Matt Zona, who provided the Irish with some structure on the interior.

“Matt Zona, I love you. We’re going to play you, get on in there and play,” said Brey. Zona had multiple season highs in Saturday’s game, with 4 points and 4 rebounds in 15 minutes.

After Saturday’s match, the Irish hit the road, looking to extend Georgia Tech’s loss streak to ten games this Wednesday.

“We’ll go to Atlanta and keep on playing and you’d love to see if you can get a bit of momentum. It’s a group that has ownership of themselves. They come in and keep trying,” said Brey.

Notre Dame will get another chance at Wake Forest in their rematch three weeks away, Brey hopes they’ll be able to swing some momentum in their direction before then.

The Irish play Georgia Tech on Feb. 8 at 7 p.m. EST.

Contact Nico Morles at nmorles@nd.edu to learn in the fire unfortunately. But I know we’ll be better for it down the road.”

Looking ahead, the Irish now get a stretch of three straight home games to rebound from the Duke defeat. The first of the week will come at the midweek against a struggling p ittsburgh team. The p anthers will enter South Bend searching for their first conference win, currently standing 0-11 in ACC play.

Tip off against the p anthers is Thursday night at 6 p.m. EST in the p urcell p avillion.

Contact J.J. Post at jpost2@nd.edu sign of where the game was headed, just not a positive one. Spartans goaltender Dylan St. Cyr, who played for Notre Dame from 2017-2021, stopped all five shots the Irish took on the man advantage, and all the ones before it … and all of the ones after it. St. Cyr has done everything possible to keep Michigan State in games, recording a .913 save percentage for a team allowing about 33 shots a night. Friday was no exception, as he turned away all 32 shots the Irish threw at him.

Despite an 11-5 edge in shots through 20 minutes, the Irish were never able to seize control of the game. Even worse, they presented Michigan State with a prime opportunity to take it for themselves by taking two penalties in quick succession in the second. The Spartans were not able to capitalize on a brief 5-on-3, but with the second penalty still being served, Jagger Joshua deflected a Matt Basgall wrister past senior goaltender r yan Bischel to break the deadlock.

Just over five minutes later, Michigan State would double their lead. A turnover by sophomore defenseman Jake Boltmann behind his own net freed the puck up for Erik Middendorf, who craftily dragged the puck around Bischel for his seventh goal of the season. Notre Dame was unable to make a serious push to equalize, failing to even outshoot Michigan State in the final frame. An empty-netter by Nicolas Muller, who assisted on each of the Spartans’ first two goals, officially sealed the deal.

St. Cyr also made the difference again in Saturday’s series finale, stopping 33 of 35 shots to lead the Spartans to victory before a soldout crowd of 6,555. Bischel stopped 25 of 28 shots in the loss.

Michigan State never trailed in the contest, getting their first lead 11:42 in on a power-play goal by Karsen Dorwart. After a scuffle in front of the Michigan State goal led to matching penalties, the teams played at 4-on-4 until Irish graduate student forward Jackson p ierson took an offensive zone penalty.

Michigan State went on a 4-on-3 power-play, allowing Daniel r ussel room to wire a snapshot from the top of the right circle. Dorwart tipped it past Bischel to put the Spartans up 1-0.

The Irish countered less than two minutes later when junior forward Landon Slaggert found the back of the net on a seeing-eye shot from the high slot. It was a nice individual effort by Slaggert, who took the puck in the corner and made room for himself to take the shot, tying the game at 13:14. Graduate student forward Chayse p rimeau and junior defenseman Zach p lucinski assisted on the goal.

With under two minutes remaining in the first period, the Spartans went back out in front. Muller got loose from in front of the Notre Dame goal and tapped a cross-crease pass from Jeremy Davidson past Bischel. Despite outshooting the Spartans 13-6 in the first, the Irish trailed after one.

Notre Dame scored the only goal of the second period. After Joshua took his team’s second five-minute major penalty of the weekend, sophomore forward Justin Janicke set up p rimeau for a one-time shot that beat St. Cyr. It was p rimeau’s team-leading and his seventh in his last six games.

It was anyone’s game going into the third. But Michigan State got a break early in the period when Irish senior forward Solag Bakich took a delay of game penalty. Backich had closed his gloved hand on the puck in the neutral zone. Notre Dame was strong on the penalty kill for the first minute. Eventually, though, Michigan State was able to get set up. Davidson made a perfect pass into the wheelhouse of defenseman David Gucciardi. Gucciardi’s one-time howitzer beat Bischel cleanly from the left point to give Michigan State the 3-2 lead.

The Irish had their chances to tie the score as time drained away. But St. Cyr was there to stop each one, including a breakaway by Hunter Strand with just two seconds remaining.

Old patterns came back to haunt the Irish in East Lansing. Their penalty-kill, the worst in the Big Ten, surrendered two goals on three attempts. The road struggles also persisted, as Notre Dame dropped to 4-10-1 away from Compton Ice Arena.

The loss puts Notre Dame on the outside of the NCAA tournament picture with just two regular season series remaining. With a 1314-3 overall record, the Irish now need to finish strong against No. 8 Ohio State and No. 4 Michigan to be eligible for the NCAA Tournament. That could come from either a great performance to close out the regular season or by advancing in the Big Ten conference tournament or winning it tournament outright. But even the latter hopes depend vitally on results in the next four games.

Contact Andrew McGuinness at amcgiunn@nd.edu and Tyler Reidy at treidy3@nd.edu