Tampa, FL (UHND.com) – Notre Dame locked up the #3 seed in the Big East Tournament with a 67-60 win over South Florida on Saturday night. Led by Luke Harangody’s 21 points and 9 rebounds, Notre Dame beat the Bulls in a closer than expected contest and now await the winner of the Marquette-Seton Hall game on Wednesday.
UConn’s loss to Providence last week made what would have been a fairly meaningless game against South Florida into a pretty important game. The Huskies loss made the #3 seed in this week’s Big East Tournament game up for grabs and the Irish grabbed it with the win.
It wasn’t pretty, but the Irish got the job done thanks in part to some ice cold shooting from the beyond the arch by South Florida. The Bulls connected on just 3 of 19 attempts from three point land. Notre Dame wasn’t much better, hitting just 5 of 16.
The Irish uncharacteristically struggled from the charity stripe as well by connecting on just 62.%% of their attempts – well below their season average. Notre Dame especially struggled at the line in the closing minutes when they nearly let South Florida back in the game. The Irish missed 6 of 7 free throws including a 2 for 6 performance from Zach Hillesland in which he missed the front end of a one and one on two occasions down the stretch.
The close game didn’t allow Mike Brey to reach too deep into his bench in a game he likely would have wanted to. South Florida won’t be playing in the Big East Tournament as one of the bottom four teams in the conference. A game like this would have been perfect to get some of the regulars a bit of rest and give some more minutes to guys like Tyrone Nash who saw 1 minute of action.
Joining Harangody in double figures for Notre Dame was Rob Kurz with 14 and Zach Hillesland and Kyle McAlarney with 10 each. Tory Jackson struggled from the field hitting just two of eight attempts from the field. Jackson, however, had a team high five assists.
Saturday’s win pushed Notre Dame’s school record high in conference wins to 14. The 14 wins was tied for second in the Big East with Louisville, but the Cardinals win over the Irish last month gave Louisville the tie breaker in the Big East seedings.
As one of the top four teams in the conference, Notre Dame will have a bye during Wednesday’s first round action and will face the winner of the Marquette-Seton Hall game on Thursday night at 9:00 on ESPN.
Marquette gave Notre Dame its first conference loss of the season with a 26 point blowout of the Irish in Milwaukee back in January. Notre Dame beat the Golden Eagles in the rematch at the Joyce Center in February 86-83.
Getting the #3 seed from UConn actually gave the Irish a worse draw considering they would be looking at the winner of the Pitt-Cincinnati game as the 4th seed. The Irish beat the Panthers by 12 at home and gave the Bearcats a 27 point beating on January 15th.
