Notre Dame tried its best to hang tough with #1 ranked North Carolina on Wednesday night, but simply didn’t have the depth to run with the Tar Heels for a full 40 minutes. Three games in three nights for a team that routinely only plays 8 or 9 players finally caught up to the Irish in a 102-87 loss.
- Kyle McAlarney is ridiculously good. McAlarney played 39, 40, and 39 minutes on back to back to back nights and smply went off in the final 10 minutes. He attempted 18 three pointers and made 10 of them. He almost single handily brought the Irish back into the game. Words really can’t describe the shooting display he put on. He was hitting 3’s from well beyound NBA three point range. KMac ended up with a career high 39 points to go along with 6 assists and 2 rebounds.
- Giving up 102 points to North Carolina looks bad on paper, but I’m not too worried about the defense yet. UNC got a lot of second chance points in the second half when the Irish simply didn’t have their legs under them.
- Luke Harangody had a stomach flu on Wednesday and needed 2 IV’s just to play in the game. He started off pretty strong, but he clearly wasn’t himself. Still, he scored 13 points and added 7 rebounds. Its unfortunate because he had a chance to make a statement against Tyler Hansbrough who ended up domianting the game. Luke did add another 3 blocks tonight and now has 5 in the last two games after not having any until yesterday.
- Tory Jackson had a bit of an off night. He scored 10 points, but wasn’t his usual outstanding self. UNC’s speed and quickness at guard negated one of Jackson’s biggest strengths and he ended up with as many turnovers (3) as assists.
- The game turned with under 8 minutes remaining when Tory Jackson was fouled dishing the ball off to a wide open McAlarney. McAlarney had previously cut the lead to 11 and nailed a wide open three which would have cut the lead to 8, but the foul against Jackson was called before the shot. UNC went on to score back to back baskets and the Irish never got closer than 11 again.
- UNC’s depth was on clear display tonight. The Tar Heels are simply a deeper team and are much more capable of playing three straight games and still being fresh. They played fantastic tonight, but I would love to see these two play again coming off some rest. Not trying to make excuses here because both teams played on the same rest. UNC is just better built for playing three games in three nights.
- Despite the loss, I thought the Irish showed a lof of heart and toughness and probably earned some respect for not giving up.
- Zach Hillesland started off the game very strong by attacking the basket, but after the first five or six minutes he didn’t keep doing so. I was very excited to see him attack the basket because its something he needs to do more to help out Harangody down low so hopefully this is something he does more and more as the season progresses.
- Notre Dame didn’t do a good job of getting to the foul line. The Irish attempted just 11 free throws compared to UNC’s 21. Outside of Hillesland in the first few minutes, no one really attacked the basket for the Irish and the result was few atempts from the free throw line.
- As always, the Irish dished the ball and protected it well. Notre Dame had 20 assists as a team compared to just 8 turnovers.
- This was a valuable experience for this team and will help it in preparation for the Big East schedule later in the season. Hopefully over the next few games Brey can dip into his bench so that we have more depth later in the season.
Still, an excellent early showing. I hope we have the opportunity to play them again, 15 points is not a total blow-out.