Notre Dame Basketball Highlights: Irish Bounce Back Against Delaware
Mike Brey returned home to Delaware – the university that gave him his head coaching start – with Notre Dame in desperate need o f a W after losing two of the last three including a heart breaker to unranked Ball State last week. Despite a sluggish start, Notre Dame got just what the doctor ordered with a 92-68 victory spurred by 45 points from Matt Farrell and TJ Gibbs.
In their last out of conference “away” game before ACC play begins, the Irish were in dire need of a good win to build some momentum after a disappointing two weeks. After moving up to #5 in the country the Irish got beat up by Michigan State and lost to unranked Ball State at home last week sandwiched in between a tune up win over St Francis of Brooklyn. (Notre Dame will play Indiana in Indianapolis on Saturday).
Bonzie Colson added another double-double to Gibbs and Farrell’s outburst and Martinas Geben posted 12 rebounds to go with 8 points in helping the Irish dispatch their head coach’s former employer.
Next up for Notre Dame is a showdown with instate rival Indiana in the Crossroads Classic Saturday. Game tips off at 2:30 and will be broadcast on FOX. The Hoosiers are 5-5 after losing to Louisville yesterday and will not play again this they face the Irish. Notre Dame will then get two tuneups at home against Dartmouth and SE Louisiana State before getting into ACC play.
Will breeze by the next two, starting tonight. Time for Pfleuger to start asserting himself along with Colson at the hoop.
BGC, Damian, it was The worst game I’ve ever seen by Pfleuger and that goes back to high school. He is either red hot or ice cold as in today. Bonnie and Matty tried to carry the load. It was the others that folded at the end. And the two missed ft’s by Torres, totally inexcusable. Think we should have seen more from that freshman from DeMatha. When I saw that calm upright jumper he made in the first half. He will be heir apparent to Colson. Wonder if they will even get into final 64. may have to ” play in game” at this rate.
Greg, Hopefully they will learn a lesson from it…never assume you have a game wrapped up until “the fat lady sings” as the saying goes. I think we made that assumption three or four times while IU just kept coming and kept focused.
By the way, how about that guy on their team who kept travelling in the first half and kept stepping out of bounds with the ball in his hands during the second half! Bobby would have had a stroke! (Of course that guy would never have been anywhere near the court if Knight was still coaching)…this was NOT your father’s IU team!
BGC ’77 ’82
Yeah, Pfleuger was basically a nonfactor. Very disappointed. At the end of regulation they needed to get it to either Colson or Farrel. They don’t miss free throws. I can’t believe Torres missed BOTH free throws. One would have likely won the game. Just one, and he missed two. That’s when I knew the basketball gods were against us. But they still had their chances and they blew it.
I really thought this team had the potential to do something special, esp. since Colson came back. But now I’m not so sure. It’s starting to look like a Sweet 16 might be a tough sell at this point. They don’t look all that different from last year. We’ll see what happens, but the problems they’ve had since the beginning of the season are not going away. That could be bad when ACC play starts.
Yes, Matt and Bonzie came to play. If this was a two man sport, like badminton, we would have won.
What really bothers me though is that this was an awful IU team, maybe the worst I’ve seen in my lifetime! An average Indiana team would have put us away in the first half!
Notre Dame – get out of Indiana and into the ACC as quick as you can…you don’t belong here…you are not part of Indiana culture…you never have been.
BGC,
Ball St. shoulda been in this stead of us. Where there is a way to lose this team will find it. Major league choke.
Yep, they just gave the game away. Did everything wrong at the end. You can’t lose to a 5-5 team. They’ll likely fall out of the top 25 all together.
At the beginning of the year I had visions of a possible Final Four run. Foolish me. At this point they’ll be lucky to get past the 2nd round. Colson probably wishes he went to the NBA now. What a waste.
We had them in talent. We had almost every call go our way from those refs. And we chronically had a big lead mostly because THEY WERE THE WORST SHOOTING IU TEAM I’VE EVER SEEN, AND TURNOVER PRONE AS WELL.
But Indiana is a total “basketball” state. They simply wanted it more…a lot more. It’s always that way.
BGC ’77 ’82
For the record, I have to say that they did not want it more than Colson…he was fierce to the end. But as we used to say, “we win as a team and we lose as a team.” Overall, they wanted it more than we did.
BGC ’77 ’82
Here in Indiana, where I have lived most of my life, Notre Dame is not considered to be an Indiana school as far as men’s basketball is concerned. Ball State, Butler, Indiana, Fort Wayne and so on do not consider ND to be in the same class as they are…and so beating ND is not really that big of a deal for them as you might think if you don’t live here. It’s sort of like “dog bites man” rather than “man bites dog”…they expect to beat us – and often enough, they do. Beating us in football is a huge deal for them, and it does not happen very often. But for 5 hoosier kids to come out, take the court, and beat us in basketball…well that is just an afterthought to them…a prep game, or a tougher than usual practice game. Not much more.
BGC ’77 ’82
Against MSU the Irish just never got on their feet. They closed it to within 7 if I remember correctly, but MSU pretty much owned ND the entire game. I thought ND would have played it closer. The loss against Ball State though was just inexcusable. ND should have owned Ball State. ND has been starting a lot of games this season off slow and have had to play catch up. At the same time, ND always seems to lose that one head scratcher to a team they had no business losing to. Then go out and beat a top 5 team.
But at the very least, for the moment at least, I’m not as sure of a deep NCAA tourney run this year as I was after Wichita State. These slow starts are going to continue to burn them if they can’t fix that. In tourney time that can result in a quick exit.
Watched the Lady Irish against UConn last week. What a heartbreaker. They led much of the game, but then seemed to run out of gas in the 4th quarter. The Irish were up by double digits at one point but could not hold on. A good showing, but if the Lady Irish hope to have any chance at a NC, they are going to need to get past UConn at some point. I think they’ve lost the last 6 or 7 straight to UConn.
MSU is as good as anyone in the country, and losing to them playing them for the first time in their new facility brings no shame to the bball team.
“At the same time, ND always seems to lose that one head scratcher to a team they had no business losing to. Then go out and beat a top 5 team.”
Sounds like the football team most years, minus “beating a top . . . team”.
Let’s not underrate; instead, let’s appreciate.
Brey and the team have given ND more wins vs. elite teams in the last five years than the football program has since St. Lou left a quarter of a century ago.
I just wish they were more competitive with MSU. The slow start killed them. But losing to Ball State was far worse. It sort of brought me back down to Earth. Before that I was thinking this team had Final Four potential. Now I’m not so sure.
But one thing the mens BB team has been able to do unlike the FB team lately is beat some of the top teams. The Irish are just as capable of beating an MSU type team so I’m not counting them out.
Irish vs. Hoosiers, can hardly wait.