Highlights: Notre Dame Edge Illinois in ACC/Big Ten Challenge
Illinois vs. Notre Dame: Fighting Irish guards T.J. Gibbs and D.J. Harvey each scored 19 points in Notre Dame’s 76-74 win over Illinois in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge Tuesday night. The Irish used a 14-0 run in the second half behind the 10 points and 5 blocks of Juwan Durham to give them some breathing room, then Notre Dame survived a late flurry from the Illini to take home the victory.
My takeaways are that ND shot fewer threes, drove to the basket, and got fouled. They must hit their free throws. They missed 15 and if they hit half of those it’s a comfortable ten point win. Durham looked great in the last ten minutes. Durham is their only true 5 and Mooney and Laszewski are out of position there. they are more effective as stretch 4’s. Hubb, Gibbs, and Harvey played well. Pfleugar’s performance against Depaul proved to be the exception rather than the rule and Brey’s favorite metric -the law of averages – played out.
It looked like the Irish were pulling away with about 5 minutes late, going up by double digits, then they inexplicably went cold on both ends of the court and were a 3 point shot away from losing the game.
The Irish were really hot and cold last night. They’d start making shots and making incredible stops, then all of a sudden like a puff of smoke it would disappear. They couldn’t make a shot and then Illinois would go on a run.
Frankly, we were lucky to come away with a win.