Highlights: Notre Dame Youngsters Come Up Short in Jimmy V Classic
Oklahoma vs. Notre Dame: T.J. Gibbs scored a team-high 18 points and John Mooney dropped 15 and grabbed a career-high 14 rebounds, but it wasn’t enough to get past Oklahoma in an 85-80 loss at the Jimmy V Classic. Juwan Durham and D.J. Harvey also scored in double figures for the Irish in the loss. Christian James led all scorers with 25 points for the Sooners in the win.
Notre Dame showed some growing pains as its young lineup just couldn’t keep up with the older, more experienced Sooners. That script is usually flipped for Notre Dame, but this season the Irish are replacing a couple program stalwarts in Bonzie Colson and Matt Farrell along with veteran role players Martinas Geben and Austin Torres. The Irish freshman class is among the best Brey has ever brought in to Notre Dame, but their youth was on display on Tuesday night.
In a back and forth game, Notre Dame just couldn’t get a push to take a lead on Oklahoma despite keeping matters within a possession or two for much of the second half.
TJ GIbbs led the IRish with 18 and nailed 4 of 7 three point attempts, but the rest of the Irish roster was ice cold from three point range. They combined to shoot just 3 of 18 on the night with Prentiss Hubb and DJ Harvey both turning in 0-4 efforts.
Juwan Durham had his best game in an Irish uniform with 15 points, 3 rebounds, and 3 streals. The UConn transfer who sat out all of last season played 15 minutes a game after playing 17 against Illinois. He made the case for more minutes on Tuesday with his performance.
Notre Dame takes its 6-2 record on the road for the second game in a road on Saturday when they travel to Los Angeles to take on 6-2 UCLA. Tip is set for 10:30 PM ET with the game being televised on ESPN 2.
Missed free throws, two much dribbling, some ill-advised threes, and not enough ball movement cost ND this game. The talent is there it’s just going to take some time to gel. Durham is developing nicely. He’s a great athlete with great hands and a soft touch.
IRISH played tough, a lot of positives!! BUT foul shooting is killing this team especially in the final minutes, HUBB is awful at the line and holds the ball to long!! ND seems to be improving everywhere else, young team still a work in progress!!
A bummer, though not a surprise I guess. Even though they had a young class because of the high quality of the recruits I thought maybe ND would surprise. After all, in basketball some of the best college teams are those with highly touted Freshman. Though at those schools they are one and done players which ND doesn’t go after (something I personally agree with BTW) so I should have known better. ND is a school that relies on experience most in their success and they just need more of that. They did manage to keep it close against a top 25 team though.
Durham is making a case for more playing time though. He’s making better shots and he’s a great defensive player. Gibbs is pretty reliable too. The rest of the players are very inconsistent. They’ll have a great game and then the next game be almost a non-factor. That was a big issue last year and something I’d like them to solve. I don’t expect every player to have an all star night every night, but they shouldn’t have their best scoring night one game and the very next game go ice cold. Fleuger is one of those players. He had a great game against DePaul I think it was (or was it Duquesne, it was one of those D- schools). Then he couldn’t make a shot against Illinois. He is a good defensive player but he’s got to put down much more shot.
Damian, something’s never change. I watched Rex Pfleuger throughout His high school career. He has always been a streak shooter. Misses ten straight then goes 10 for 10. Oh, and by the way, He has a tremendous temper, hopefully He will never exhibit that at Notre Dame.