Today’s game against the Evansville Purple Aces wasn’t supposed to involve a lot of drama, and credit to the Irish for making sure there wasn’t. Notre Dame has already played several teams below Evansville (rank: 280) on the KenPom rankings, so particularly with Markus Burton in street clothes, this was by no means the easiest game on the schedule. It actually turned out to be a pretty entertaining and informative contest due to a couple Irish players having career days and another having a nightmare
one from which to grow (which fortunately came at a non-critical time).
Oddly, Jalen Haralson was scuffling in this one, as the length of the Evansville front line led to many unsuccessful drives to the hoop, and he missed all five shots he took in the opening four minutes. 6’10” Connor Turnbull in particular was a thorn in his side at the rim. Despite the Irish opening the game on an 8-0 run, keyed by threes from Braeden Shrewsberry and Garrett Sundra, Evansville was able to use the empty Haralson-led possessions to tie the score in relatively short order.
The hot shooting of Shrewsberry was key to pushing back against some frustratingly easy baskets Evansville was able to collect, as he quickly racked up 11 of the first 16 Irish points. Sir Mohammed entered the game and chipped in a corner three, a difficult and-one, and a floater in the lane to collect seven quick points of his own. Meanwhile, Evansville wasn’t making the most of their opportunities on the other end, as they were having success hitting weak-side cutters and shooters when the Irish doubled the post, but missed some good looks. When Haralson hit his first shot — a deep two-pointer — on his eighth attempt, the Irish were up 26-17 with about eight to play in the half.
The pace of the game slowed down the rest of the way with multiple clock and scoring issues, plus Notre Dame getting into the bonus with about four minutes to play. The only points Evansville scored the rest of the half were on three corner threes from 6’10” Australian forward Joshua Hughes, whom the Irish were leaving open on rotations and double-teams. For the Irish, Shrewsberry kept going to work, finishing 5-for-6 from three in the half. Brady Koehler dropped in all three of his free throws once the Irish hit the bonus, and Mohammed collected a couple buckets in the half’s final minute. It wasn’t always pretty given defensive lapses and a 4:5 assist-to-turnover ratio, but thanks to 28 points combined from Shrewsberry and Mohammed, the Irish went to the locker room up an all-things-considered satisfying 41-29.
The Purple Aces came out of the halftime break executing considerably better on offense. Hughes dropped in five quick points and Keishon Porter, who to that point had been throwing the ball at the hoop with no regard for human life, swished an open corner three. After Turnbull scored ten points in a row for Evansville via post buckets and free throws, things began to feel just a little dicey. Two Porter free throws brought the lead down to three, at 52-49.
Meanwhile, the disjoint Irish offense was becoming a considerable issue, largely due to poor play from Haralson. Though he did finally knock down consecutive attempts, a head-scratching turnover and generally poor shot selection from Haralson allowed Evansville to really build momentum. The run only stopped when the Irish yet again took advantage of the Purple Aces’ Achilles heel: constantly leaving Shrewsberry open at the three-point line. Sundra followed up with another three, and Mohammed aggressively put in a difficult-and-one to stabilize the game with a quick 9-0 run.
Logan Imes then missed a jumper and got his own long rebound. He casually backed the ball out to the three point line and realized absolutely no Purple Aces were bothering to follow him, so he knocked down the most casual in-game three pointer you’ll ever see. A three from Mohammed would then stretch the Irish run to 15-2, and that was pretty much all she wrote for Evansville. There were still over eight minutes left in the game, but Notre Dame had effectively crushed the last gasp of resistance from the Purple Aces. A major scoring drought from Evansville allowed Shrewsberry to empty the bench with just under two minutes to play, though he let Haralson remain on the floor to try to finish on a positive note (which he did with an and-one with 30 seconds to play).
Bullet Points
- Today’s game was a new career high in points for both Shrewsberry (26 points, 8-for-10 from three) and Mohammed (21 points on 8-for-12 shooting).
- Shrewsberry’s eight threes were the most for an Irish player since Matt Farrell hit ten of them against Boston College in 2018.
- Another freshman moment from Koehler in the first half. He was off-balance trying to avoid going out of bounds with a loose ball on the defensive end and threw it towards the basket and into the hands of Evansville.
- Micah Shrewsberry gave Haralson a quick hook early in the second half after he got blocked on an ill-advised drive into a pile of Purple Aces, then bled the shot clock down before taking a bad step-back three.
- Haralson’s struggles gave Mohammed a chance to shine as the primary ball handler, and while this was more reflective of Haralson having a tough one, the offense definitely flowed better under Mohammed today.
- On Haralson’s last and-one, Koehler provoked a reaction from AJ Casey by screaming and trying to knock the dead ball away from him. Casey aggressively threw Koehler’s arm off of him, which elicited a two-handed shove from Koehler. Both players were ejected, and Koehler was laughing up a storm about it with his teammates as he was escorted to the locker room.
- Mark Zackery did not get into the game, despite pleas from the crowd.
