Notre Dame drew a nightmare matchup in the swarming Houston Cougars for their final game in the Players Era tournament. A national title contender sporting one of the top defenses in the country, Houston seemed
perfectly suited to stymie an entirely too Burton-centric offensive attack for the Irish. On the other hand, a win would be an incredible resume builder, and Houston was fresh off of a loss to Tennessee the day before, so one can dream.
The Irish started out cold from three early, missing four looks in the first three minutes, including a couple uncharacteristic contested ones from Jalen Haralson. Garrett Sundra took three good shots in the first stretch, including a three and a couple floaters in the lane, but nothing went down. Houston wasn’t able to convert on their early three point attempts either, but were able to get to the basket for a couple easy ones, making for a sleepy 6-0 deficit at the under-16 timeout.
Burton broke the seal by finding an unguarded Haralson under the hoop for an easy two, but Houston started to roll offensively. The Irish had a tough time corralling Cougar misses, particularly the guards, and Milos Uzan and Emanuel Sharp found space to connect for triples. Three early Irish turnovers made matters worse, and Micah Shrewsberry had to call timeout when the score reached 16-2.
Houston was able to stretch the edge to 26-4 before the Irish finally got a three to go. Cole Certa bricked in a deep one off the glass off of a feed from Burton. The Cougars quickly answered back with a three of their own, but Haralson gave the Irish a much-needed boost with three trips to the free throw line, where he went 5-for-6. Certa would soon jack another deep three late in the shot clock that bounced around every part of the rim and backboard before dropping in. It just wasn’t anywhere near enough to hang with Houston, who was now shooting quite well from the outside and had already collected eight offensive rebounds, most of them far from the hoop. The Irish trailed 34-15 at the under-4 timeout, and were struggling to make headway.
The Irish made a bit of a run in the last four minutes. Burton got a tough three to roll around the rim and in, and Certa got very aggressive driving the ball, getting fouled twice to push the Irish into the bonus. Burton followed with a tough fadeaway 12-footer that went down to complete a 10-2 run. He’d get a chance to cut the deficit to 12 before the half with a brilliant step-through move, but his shot rimmed out. Notre Dame went to the locker room down 39-25, which felt a lot better than most of the first half did.
Micah Shrewsberry went to a “floor spacing” lineup of Burton – Certa – Ryder Frost – Logan Imes – Kebba Njie lineup to open the second half, and Frost opened the half by making a three. He’d get another shot clock buzzer-beater on the baseline a little bit later, and Imes made a nice strip which led to a fast-break layup for Burton. Another three from Sharp stemmed the Irish tide, but the dynamic of the game had changed dramatically from the first 15 minutes.
Imes had a moment where he demanded the ball for a deep open three and confidently knocked it down, in a true “what-the-hell” moment. Burton followed it up with an and-1 lay-up on the next possession. Both were made possible by Carson Towt getting fouled going for offensive rebounds, and incredibly the Irish found themselves down by just 8 points. On the ensuing possession, Houston’s Joseph Tugler got frustrated and committed a flagrant-1 foul against Towt, who banked in (!) two free throws. A Haralson drive-and-score with the right-hand at the end of the shot clock completed a 14-2 run for the Irish. The lead was only four!
Houston finally broke their six-minute field goal drought their next trip down with an offensive rebound by Ramon Walker Jr., who laid it in and got fouled by Towt. However, the damage was done. Notre Dame was fighting tooth and nail on defense and on the glass against a much more physical team.
However, a few things started to work against the Irish comeback. Burton and Imes committed bad turnovers on consecutive possessions (the first two of the half after 11 clean minutes), and Notre Dame found itself in foul trouble. Houston got into the bonus and stretched the lead to 12 without the benefit of a field goal. When Kalifa Sakho broke the over-five-minute field goal drought for the Cougars, it put them up 13. Sakho then hustled back to lay a thunderous swat on a Burton layup to put an exclamation point on it.
Houston started to encounter some foul trouble of their own as the game ticked closer to four minutes, as Burton and Towt got put on the line on consecutive plays, with Tugler fouling out in the process. It just wasn’t enough. The nail in the coffin was Certa missing a wide open corner three down 11 and Imes throwing away the ball trying to advance it to a not-looking Certa on the following trip down.
Bullet Points:
- On the second play of the game, Towt was kicked in the groin after getting wrestled to the ground for a rebound. The review showed it was inadvertent.
- Cole Certa’s physical play deserves a shout out, as he was the first Irish player to start to give it back a little bit to the Cougars. He also laid out for a key loose ball with under four minutes in the game, the second time he hit the deck hard. His threes were a little lucky, but his effort wasn’t.
- The Irish finished 6-for-28 from three. Some of the looks were pretty tough (and actually the tougher ones seemed to fall), but many of them were not. This was not something they could afford in a game like this.
- The Cougars finished with 16 offensive rebounds, though the Irish put up a better fight for them over the game’s final 24 minutes.
- Of the ten rotation players, Sir Mohammed played the least, with just five minutes. Burton never came out of the game.
