If one were to examine the running score differential of this game compared to the one we just watched against Clemson, they’d look pretty darn similar. Miami was able to open up a bit of a lead in the second half and prevented Notre Dame from significantly cutting into it. However, the feel of this one was much worse. Miami leaked better scoring opportunities to the Irish than Clemson did, and Notre Dame had a substantial rebounding edge in this one. Despite all that, the Irish had major issues
both with ball security and protecting the rim, and that led to going out with a whimper at home in back-to-back games.
The game opened with Miami missing several consecutive field goals. Another boon to the Irish came when 6’11 forward Ernest Udeh Jr. picked up two quick fouls thanks to Carson Towt’s fight on a rebound and a nice pass he made to Haralson underneath, where the latter got hacked on a dunk attempt. It took some time for the Irish to build it into an advantage, but a five-point play eventually did the trick. Miami committed an off-ball foul when Braeden Shrewsberry hit a three, which let the Irish retain possession for a drive-and-dunk by Jalen Haralson.
Unfortunately, Miami wrestled away the lead by leveraging what would be the deciding factor in the game: steals. Miami took it away three times over the first five minutes and uncharacteristically, two of them were careless ones by Logan Imes, who had been doing a great job of taking care of the ball to this point. Transition points became a problem, and Miami feasted at the rim. The Hurricanes’ first five field goals were all dunks and layups.
After Garrett Sundra knotted the game at 11 with a couple free throws, Sir Mohammed would be the only Irish player to score over the next five minutes. Fortunately, he scored a lot of them. He drew shooting fouls on back-to-back possessions and added in a post jumper, a wild floater off of a reverse-pivot, and a step-back jumper. Around the end of that run, Towt picked up his second foul, and with Kebba Njie already down with an injury, that forced Micah Shrewsberry to go with a Sundra / First Half Brady Koehler frontcourt. After First Half Brady Koehler got abused a couple times down low, Shrewsberry yanked him after less than a minute and sent Ryder Frost to take his place, and that’s when things got WEIRD…but in a fun way.
The Irish were down 29-23 at this juncture and were running an Imes-Certa-Haralson-Frost-Sundra lineup out there. You might think they’d have trouble rebounding it, but that group was up to the challenge. Back-to-back Cole Certa threes helped offset a bunch of Miami free throws, and with the Irish down just three, they tied the score with a crazy possession. Certa found himself with a couple uncommonly open shots from deep and hit the back iron both times, but Sundra and Imes tracked down the long rebounds. Certa got another shockingly open chance from ten feet and again, found the back iron. After Sundra tracked down yet another rebound, he kicked it to a wide open Frost, who at long last knocked down the game-tying three, sending the Purcell Pavilion into a frenzy.
Emboldened, Frost drilled a deep one from the logo late in the shot clock on the next possession that gave the Irish the lead. It was a moment. Miami would grab the lead back, but Logan Imes concluded the half by going coast-to-coast for a driving layup as time expired. The Irish had knotted things up at 39, and unlike the Clemson game, had reason to believe they could steal this one. Miami was exhibiting plenty of flaws, and if the Irish could clean up their own a little, the game was theirs.
Unfortunately, the Irish instead chose to lean into being sloppy.
The start to the second half was an absolute nightmare, featuring three careless turnovers and five straight relatively easy buckets for Miami, all within nine feet. No one could be trusted with the ball, not even Imes, who wound up leading the team with six turnovers (more than he had in his last seven games combined). Miami’s pressure was as fierce on the ball as off of it, as no Irish player that found himself in a sticky situation ever had an easy outlet. Miami ran up a 12-point lead after just the first six minutes of the half.
Things calmed down a little bit after that initial Miami burst, aided by Udeh picking up his fourth foul, but the Irish didn’t find easy sledding offensively to make much headway. A recurring issue was reigning ACC Player of the Week Tre Donaldson, who was simply too fast for the Irish guards and was able to get to the rim with ease for layups and fouls. This was the first game I’ve seen this season where Shrewsberry looked like a defensive liability, as he was frequently unable to stay in front of Donaldson and bit on fakes a little too easily.
With the Hurricanes nursing a double-digit lead, the Irish offense played with a bit more urgency and were able to rack up 16 points in the final six minutes of the game, mostly thanks to Haralson imposing his will on drives and Shrewsberry finally waking up for a couple buckets. The turnovers finally dried up down the stretch as well. However, the Irish defense couldn’t get stops to make those points count, and they wound up leaking 18 points over the same span. An unacceptably-open three by Dante Allen caught my eye as particularly problematic, but the back-breaker was when Towt induced a step-back three attempt from Shelton Henderson, who had only made eight triples all year, and it went down. That put the Hurricanes up 11, and the Irish never brought it within eight the rest of the way.
The Irish will take on Virginia Tech in Blacksburg next Saturday and hope to get back on track, but they just let a couple good chances for resume-building wins to go by the wayside. The odds are starting to feel stacked against Notre Dame in their hunt to avoid a second consecutive disappointing season.
Bullet Points:
- The Irish turned the ball over a whopping 18 times, and 13 of them were Miami steals. As mentioned above, Imes led the team with six, but Haralson (5), Mohammed (3), and Certa (2) had some notable carelessness as well.
- The Hurricanes scored 19 points off turnovers versus just six for the Irish, almost the same as the difference in the final score.
- Just seven assists for the Irish in this one. The only ACC game where the Irish had a positive assist-turnover differential was against California. We’re at 51 turnovers against 34 assists in league play. Unfortunately, we will be keeping an eye on this.
- True to form, Brady Koehler rebounded with some positive contributions in the second half. He snared a would-be Miami strip-and-steal out of the air to get a layup, and knocked down a three when things were starting to look grim.
- Imes grabbed seven rebounds in the first half and wound up leading the team with eight. He was very proactive about jumping on opportunities to grab the long ones.
- Sundra only wound up with two points, but unlike the Clemson game, he found other stuff to do that was useful, with five rebounds, two steals, two assists, and two blocks.
