This was, without qualification, the ugliest basketball game I have ever had the displeasure of watching. I’ve seen games that have made me madder. I have seen games the Irish have played worse. But I have never seen a game where two teams have simultaneously been this inept at playing the actual sport of basketball.
Following the unacceptable and potentially season-destroying loss against Purdue Fort Wayne, I’ll give Micah Shrewsberry credit for having his team ready to give the effort necessary
to win a rock fight. But the actual process of winning this game relied upon Stanford going 4-for-30 from the three-point line. The Irish shot a well-below-average 3-for-16 as well, but the quality of Stanford’s looks were much better. A majority of Notre Dame’s looks from three were either 1) difficult frustration shots from Braeden Shrewsberry and Cole Certa or 2) taken by Jalen Haralson, who still hasn’t made a three this season. The Irish caught a massive break winning this game because even a “bad” shooting effort from Stanford would have sunk Notre Dame, even given their significant effort advantage on rebounding and loose balls.
I was prepared to start this recap talking about how the first half was a hideous slog, but then the second half wound up being just as bad. Anyway, Carson Towt was easily the MVP of the first ten minutes for the Irish, as his offensive rebounds, floaters, and put-backs were instrumental in weathering a frighteningly aggressive storm from Chisom Okpara, who put in an early three and a thunderous dunk en route to seven early points and a 10-4 Stanford lead. Shrewsberry was obviously burned a couple times early, but he’d redeem himself. More on that later.
The Irish defense, aided by Stanford’s miserable outside shooting, actually held the Cardinal without a point for about eight minutes after that nightmarish early stage. They hardly set the world on fire during that drought, but their offensive rebounding game was on point. Ten of the first 17 Irish points were on second-chance attempts, and the Irish led the Cardinal 9-1 in offensive rebounding over the first 12:40. That was key, because the Cardinal seemed determined to keep Notre Dame off the three-point line; the first Irish attempt was a wild brick by Certa over seven minutes into the contest. In fact, the only productive Irish three-point shot in the first half was an ill-advised attempt by Certa with 4:42 to play; he was bailed out by a Benny Gealer foul and made all three free throws.
Haralson was the game’s leading scorer at halftime with seven, on the strength of being the most physically talented player. But the halftime score was an abysmal 22-17 in favor of Notre Dame, with the Irish having gone 0-for-7 from three and Stanford shooting 2-for-14.
Improbably, Stanford shot even worse in the second half from the outside, and other than a fair amount of those misses being good looks, the Irish defense deserves credit for their tenacity on rebounding and shot-contesting. Kebba Njie deserves a shout-out here, as he tallied 9 rebounds and 2 blocks in his 17 minutes of play and was a consistent rim-protector and shot-disruptor during his stints of play. Also deserving of praise are Logan Imes and Shrewsberry, who were often tasked with guarding Ebuka Okorie, the country’s fourth-leading scorer (yes, the country’s fourth-leading scorer somehow played in this game). Okorie only managed seven points on 3-of-14 shooting, and it was not only due to the on-ball defense, but that Micah Shrewsberry’s schemes were tailored towards over-helping on Okorie to make someone else beat Notre Dame. No one else did.
A three-pointer from Gealer were the only Stanford points that were scored in nearly the first eight minutes of the second half. The Irish weren’t exactly lighting it up offensively either, but a sick feed from Imes to Towt for a dunk, followed by Haralson asserting his will as the best player on the court for a few possessions, allowed the Irish to build a bit of a lead. The token Logan Imes Moment (TM) pushed the Irish advantage to 31-20:
Brady Koehler then came off the bench and delivered a beautiful seven points for the Irish. First, he drilled the first Notre Dame three of the game (over 26 minutes in!) off of a feed from Imes. Then, he had a nice contested driving layup. After yet another missed three by Certa, Koehler caught his defender watching the shot and blew past him for an easy put-back. That put the Irish up 38-22 with under 12 minutes to play and turned the game into a laugher.
Or so it seemed.
Notre Dame would only score one more point over the next six minutes, on a free throw by Haralson. Haralson deserves a lot of credit, as that free throw came on the eighth foul he had drawn on Stanford in this game. However, he also deserves a lot of blame for being entirely unacceptable as the primary ball-handler in the second half. He committed some ridiculously careless giveaways. Haralson finished with eight turnovers against zero assists in a game where the Irish badly needed his shot-creation ability but were barely able to withstand his carelessness.
Notre Dame started to leak a decent amount of offensive rebounds, and Okorie got going a little bit. Stanford was able to take advantage of the Irish offensive woes and drained the lead down to four at 39-35 on a Jeremy Dent-Smith layup with 5:52 to play. Improbably, the Irish were back into a possession-to-possession game, as they began to fold under Stanford’s attempt to trap and press the Notre Dame ball-handlers.
The Irish were finally able to halt the momentum when Shrewsberry made an unselfish play. He had been having a frustratingly brutal offensive game and where he might have otherwise jacked up a tough three, kicked it to Garrett Sundra for a better look. Sundra knocked it down to get the Irish lead back to seven, and after Okpara knocked down one of his own on the other end, Imes found Sundra open for another good look, which he nailed again to give Notre Dame some breathing room. That brought the score to 45-38 with 4:15 to play. Each team only scored two points the rest of the way, which was thoroughly consistent with how the first 36 minutes played out.
The Irish finish out their West Coast portion of the Atlantic Coast Conference schedule against California on Friday. This was the furthest thing from a confidence-building game other than a loss. That said, it wasn’t a loss. 1-0 is 1-0, and a win on the road against Cal would more or less erase the bad feelings from the Purdue Fort Wayne game. Notre Dame put forth the effort they needed to grind out this particular ACC road win despite playing pretty poorly. They’ll need more than pure want-to if they want to do it again.
Bullet Points:
- Logan Imes drew the start tonight, and while I won’t go so far as to say he had earned it with his recent play, I at least understand it. His mistakes have been minimal, and he typically makes about 1-2 big plays per game these days.
- Cole Certa made the free throws that essentially iced the game, and he still hasn’t missed a free throw all season. 27-for-27.
- Offensively, it was a game to forget for Braeden Shrewsberry. He missed all eight of his shots from the field, the majority of which were rushed deep jumpers. He had a chance to get on the board in garbage time with eight seconds left in the game with a 1-and-1 free throw, but missed the front end. Still, his defensive effort on Okorie deserves praise.
- Mark Zackery got legitimate minutes in this game and was absolutely horrible. I’ll trust that Micah Shrewsberry knew what he was thinking when he brought him onto the team, but Zackery’s minutes consisted of chaotic drives, bad defense, and getting swatted into oblivion on a three-point attempt that was obviously going to get swatted into oblivion. I know we all love our Notre Dame football players, but massive improvement will be needed in practice before we try this particular experiment again.
- Stanford went 10-for-12 from the free throw line. That’s notable because before this game, they were top-10 in the country at getting to the line. The Irish did a great job keeping that from bolstering their offense.
- Notre Dame finished with 12 turnovers against just 6 assists, which admittedly was largely because of Haralson’s 8 turnovers and zero assists. Markus Burton has warts, but there’s no chance this team is better, or even close to equal, without him.
