With star Markus Burton out indefinitely, today’s contest against the Idaho Vandals represented Micah Shrewsberry’s first chance to game plan around the new identity the Irish will need to build. That
identity figures to feature a lot of Jalen Haralson taking the keys to the offense, with Braeden Shrewsberry and new starter Cole Certa handling a greater share of the scoring responsibilities. It took a little time in this one, but eventually things started to click, and the Irish ultimately met expectations by delivering a 15-point victory.
Coming off the high of the greatest week the program has had in the past three-plus seasons, tonight’s first half felt like a bit of a hangover. Idaho’s miserable defense held the Irish to just 33 points despite Notre Dame generally shooting the ball just fine. Seven turnovers in the half weighed them down, and a brutal 6-minute stretch with only two points scored kept Idaho in it. The half had its moments, including this massive block by Brady Koehler igniting a bit of offense on the other end.
However, the aforementioned lulls allowed Idaho to keep the game tight, as the Irish were having a nightmare of a time containing guard Biko Johnson and freshman forward Jackson Rasmussen, who had scored nearly all of the Vandals’ points. Idaho had knotted the game at 33 by the halftime break. Burton or no Burton, one would have hoped these Irish would have moved beyond struggles like this.
And then, well, the second half was all kinds of fun.
Notre Dame was blistering hot from the three point line all game, with Cole Certa (3-for-4), Braeden Shrewsberry (4-for-7), and Sir Mohammed (2-for-2!) having big games from behind the arc. Six of those made threes came in the second half, and with Idaho draining seven of their own along the way, it really felt for awhile like the Irish would need every bit of their best shooting day of the season to escape with a win.
Fortunately, to supplement the three point shooters, the Irish had a couple weapons that the Vandals did not in Jalen Haralson and Carson Towt. Haralson did a fantastic job staying aggressive against feeble Idaho defenders en route to racking up 20 points for his second straight game. Towt was an absolute monster on the glass, collecting 11 of his 15 rebounds in the second half. Not typically a huge scorer, Towt did a great job getting his own with floaters and put-backs. He finished 9-for-12 from the field en route to a season high 19 points, clearly making the most of his time away from power-conference bigs.
Still, Idaho’s outside shooting kept things relatively close; the Irish lead held at just 54-51 as the clock ticked under 11 minutes. Around then, Certa started to get more aggressive and had a couple successful drives to the hoop, taking advantage of Idaho defenders having to play out too far to prevent his shot. He dropped one of his threes during this stretch and had a nice assist to Towt for good measure, as it felt like the sophomore was starting to take over. Then, the game’s token oh-wow-Logan-Imes-did-something-good moment stretched the lead to 10.
Idaho still had more fight in them, and they were able to cut the lead to just four on Johnson’s third three of the game with 6:13 to play, but save for a Kolton Mitchell free throw at the 5:30 mark, that was literally it for the Vandals’ offense. They didn’t do any other scoring the rest of the way. It was mostly missed shots, but the Irish abstained from further fouling and kept the Vandals to one-and-done with excellent work on the glass (and it wasn’t just Towt, either). The nail in the coffin was this deep Certa three that Idaho defender Isaiah Brickner seemed content with him taking, in perhaps basketball history’s most blatant middle finger to being asked to read the scouting report.
The Irish have two more tune-up games against Evansville and Purdue Fort-Wayne before ACC play begins. Hopefully they can continue to get comfortable playing without Burton, because that’s going to be the norm for quite some time. These games should prove to be valuable experience.
Bullet Points
- Towt found himself handling the ball in transition multiple times, which was amusing. He’s a decent passer, though, and actually led the starters in assists with three (Imes collected four off the bench, all in the first half).
- Koehler was far from done after his block above; he’d rack up four total in the game. He’d only logged two thus far this season.
- Certa made a couple two pointers in this game. Believe it or not, they were his first ones of the season.
