I wrote in the recap of the Missouri game that it was the most important game of Micah Shrewsberry’s tenure thus far at Notre Dame, and I stand by it. Yet, this one didn’t feel any less huge.
By beating Missouri, Notre Dame earned the right to have tonight’s game mean something. A win would mean having a second legitimate non-conference win and crazy good vibes heading into the gauntlet of ACC play. A loss would not put us quite back at square one, because hey, they beat Missouri. But it was beyond
time for this program to get on a win streak. It was time for them to get greedy.
And get greedy, they did.
Yet, for much of tonight’s contest, it looked like that would absolutely not be the case. The TCU Horned Frogs punched Notre Dame’s defense in the mouth, as a team not known for its offense dropped 45 points on Notre Dame in the first half on the strength of going 7-for-11 from beyond the arc. The Irish, to their credit, laid 36 points of their own against a formidable TCU defense in the first half, but it came at a cost. Star guard Markus Burton, while making a characteristically difficult shot to get the Irish within two at 25-23, came down with a serious-looking knee injury.
The Irish got bludgeoned for the rest of the half and found themselves down nine at the break. With Burton out of the picture and the momentum heading the other way in a hostile environment, it was a tailor-made situation for Notre Dame to roll over, pack it in, pray for Burton’s health, and get ‘em next time.
The remaining Irish players had other plans.
Notre Dame came into this game as seven point underdogs. I shudder to think what that line looked like at halftime with the Irish down nine and their star player ruled out for the rest of the game. And yet, in the face of all that adversity, Micah Shrewsberry’s team rose to the challenge. They dug deep and found confidence in playing without their leader. They clawed their way back and managed to counter-punch every time TCU looked like they were wrestling back control of the game.
Years from now, no one will be telling legends of an unranked Notre Dame team beating an unranked (but still pretty good!) TCU team on the road. But just for one night, in a season where maybe, just maybe, this Micah Shrewsberry program is turning a corner, the meaning of what happened in the game’s final 25 minutes goes beyond what some selection committee will care about as a data point a few months from now. One close win at home against Missouri could be a blip. But a second consecutive close one on the road without your star player to carry you in your moment of need? That’s the sort of progress that could get a team’s mindset to completely flip itself when the chips are down in crunch time. It’s the juice that can take you from gosh-darn-it-we-came-up-short-but-boy-we-fought! to knowing how to win.
Sure, Tuesday’s hero Cole Certa made several big shots in the second half to beat Missouri. A lot of guys could have a one-off hot game. But hitting five threes in the second half to key the roaring Irish comeback tonight (and a sixth in overtime for good measure)? That’s the evolution of an ice-cold killer in the clutch, a guy that all other teams will have to circle on the scouting report, which is dangerous because Braeden Shrewsberry likely bears the exact same circle, and both players are defending well enough to play alongside one another.
And how about Carson Towt, playing so fiercely that he earned bona-fide villain status in the Ed and Rae Schollmaier Arena, even encouraging the boos when he finally fouled out in the overtime period. He fought tooth and nail for rebounds, but also added 13 points while going perfect from the field.
And then there was Jalen Haralson, who was handed the keys to the offense without Burton available. He dished out a team-high 9 assists on a night where the Irish blew their previous season high (19) out of the water with 27 total dimes. With the Irish down one, Haralson got stonewalled with 15 seconds left in regulation after a lot of dribbling. It was rough enough that Micah Shrewsberry had to call timeout. But on the ensuing play, Towt got careless with the ball and threw an ill-advised pass to Shrewsberry that bounced off of him and led to a turnover. After TCU went one-for-two from the line, Haralson got a chance to redeem himself with nine seconds left. He drove to his right, pulled up, faded away, and drilled a nothing-but-net shot to send the game into overtime.
And then you have Logan Imes, whose career-to-date could generously be called a mixed bag. In a critical moment late in the second half, he threw an extremely ill-advised pass to no-man’s-land (seriously, look at the 3:10 mark of the highlights video). It miraculously clanged off the hands of a TCU defender and into the hands of Shrewsberry, who made a floater to tie the game at 72 with 1:38 left in regulation. But just like the Missouri game, Imes’ moment of less-than-sure-handedness was redeemed when he found himself on defense in the post on the game’s last play against David Punch, TCU’s leading scorer. At 6’7”, Punch had an advantage over the smaller Imes, but Logan was up to the challenge. He held strong without fouling, and Punch had to take a difficult shot as time expired, which bounced harmlessly off the hoop, eliciting a well-earned passionate celebration from Imes.
***
By beating Missouri and TCU, Notre Dame has the opportunity to roll into conference play with tons of momentum, assuming they take care of the three cupcake teams on the horizon before heading out to face Stanford on December 30. All eyes are on the severity of the Burton injury, and we’re hoping that it winds up being less severe than it looked. But the Irish showed tonight that they can be dangerous even without their best player, and with a Quad 1 win under their belt, they certainly look like a team to be taken seriously. Irish fans have been waiting for the moment where Micah Shrewsberry stops angrily swatting microphones and actually turns the program around. We might be living it right now.
