A second Cinderella team has emerged in the Notre Dame 15 Years Tournament. For the second time in the second round, a lower seed from the first round has advanced to the quarterfinals. In this case, the 14th-seeded 2013-14 Irish defeated the sixth-seeded 2012-13 Irish by the slimmest of margins, 70-69.
An omen made itself known when the ’13-14 Irish started the game 4 of 5 from the field to go up, 9-0. The ’12-13 Irish bounced back to take a five-point halftime lead, but the ’13-14 Irish had their own comeback and led by as much as 10 in the second half. Despite all that effort, they found themselves down, 69-66, with less than 50 seconds left.
Pat Connaughton made a close shot to bring the ’13-14 Irish within one. The ’12-13 version of Eric Atkins then lost the ball to Demetrius Jackson, giving the ’13-14 Irish a chance for the win. Garrick Sherman came up long on a shot, but Jackson got the offensive rebound, and soon after, the ’13-14 version of Atkins hit a pull-up jumper with four seconds left to give his team a one-point lead. After a timeout, the ’12-13 Irish inbounded at half-court got the ball to their version of Sherman, who missed a contested shot from the free-throw line, and that was the end of the closest game of the tournament so far.
Atkins led the ’13-14 Irish with 18 points. Connaughton scored 15, and Sherman came just short of a double-double with 13 points and nine rebounds. Jerian Grant scored 12, and Jackson dished out seven assists.
Atkins also was the leading scorer for the ’12-13 Irish with 17 points, and he also had a game-high eight assists. Jack Cooley had a double-double of 14 and 12, and this team’s version of Sherman scored 12 points off the bench.
Both teams had the exact same field-goal numbers at 28 of 63 (44.4 percent).
