Notre Dame ending its losing streak at No. 9 Duke was a tall order. Not since the Irish got blown out at Marquette was it so obvious that the Irish did not belong on the same court as their opponent.
Incredibly, the Irish held their own against the Blue Devils much better than against the Golden Eagles. They can at least hang onto that as their skid reached seven games with a 71-53 loss.
Any realistic chance the Irish (7-16, 2-10) had at completing the upset was gone in the first half when the Devils (17-5, 8-3) scored 17 unanswered points over eight minutes. To the Irish’s credit, they kept the deficit respectable enough under the circumstances and got within nine a couple of times during the second half.
Had the Irish shot better than 33.9% from the field, we might be talking about a closer final score. A team that knows how to score, which is not the 2023-24 Irish, certainly would have made things more interesting. It also would have been more of a contest had the Irish not given up a season-high 21 second-chance points.
Mark Mitchell did the most for the Devils with 13 points and 10 rebounds. Caleb Foster scored 13 off the bench, and Jared McCain added 11.
[autotag]Markus Burton[/autotag] had game highs of 19 points and four assists. He made three 3-pointers, as did [autotag]Braeden Shrewsberry[/autotag], who made the first conference start of his collegiate career and scored 13 points.
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