ACC/SEC Men’s Basketball Challenge

Notre Dame losing streak at five after loss to Georgia in ACC/SEC game

The Irish are struggling right now.

Notre Dame still is adjusting to life without [autotag]Markus Burton[/autotag] as he recovers from his knee injury. It’s unknown whether he would have made a difference against Georgia in the ACC/SEC Challenge. What is known is the Irish’s 69-48 loss means they now have lost five straight after winning their first four.

The Irish (4-5) had an early 6-0 lead when the Bulldogs (8-1) missed their first nine shots. However, the Bulldogs followed that with an 18-3 run, which included 13 unanswered points, and they never trailed again after that.

Although the Irish cut the deficit to six midway through the second half, they got no closer and ended with a scoring drought that made the game look less competitive than it was a lot of the time. But they made only 19 field goals, shot 36.5% from the floor, and were crushed in the assists column, 19-5. So it’s not like they did themselves any favors.

Future NBA first-round pick Asa Newell achieved a double-double with 20 points and 11 rebounds. Dakota Leffew scored 16 points, and Silas Demary Jr. had 11 points along with five of the Bulldogs’ seven steals.

[autotag]Braeden Shrewsberry[/autotag] and [autotag]Tae Davis[/autotag] were the only two players to score in double figures for the Irish with 14 points apiece.

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Matchups for 2024 ACC/SEC Men’s Basketball Challenge unveiled

Two more games than last year with the changes to the conferences.

The first edition of the ACC/SEC Challenge in 2023 couldn’t have been more even. Perhaps the teams still were getting a feel for competition from their opposing conferences after their respective series with the Big Ten and Big 12 went by the wayside. Whatever the reason, both the men’s and women’s challenges saw the conferences break even with seven wins apiece.

Two more games have been added to the 2024 edition of this challenge with both conferences adding teams for the 2024-25 season. Texas and Oklahoma will make their debuts as the newest SEC representatives, but only California will be a new entrant on the ACC side. To even the number of teams on each side, two ACC teams will have to sit out each year. This means that on the men’s side, Stanford and SMU will have to wait another season for their first games in this event.

Here are the games for the men’s side of the challenge in 2024:

Notre Dame goes cold, falls to South Carolina in ACC/SEC Challenge

You can’t win if you can’t keep scoring.

Notre Dame and South Carolina aren’t the fastest teams in the country, so it was appropriate for them to match up in the ACC/SEC Challenge. Most of the game made it seem like the visiting Irish could pull off a win over the undefeated Gamecocks. But the offense stopped coming, and the Irish lost, 65-53.

The majority of the game was competitive, and the Irish (3-3), who scored eight unanswered points at the start, had a 40-38 lead at the 6:14 mark of the second half. Then, they stopped making shots, ad the Gamecocks (6-0) went on a 13-1 run to go up by double digits and didn’t look back. The Irish never got closer than six the rest of the way.

Meechie Johnson led the Gamecocks with 29 points, including four 3-pointers, and had five rebounds. B.J. Mack had 17 points.

[autotag]Tae Davis[/autotag] was the Irish’s leader in points (15) and rebounds (eight). [autotag]J.R. Konieczny[/autotag] contributed 11 points, and [autotag]Julian Roper II[/autotag] added 10. [autotag]Markus Burton[/autotag] dished out five assists but committed a game-high six turnovers, and eight points made it the first time in his young career that he failed to reach double figures in scoring.

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Matchups for 2023 ACC/SEC Men’s Basketball Challenge unveiled

The Irish are headed to the Palmetto State.

With the Big Ten no longer broadcasting on ESPN, the ACC’s annual battle with that conference came to an end. However, ESPN wasn’t willing to let the idea of teams in two major conferences playing each other die. So the SEC was called in to fill the gap left by the Big Ten after its annual challenge with the Big 12. We now know who will be playing who in both the men’s and women’s challenges.

This opens up a world of possibilities for new rivalries to form or old rivalries, perhaps from the NCAA Tournament or notable past nonconference meetings, to reignite. We know the SEC is king in college football, but we’ll see how strong it is in college basketball. Then again, the ACC hasn’t been great the past couple of years, so maybe this won’t be the best time to compare the two conferences unless the ACC comes roaring out of the gate.

Here the matchups for the men’s challenge: